InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "where's the beef!"

mysteryfan (mysteryfan) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-04-09 10:49:00

Entry tags:

char: lex luthor, char: lois lane, creator: curt swan, publisher: dc comics

Lois and Clark's (and Batman's) Wedding Night.

Lois and Clark get married. Clark, perhaps not being used to our Earth ways, invites a friend.

"Lois, about Batman..."

A few minutes later...

*Knock, Knock*

The good news is that somebody gets a GREAT wedding present.

The bad news is that it's not the usual World's Finest Batman/Superman/Robin team. I can't pretend I'm not a little sad about that, but it's still pretty cracktacular.

The New Team!

By Cary Bates, Art by Curt Swan and George Klein.

Lex Luthor becomes Superman

Because of radioactive waste.

Which he drinks.

This turns him Super. Meanwhile, Clark sees a bat.

And Lois likes what she sees. (I'd like to point out that Lois is portrayed as unattractively manhungry, but she's not the one suggesting a threesome. On her wedding night. Althouuuuuuugh the suggestion does not seem to displease her.)

"Bachelor! And attractive!"

So there's some Batman/Superman rivalry. But Batman is the one who rescues her from Brainiac.

Just call me Mr. Nobody.

Thanks to Superman's other plans, Batman gets a little time with the lady.

"Why yes. I'll just take him to space prison."

Then Lois marries Clark Kent. Who is Batman! Who invites their best friend Superman up to the Honeymoon Suite.

Honey, how'd you know? Best present ever!

Wow, Clark. Wow.

Later, Toyman shows up.

This gun never worked right.

Problems ensue.

Gold Fever Problems.

However, in the end, Clark feels fine.

In fact, he feels Super!

Happy Lois and Clark week!

(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

sistermagpie
2009-04-09 11:27 am UTC (link)

You know, Grant Morrison spends so much time and energy on his trippy stories with everything so carefully planned, but the guys in the silver age just seemed to do it like eating candy. You can almost see why he's fascinated with the time period. Lex is Superman, but not a Kryptonian, Clark is Batman...oh, and he has a rich uncle in Gotham City to make him more like Batman...which is I guess where he gets Bruce's butler...but he doesn't know he's Kryptonian...until he gets explosed to a malfunctioning toy gun...at which poing he gets gold fever...and the only way to fix it is for Lex to give him his powers...and then go away...to space. Oh, and Clark and Lois get married and Lex comes with them on their honeymoon.

Is there some kind of drug you can take that just makes your mind make stories like an overenthusiastic 7-year-old boy? Because I want some!

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	mysteryfan 2009-04-09 11:42 am UTC (link)
	There's a serum. But it has to work with your blood type... I love that they're imaginary. They get to be super trippy, have a beginning, middle and an end, and then everything's back to where it was before. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	mysteryfan 2009-04-09 11:42 am UTC (link)
	There's the extreme enthusiasm, too. Good point. (Reply to this) (Parent)

jkcarrier
2009-04-09 12:50 pm UTC (link)

I think a lot of it must have been sheer desperation. These guys had to come up with multiple self-contained stories every issue. No stretching an "epic" plotline out for months on end, no subplots or character-building scenes... just premise -> twist ending, premise -> twist ending, over and over again. No wonder there was a lot of strangeness (as well as a lot of repetition).

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

besamim
2009-04-09 01:32 pm UTC (link)

I suspect the Comics Code was also a factor. With its adoption in 1955, comic book writers could no longer rely on the old staples of brutal gangster violence, homicidally mad villains, Nazi scientists performing experiments on the unwilling, and other dark plot devices. So it's little wonder that writers soon turned to the fantastic (bizarre SF adventures and endless transformations of superheroes into gorillas, fish, monsters and whanot) or to goofy, domestic comedy-type stories (Superman marries Lois! Superman marries Lana! Batman marries Lois! Lois marries Lan--well, not that last one.)

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

psychop_rex
2009-04-09 10:42 pm UTC (link)

There probably WAS a story, actually (and I'm saying 'probably' because I don't know if it's true or not, but given the Silver Age's proclivities, it most likely is) where Lois and Lana married. One thing that the Silver Age writers LOVED was mix-and-match, especially in the Superman books - and since they had 'imaginary stories' in their toolkit, they could do it to their hearts' content. They had Lois Lane going to Krypton and becoming super, they had Clark Kent being the evil genius and Lex Luthor being the hero, they had Superboy turning into a girl (in his dreams, brought on by a meteorite), they had Krypto and Superboy switching bodies, they had Perry White gaining superpowers - just about EVERYBODY did the mix-and-match thing! And as they only had so many members of their supporting cast to switch around, they had to come up with some pretty crafty (i.e, ridiculous) ways of doing it. So I wouldn't be at ALL surprised if there was some sort of 'imaginary story' where Lana was Supergirl, and her admirer was, eh... Lionel! Lionel Lane! Who constantly squabbled with Clark Kent over who was to have the privilege of getting married to her. Come on, there MUST have been a story like that! I refuse to believe there was not. The law of averages refutes it.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	mysteryfan 2009-04-11 10:15 am UTC (link)
	Come on, there MUST have been a story like that! I refuse to believe there was not. The law of averages refutes it. Heh! That made me happy. Joins you in solidarity of hope for this. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

psychop_rex
2009-04-11 03:44 pm UTC (link)

Come to think of it, that set-up is not too far off from Wonder Girl's over in the Wonder Woman books. Wonder Girl had THREE squabbling suitors at one point - a cadet version of Steve Trevor, Bird-Boy (basically a male Harpy), and Merboy (exactly what he sounds like). So I wouldn't have been surprised if the Super-Lana/Clark/Lionel set-up existed, because it could be a sort of commentary on the WW comics of the time.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

jarodrussell
2009-04-09 03:13 pm UTC (link)

...so carefully planned...

There's your problem. For all the praise his "trippy" reputation gets Grant Morrison, all I see when I look at him is a weird COBOL programmer so mired in legacy code he can't do anything new. The Silver Age worked because it built atop the Golden Age without being slavish to it. The reason comics stutter along now is because you've got people like Johns and Morrison who're still making comics Y2K compliant, all while EVERY OTHER MEDIA I THE WORLD is trying out new stuff.

Ask yourself, which is goofier and crackier: Final Crisis or Empowered?

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	mysteryfan 2009-04-11 10:21 am UTC (link)
	...so carefully planned... Except when he forgets to read Batman #242 before he rewrites Talia and Batman. ...so carefully planned... So ponderous. (Reply to this) (Parent)

(Read comments) -