2015 Comic Book News Archives

August 5, 2015: John Romita Jr. Discusses the Lois and Clark Relationship

Superman #43 ComicBookResources.com has published an interview with "Superman" artist John Romita Jr., in which he discusses the dynamic between Lois Lane and Clark Kent/Superman in the current "Truth" arc taking place across all the Superman titles. Here's part of that interview...

    Now that the proverbial cat is out of the bag with the release of "Superman" #43, do you have anything else you would like to share about Lois's reaction to her finding out 'the truth' about Superman?

    That's a good question. The way the story is ending up is less than what I would have wanted. I personally don't think that she should just fall in love with the guy or swoon over him the way that everyone wants her to do. And that may or may not happen. I'll leave that to be a surprise. But I think that as a modern everyday female - especially a strong woman like Lois Lane and a beautiful woman at that - she shouldn't just fawn over him. Especially after this New 52 setup and now with this, discovering what he is and that he basically has been lying to her. She doesn't just have to fawn over him. It works out being a really well done way of handling it. She maintains her strength and the explanation as to why she does what she does is very well done. But I would have gone in a different direction emotionally with the two of them.

    Listen, my wife is a stunningly beautiful woman and has been around a lot of better looking men than me and wasn't interested. Just because they're both good looking people doesn't mean anything. The fact that he was Superman and the fact that he was lying to her, I think that she might have even felt hostile towards him. It's the old adage of a spy like Arnold Schwarzenegger in "True Lies" where when the wife finds out, she's pissed at him. But they [editorial] didn't take my advice. But it did work well. I would have gone off in a further, more extreme direction because this is the chance to do something that hasn't been done with Superman before. And that's the idea of this. It should be like Jerry said to George Constanza: "If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right."

    But it worked out nicely. It's a nice combination of what I thought of and what the brains thought of and Gene did a nice job of working toward it. And it all made Lois Lane a better character in my eyes because we got to mess with the scenes and expressions on faces and how she handles this almost pathetic character. After he loses his powers, Superman is just a regular guy. And she can handle him on a one-to-one basis whereas this guy was nearly a god. And they realize that. In the little vignettes between the two of them when they look at each other and the swooning that you would normally get in "People" magazine, I think she should slap him. [Laughs] And call him "a dummy."

    And because of this power surge, the instances that we can show Clark as a human instead of doing the easy stuff, let's do the exact same stuff that would happen to a guy that suddenly realized that he's something that's he not. How awkward would that be? And we tried. But again, they had to harness me.

Read the entire interview at the CBR website.



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