Teniversary Countdown #19: B.A.B.Y., Lois baby

Hoo boy, Lois Lane! As a comic magazine you are both a strike against women's liberation everywhere and yet a gold mine to bloggers. I could spend an entire month of Teniversaries covering the stories in Lois Lane #10 and you'd laff until you cried, not unlike a Night at the Comedy Club featuring Olly, the Onion Stand-Up Comic. (He'll run rings round the other comics!)

Anyway, here's the time...bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!...when Lois...hee-hee-hee-hee!...turned herself into a baby! BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA!


Splash panel from "The Cry-Baby of Metropolis!" in Lois Lane #10 (July 1959), script by Robert Bernstein, pencils and inks by Kurt Schaffenberger
Yes, this story is chock-full o' TOPLESS LOIS LANE. (Hello, Google image searchers!)

What happens is pretty much par for the course in any issue of Lois, three times per comic: a scientist pal of Superman's develops a mysterious de-aging ray! Naturally, Lois steps right in it to avoid a few wrinkles. Wrinkles, really? What are you in these stories, Lois...twenty-five? Twenty-seven? Well...not for long!


The only cure for the de-aging process? A good solid hyper-radioactive blast of Superman's X-ray vision! Sure, Lois never wanted kids anyway. But since Superman scolded Lois earlier in the story for doing all the rock-stupid stuff she usually does, she spends he rest of the adventure covertly trying to get Superman to shoot his X-ray eyes at her without telling him. And she's got to do it before she disappears backwards into a fetus and then a collection of zygotes, which wouldn't make a great Superman comic. Thus follows a ridiculous plot line of Lois's scheming that Jack, Chrissie, and Janet would have scoffed at.

And yes, of course Superman knows already, the big alien jerk. He was letting Lois learn her lesson. Because to Kal-El, it's all about ethics in Superman journalism.


90% of Lois Lane stories during the fifties are about "Superman teaching Lois Lane a lesson." This is one of them. (The other 10% are about Clark Kent teaching Lois Lane a lesson.) So let this fable of folly and foolishness end on the promise that Superman just might spank the half-naked woman he loves while she is a baby as her rival smirks on. The Silver Age, ladeez and gentlemen! This surely must be The Greatest Lois Lane Story Ever!

Extra Lois-Bonus Bonus Lois!: Remember the classic scene in Superman III: The Quest for Richard Pryor where Evil Jerk Superman pushes the Leaning Tower of Pisa into a fully upright position? Sure, we all do! Mainly because it introduced a new member of the Superman supporting cast who has delighted readers of the Man of Steel for years, the Sensational New Character Find of 1983 (just narrowly squeaking out in the voting over Jason Todd, Amethyst, Primcess of Gemworld, and Beta Ray Bill), Singing Italian Guy!


Man, everybody loved that guy. That's why I'm sorry Singing Italian Guy never appeared in the second story of Lois Lane #10, which was all about Lois dating Dean Martin for some reason.


Panels from "Lois Lane's Romeo!" in Lois Lane #10 (July 1959), script by Robert Bernstein, pencils and inks by Kurt Schaffenberger
Thank you, Superman, for helping keep artisanal creators and merchants of plaster replicas of the tilty Tower of Pisa in business for yet another year!


So, because she had a tenth issue of her comic book, we salute you, Miss Lois Calliopepants Lane! And what the heck, also you, Singing Italian Guy!


Panels The Superman Movie Special [Superman III] one-shot (September 1983), script by Cary Bates, pencils by Curt Swan, inks by Sal Amendola, colors by Carl Gafford, letters by Ben Oda
Yes, remember this as The Greatest Lois Lane Story Ever!