Superman's Best Girlfriend?

[JulianPerez]

Yeah, okay, I know, I hear you: Lois Lane.

I'm not as sure that Lois is Superman's soul mate with the certainty that the LOIS AND CLARK TV-people do, though. Really, the Lois/Superman thing being carved in stone is only a very recent idea; in the Silver Age, Lana was her fiercest rival, and their catfight was Lois's dominant conflict. And jeez - Superman was willing to give up being Superman for Lori Lemaris. Marv Wolfman and a lot of people working at Superman in the early to mid 1980s created a lengthy subplot with a Superman/Lana romance that was heavy and serious and a marriage might have been not inappropriate a direction. It is unfortunate that they never got to finish telling that one particular story.

It's not that I dislike the Lois/Superman/Clark Kent dynamic (you can't keep a good thing like that down) but hey: Superman has had a bunch of other girlfriends too:

Lana Lang, Lori Lemaris, Lyla Lerrol, the Silver Age Superwoman that is killed by yellow sun rays...And all of them had beautiful, beautiful stories around them. And that doesn't include all the unrequited crushes, like Triplicate Girl's or the Emerald Empress. And he and Wonder Woman do flirt a lot, you know...

Wow, when you put it like that, Superman really, really got around! You know what I think it might be? His roguish forehead lock!

With women, Superman isn't a hedonistic, reckless James Bond type, though: Superman's relationship with all of the above women is that he honestly, sincerely loves them back as much as they love him.

My question is this: if you were pairing off Superman with any of his lady friends, who would it be and why?

[Genis Vell]

Lana Lang, of course.

I never really loved Lois. I know that she is the first and most important woman in Superman's life, so authors "must" use her. Sometimes, I suspected that only a few of them (like Maggin) liked her... She is a good character, it's true, but she acts like Superman is her own, and this isn't good in my opinion.

Lana, instead, has something different. First at all, she is a "born loser". When she was created, the authors told us "She was Clark's girlfriend when he was younger, and you know that the adult Clark now loves another woman". Heck, we have read several Superboy stories and we already knew that they would have never been married.
Then, she was really tied to Clark. I LOVED the stories where they are engaged... You can't imagine how I was glad to read them. And, reading those old issues, I saw that she really cared for Clark... She wanted to be "Mrs. Superman", but that was BEFORE. NOW, she has found the right man for her, and that's Clark, her old time friend. And she is very, very happy for this! Maybe more happier than how she could be if she would have been Superman's girlfriend.

Ditto for post-Crisis Lana, who loved Clark without to know what he was able to do. One of the best thing in the reboot  is Byrne's Lana... I'll never forget that wonderful SUPERMAN Vol. II #2, where she prefer to be beaten instead of reveal Superman's secrets to Lex Luthor's men. One of my favorite stories ever.

Last but not least, she is one of the most beautiful women in the comics world.

[Klar Ken T5477]

Luma Lynai - super powered and looks "just like Supergirl will when she grows up"!



Altho I agree as well with Genis - I think I had my first crush on Lana!

[Captain Kal]

Luma Lynai?  You are joking, right, Klar?

While I think she's very attractive and seems to be the perfect mate otherwise for Superman, the fact that she's an adult version of Kara Zor-El just creeps me out a bit.

I second Lana Lang.  Lana is the underdog of the women in his life.  She's been unfairly treated.

As another poster noted in an older thread, Lois Lane seems to be Superman's greatest consistent foe from the very beginning.  No one has been as persistent and a potential threat to both his lives than Lois has been.  IMHO, the original and most enduring characterization of Lois has been a truly flawed, self-interested, self-promoting individual that the rest of comic fandom has wondered why the near-perfect Superman would be so in love with this woman.  She'd steal Clark's tips, send him on wild goose chases, treat him like dirt -- and this woman thought she deserved to be with the great Superman?  The very recent sanitization of Lois' character is a very recent phenomenon meant to justify the marriage.  For the bulk of any of her incarnations' existence, she wasn't such an epitome of human decency.

[Klar Ken T5477]

Kal - yeah I was joking. See below the image. LANA. :wink:

[Gary]

This is the kind of thing that used to get argued about ad nauseum in Ranma 1/2 fanfiction and associated forums. (For those who don't know, Ranma 1/2 is a Japanese manga, their equivalent of a comic book.)

The best answer is that it really doesn't matter who you pair up, as long as you keep the story interesting and the characters act believably. The two biggest pitfalls in writing such a thing are (1) turning your favored match-up into a Mary Sue in order to bring her together with Our Hero, and (2) turning her major rival into a raving female dog in order to remove any compunctions Our Hero might have about running off with your fave. The third biggest pitfall is disposing of the competition in a ridiculously contrived way -- like having her die off-screen in a freak yachting accident, or having her leave because our hero doesn't share her suddenly acquired interest in Tibetan Yak farming.

[ShinDangaioh]

Lana Lang.  She KNOWS what the life of a super-hero is like and just how dangerous it is.  The Superboy and Legion of Super-heroes story where Mordru chases Superboy and a few legionaries back through time, shows that Lana can handle herself in extreme situations.   She's also given up on Superman to pursue Clark Kent.

[Super Monkey]

Lana Lang, of course!

As far as Lois Lane goes...



 :twisted: