Who's Who in the Superman Comics

Lois Lane

Lane, Lois

Daily Planet reporter and longtime friend, now wife, of Superman. Besides her reporting skills, Lois has undergone training with Metropolis' S.C.U. and has a black belt in karate. Born in West Germany, Lois was Sam and Ellen Lane's oldest child. Lois has a younger sister, Lucy. Sam was a career army man who was stationed in several places. When Lois was school age, the family moved near Metropolis when Sam was stationed at Fort Bridwell. On a trip to Metropolis, Lois was impressed by the Daily Planet and saw then-reporter Perry White. As a teenager her family was again in Metropolis and Lois tried unsuccessfully to be hired by Perry White. After managing to obtain information on Lex Luthor, Perry offered her part-time employment. After high-school Lois left her family and worked full-time at the Daily Planet while taking evening college classes. She also wrote some mystery novels. Lois first met Superman when Clark Kent used his powers in public to save a NASA space plane Lois had been a passenger on. In her newspaper report, she called the unknown rescuer a Superman. When Superman made his debut as a crimefighter in Metropolis, Lois tried to get the first interview with him, but was scooped by a new reporter, Clark Kent. At first considering Clark only as a rival, over the years Lois grew to love both Superman and Clark Kent. Lois met Clark's friend Lana Lang in Smallville, and was persuaded by Lana that Clark loved Lois. When Clark proposed, Lois accepted not yet knowing he was Superman. After Conduit attacked Lois and the Kents, Lois convinced Clark not to abandon his secret identity. After encountering Lori Lemaris, Lois became increasingly jealous and annoyed with Superman. Finally, following being poisoned (non-lethal) by the Joker, Lois argued with Clark and broke off their engagement claiming he spent too much time as Superman. Later, after Superman saved Lois when she was working with Prof. Hamilton to capture the Parasite, she decided to accept a new assignment as foreign correspondent and left Metropolis. Not long after, Lois decided she needed to be with Clark, and returned to Metropolis, where the couple soon married. Not long after, Superman changed into an energy being and split in two. Lois, forced to deal with Clark's two separate personalities, demanded that the two Supermen find a way to rejoin. Soon after he was mysteriously returned to normal, the Daily Planet closed down, forcing everyone to find other employment. Lex Luthor invited Lois, Jimmy Olsen, Dirk Armstrong, and Simone D'Neige to work for his new Internet news service, LexCom. Lois was upset that Luthor wanted her to copy the news from other sources instead of writing original stories, but she remained at LexCom to keep an eye on him. When Lex mysteriously sold back the Daily Planet, Lois returned to work for the great metropolitan newspaper along with Jimmy, Perry and Clark, however Lex made her agree to a secret bargain that she would bury one story of his choosing when the time came (SUP #151).

In recent times Lois had saved young Lena Luthor's life during the uproar when Brainiac 13 forced the technological upgrade on Metropolis. Luthor elluded to the fact that she only helped Lena because she would gain his favor and have their bargain nullified. Lois enraged that he could think her to value life as cheaply as he does refused the compromise. Lois was again endangered by Brainiac 13 as she and a host of other citizens of Metropolis were to be reprogramed into workers for Brainiac 13's conquest. Before that could happen, the combined effort of Superman and Lex Luthor closed him down.

This also began a definate mood change in the Kent household. Lois was increasingly aggrevated with Clark over minor things. Clark could not seem to find the love or even the common ground he once shared with Lois. Lois was not just unhappy with her home life, apparantly even work was getting to her. She argued with Perry White about needing time away and he responded by mentioning that he could call Clark back off his Foreign Correspondance posting. She simply stated that what she really needed was some time off. Lois encountered Clark at home late that night as he returned from a trip of soul-searching in Smallville, just as she was going out for the evening. She left him with three heart wrenching words as she walked out in a hot little number, "Don't wait up" (SUP #155).

While Clark was back in Smallville collecting his thoughts for their relationship, Lois' activities in Metropolis did not go unnoticed. Luthor, at the helm of the B-13 technology, noted large amounts of money Lois was moving between various accounts regularly (AOS #577). Clark returned from Smallville again refreshed and hoping to find resolution with Lois. He wisked her away from their brownstone and to the Metropolis Air and Space Museum where the spaceplane Constitution is on permanent display. Trying to start things over with Lois he gave her a gift of her newly repaired tape recorder she used in her first interview with a certain Superman. She used it one more time to say to Clark, "I need to be away from you for awhile." With no resolution in sight Clark took his frustrations out on the moon creating a new crator. Here we witness the first signs of a weakened Superman (ACT #764).

