Superman Through the Ages! Forum

Here is what Superman's co-creator and longest running writer Jerry Siegel said about it. I goit this from another board:

Should Superman marry Lois Lane?

That’s almost like asking if we should ignore pollution and power shortages…if we should deliberately bankrupt our nation…if the Democrats and Republicans should merge into one political party.

I think the answer should be: NO!

While everybody, including me, would love to see Superman marry Lois, I don’t think it would be good for the longevity of the Superman comic books. Once the novelty of the unique change to the format wore off, we would be stuck with too drastic a change from the original and successful premise.

I do think that occasional stories based on the theme of a hypothetical marriage between Superman & Lois would be interesting, though, if presented, as was done years ago in “Imaginary Tales”.


So what do you all think?

He should definately not marry her, he has kids with Wonder Woman, who is, I believe, the one woman on Earth who can stand up to his super-lusts & live thru it, in fact he is the only man who can rock her world. Lois would die in the throes of Supermans passions.It might be great for her, but it wouldnt be worth the loss of her life- I dont think!  No, Dianah is the girl for him, read DK2 by Frank Miller

I think "Imaginary Tales" can be fun if they're well done. :-)

Jerry Siegel may have written that quote, but he is also the same guy who wrote K-Metal (http://superman.nu/k-metal-from-krypton/)- which isn't a love or marriage story, but does involve Lois learning the secret.

Seriously, even though I understand the arguments against the marriage and think they make a lot of sense- I don't have a strong feeling about it.

I do think that if DC retconned the marriage out and returned to the "Lois doesn't know" approach, I wouldn't mind at all, the stories could be a lot of fun, and I'd enjoy them.  It also seems to work well in All Star where Superman finally makes the revelation- and Lois doesn't even believe him!

But here's why I like the idea of the marriage- in all those old stories from the 1960s and 1970s, we always knew that "some day in the future" Lois and Superman would get married and have kids.  We saw it in the Weisinger futures and alternate timelines and we saw Elliot lay the groundwork for it.   I see the current marriage as basically fulfilling the promise of those old tales- so that we are now finally reading about the future.

However, I do not believe that the Carlin-era secret-ID revelation or marriage ever took place.  That was an example of how not to do it.  In my world, it happened more like in  The Answer (http://superman.nu/a/ProArt/swan3.php), Luthor's Gift (http://superman.nu/a/users/maggin/luthors-gift/), or Superman Takes a Wife (http://superman.nu/tales2/wife/).

I mentioned Elliot laying the groundwork- after reading Who Took the Super out of Superman? (http://superman.nu/tales2/whotook/1/) and Miracle Monday (http://superman.nu/thebook/mm_contents.php), it's pretty clear that Superman and Lois do have a strong love for each other and that there was a marriage coming.

At this point, trying to say that Lois wouldn't have figured it out on her own is pretty insulting to her intelligence.  In reality, when Clark (or Kal) told her the secret, she probably already knew and had just been going along with it:  "Well, it's about time you told me!"  It really allows each of them to finally relax about the whole game and just get on with enjoying life.

I've got a lot more thoughts about this, which I'll post after the K-Metal story is done.

:s:

I really don't know...

I suspect that there is some basis for why so many TV shows seemed to go downhill after characters that had an increasing relationship got married, but I'm not sure of the reasons...

But then I really don't know what would have happened if the K-Metal story was published either...

The whole marriage thing was obviously motivated by Lois and Clark - but I can overlook that and examine how it fits within the (non-Carlin) comic book continuity.

I don't think K-Metal applies to the marriage - as I said, it's got the revelation, and then the two working together as a team - two crack reporters on the job - definitely a step forward in their relationship.  But back in 1940, I don't know if the two characters actually loved each other the same way that they came to later.  The marriage doesn't really make sense until after the 1950s.

But in those early days of the 1930s the relationship was very different:  Lois was infatuated with Superman, and both Clark and Superman were each giving her a hard time (albeit in different ways) for it.  Clark was intentionally the kind of guy she would never want; and Superman was the kind of guy that she did want, but he perpetually kept her at arm's length, occasionally leading her on and granting her a super-kiss if he felt like it.  It was all just a big joke at Lois' expense.

I think the revelation only happened in K-Metal because Superman didn't take everything so seriously - including his secret ID - back in the Golden Age.

That's just my take on it, I'm sure K-Metal is open to other interpretations.  I hope there will be some thought and discussion about it once we get further along into it.

:s:

As for procreation and the matter of Wonder Woman vs Lois, the more I think about it, the more I have trouble with the theory that Superman would inadvertantly destroy any human he attempted it with, and yet he can exist among humans, shaking hands, kissing, playing touch football, carrying children, performing surgery, etc without killing anyone.  He is also inventive enough to find ways around any limitations --from kryptonite-based birth control to artificial insemination.

I think they should stay single (I like the idea that Lois is just pretending to not know and that Superman figures this is the case but keeps himself relaxed by finding outrageously creative solutions to disprove her "suspicions").

I also like the fact that E2 Superman married her -it allows for some distance.

It should always be something that remains a future possibility, but that never becomes true. Much of the dramatic tension of the stories comes from the fact that Lois doesn't know Superman and Clark are one and the same; I think that one of the staples of any superhero character is sexual frustration of one form or another.

Hey, has there ever been a story in which Lois marries Superman -- but doesn't find out he's really Clark Kent? That could be quite fun, and might lead to some interesting office conflicts at the Daily Planet. Not to mention the fact that she would probably suspect Superman of having an affair, the way he'd keep disappearing all the time.

According to his daughter, Siegel was also against any Kryptonians other than Superman.

While the story in which they were married wasn't good, I think that it was past time that they should have been married. It would be a mistake, IMO, to retcon it.

That is a myth trumped up by Bryne fans to justify his crappy Man of Steel Mini.

He never actually said that, he only said that he thought that writers were getting lazy by introducing newer Kryptonians over and over again, instead of thinking of new original villains for Superman.

Nope.  They were engaged for years before L&C.  Superman #50 came out in 1990, while L&C came out in 1993.  When L&C was being planned out, the L&C folks didn't -want- them to get married, which led to the "Death of Superman" and Dumbsday.  Deborah Joy LeVine, the original L&C producer didn't want them to get married anytime soon.  In the first season, she talked about their being married as maybe being a series finale or something, and specifically mentioned that she didn't want it to tank like Moonlighting.  Meanwhile, in comic book land, because of the unexpected success of the Death of Superman stuff, they were hungry for the Next Big Thing for Superman -- marriage.  In L&C-land, none of the Powers That Be seemed to get "romantic tension", Deborah Joy LeVine was pushed aside, and the comic book folks got their wish for a wedding.