As if having an Amazon Princess stop at your apartment to see your husband isn't enough, (ACT #761) things are compounded with Lois' mood when she sees Lana Lang and Clark talking by her desk at the Daily Planet. After a mild catfight between the girls, leaving Lana and Clark trying to figure out what brought that on, Jimmy Olsen sails by the window outside prompting Clark to action. He encounters the juiced up Parasite and kocks a few rounds back and forth before Wonder Woman enters the fray. She had returned to Metropolis at the behest of J'onn J'onzz who passed along a message from Superman that he needed to speak to her. Parasite cringes at the sight of the lasso of truth and gets away before anything can be learned about his current activities. Lana also shows up and the picture is grim for Clark as he stands with Lana on one side and Diana on the other and Lois shows up. Words are exchanged and Lois and Clark go their separate ways. Lois finds her way to a private office in the center of Metropolis with an offer to satisfy the wants of one of the most powerful men in Metropolis, only it isn't Superman (SUP #156). An exotic get-away in space is one of the last hopes Clark has for a resolution with Lois. Taking J'onn's Martian spacecraft from the JLA Watchtower the two set off on a soul searching getaway to Sanctus 12. They encounter some dangers there with the locals but although things worked out with that situation, the journey there did not bridge the gap between them as Clark hoped, and Lois requests to be taken home and left to herself (AOS #578).

Clark buries himself in his work with John Henry Irons on the Fortress construct inside the tesseract, while Lois does little to mend relations. It definately seems like the honeymoon is over (MOS #100). An ailing Clark seems to be taking it badly and the mysterious ailment inside him seems to be getting the better of him. After a mild clash with Luthor, the Joker, and Harley Quinn, a bedraggled Superman pulls himself together and heads back to the Daily Planet to file his stories. While he is there a pizza delivery guy drops him a message from Lois. "Dear Clark, Can't face you... don't look for me... the living room isn't far enough away... I'm leaving forever." (ACT #765)

Revelations are stunning as Clark finally finds out why Lois has been so distant. After reading her note and returning home he finds her getting the last of her things. When he reaches to hold her and she becomes enraged and hits him... hard. Superman is thrown out the window and lands against LexCorp Towers. Lois 'flies' out the window after him. It is at this moment that he realizes that the problems he's been having with Lois are untrue because this is not the true Lois Lane. Taking into account everything that happens during the fight between the combatants. Superman realizes that he'd been distracted concerning the powers Lois appeared to possess. She didn't simply have powers LIKE his, they WERE his powers. In a twist of psychoses, Superman gets the Parasite to reveal himself in the guise of Lois Lane. After that edge is lost to Rudy, things spiral downhill. His powers ebb and Superman succeeds in taking him down. Superman finally realizes the reason he has felt so weakened recently was because he was being constantly drained by the Parasite. When he asks Rudy how long he had been pretending to be Lois, he relates his story to the Man of Steel. It seems that Strange Visitor's contact with the Parasite changed his powers enabling him to keep what he took longer. Somewhere he and his professor counterpart gained new powers by absorbing a shapeshifter as well. Now not only does he sap the life energy out of his victims he can actually become his victims right down to their DNA. During the B-13 induced blackout on New Years Eve he escaped from STAR Labs and stalked Lois and Jimmy to get to Superman. He had taken the form of one of his previous victims, an old man, and was run down in the pandemonium that evening when Lois came to his aide. Not realizing that she was actually in contact with the Parasite, the simple touch was all Rudy needed to get the lowdown on Superman. Rudy was as surprised at what he learned by touching Lois because he never realized that she knew it all. The secret identity and everything. He was attempting to get to Superman by taking one of his close friends not realizing how close Superman actually was to Lois. In his finaly moments he tells Superman that he still needed to have contact with Lois once every twenty-four hours to maintain his charade, confirming that she is still alive. He also tells him that Lois loves him more deeply than he could ever know. He states that whatever is weakening Superman was not simply his doing but something bigger. The same illness that is hampering Superman and his powers is killing him. He passes on before he can tell him where she is imprisoned (SUP #157).

The search for Lois Lane begins and is immediately interrupted by the arrival of the Prankster and Advisary in Metropolis. Superman's ailment gets worse after the confrontation and his body starts to glow green (AOS #579). Even after this development he presses on, determined to find his wife. After a quick energy boost care of John Henry Irons, his quest continues with a visit to LexCorp Towers. After a tussle with the automated defenses and Luthor's personal bodyguards, Hope and Mercy, Superman learns that not even Luthor knows where Lois is. In a final effort to escape their custody in his weakened state he breaks free of the tower and falls to the earth where he is assisted by Batman. Together they set out on a search for the truth (MOS #101). Batman approaches the case analytically searching for clues everwhere. They are not sure of the exact point of time Rudy made the switch with Lois. He looks at everything. Her clothes, he personal effects, everything. They set out on the trail of feeding the Parasite left in his wake, a disturbing pattern pretty easy to follow. Parasite localized himself to the town of Endicott, NY and used it as a feeding ground while he was keeping Lois alive. After a few interigations they find themselves at the Parasite's lair. A sickening smell permiates the cave, the smell of death. Batman cannot fathom that they will find Lois alive, but they press on. They find all of the missing victims' remains and then Superman takes heart when he hears Lois' breathing from an adjoining chamber. Using the last of his strength as the illness overcomes him, he moves the boulder out from in front of the chamber and finds Lois alive and well. Then Superman collapses due to his illness (ACT #766). Lois is alarmed by this sudden change of events. Just to be back with her love and now she's about to lose him all over again. She stands by and observes as the preparations to save the Man of Steel by Team Superman are formed. While they are battling on the inside, she is questioning everything on the outside to try and find out who is behind the attack. Team Superman is infiltrated by the Prankster in Steel's armor as they find out that a nanobot carring Kryptonite is what everything has been caused by. An appearance on the outside by La Encantadora reveals the cause to Lois and she relates that to the team safeguarding Superman, effecting a full recovery (SUP #158 through ACT #767). Lane meets with Luthor at another late hour to reassure Lex that she had a glimpse into the Parasite's memories and has a pretty good idea about what went on in LexCorp Towers the night that her doppleganger made his visit. This was not to negate her standing deal with Luthor concerning the story, but just an FYI (SUP #159). She keeps up her investigation in to who had hired La Encantadora, Prankster, and Deathstroke for the attempted assasination of Superman. She is hampered in this effort only by Superman's constant state of awareness of where she's at. She finally tells him to back off and let her find her own leads. Of course when he does this and gets involved with helping Captain Marvel, CM3, and Mary Marvel, she freaks asking where he was when she thought she needed her butt dragged out of the fire. He simply states that he knew she had things under control and that he trusted her (ACT #768).

The world is turned upside down when a visit to Arkham Asylum by Mr. Mxyzptlk lands the power of the 5th Dimension in the hands of the most insane of the asylum resident, the Joker. His warped version of Metropolis has Lois in Luthor's spot and a whole host of other oddities. When Superman finally got a grip on the reality and overcame the Joker's hold on reality (SUP #160 through ACT #770).

It doesn't seem like poor Miss Lane can get a break. After waking up from the dreamland the Joker had laid out, another one seemed to confront her. Lex Luthor running for President. Her story on Superman's assasins on hold, she turns her reporter's eye on the candidate for the highest office in the United States and what this means for Metropolis and the world. After finding few things of use to her in a story on Luthor she returns to the original story. She searches high and low, bringing clues closer to the surface concerning the who and the why in Superman's poisoning (ACT #771).

Lois and Clark do sometimes have some time to themselves once and awhile. Clark has taken to showing her the Kryptonian mental discipline of Torquasm-Rao. Lois has proved herself adept at this ability a number of times, being able to separate herself from her own body and view the world from a new perspective. She's used this ability a number of times. Once when Clark first instructed her and a terror that was Lord Satanus moving his tendrils across Metropolis snapped her out of it that time (AOS #585). Another was when she used the 'out of body' experience to lead Superman back out of the Phantom Zone with the cyberqueen Luna he had entered to rescue.

Lois continues her search for the mastermind by challenging the League of Assasins for knowlege about the job against Superman. While the Scarlet Scythe explains to Lois that the League had no knowlege of the job against Superman's life, he says that they do know of someone that infiltrated the League and used their resources to stage an attempt on the Man of Steel's life and then promptly dissappeared taking security and honor, not to mention one of their ships of the line from them. We find out that it was Ra's Al Ghull who was using his power and influence to disrupt things to his advantage, to engineer The Crucible, a Lazarus Pit so potent that a man will enter and a god emerge, a god of the earth.

If having Luthor as President was not enough, Lois had to deal with having her father as the Secretary of Defense. However when the White House came under direct attack by the cosmic threat known as Imperiex, Sam Lane personally took the fight to one of the Imperiex Probes where he ultimately sacrificed his life to save his daughter and others (ACT #781).

After she found out that Lex Luthor knew about Topeka's destruction before it happened, she exposed Luthor through Clark. This failed, but nonetheless, Luthor fell.

Lois Lane Of late, Lois has dealt with her husband's extended disappearances only to disappear herself for an extended period of time following being shot in Qumec as a way to manipulate a war. She survived, barely, only to be taken in the Vanishing (SUP #204).

Returning from the Vanishing, Lois continues on in her role as reporter for the Daily Planet.

First Appearance: MOS #1 (July 1986)



Who's Who in the Superman Comics

Introduction

This is a listing of many of the notable characters and a few places that have appeared in the Superman comics from the 1986 revamp up until around 2008.

NOTE: A new, and more current version of the Who's Who is currently being worked on and can be accessed by clicking here.

Although Superman often appears in other DC Comics, this text's information is limited mainly to what has occurred in the regular Superman comics.

Many thanks to Scotty V, Derrick Lyle Coleman, Dean Vanek, Genevieve Clemens and Benjamin Grose who all helped out at one time or another with writing and updating these Who's Who descriptions.

The listings are displayed as follows:

  • Surname, Firstname - Text describing the character, place, object, etc...

Relevant issues of the Superman comics are listed as such:
  • SUP = Superman
  • MOS = Man of Steel
  • AOS = Adventures of Superman
  • ACT = Action Comics
  • MOT = Man of Tomorrow

The Issue Number for each of these titles is written in this manner: “#000”. (e.g. SUP #123)

“First Appearance” refers to the issue since 1986 unless otherwise noted.



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