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Sunday, May 23, 2010

Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane #111 - July 1971

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Comics Weekend "The Dark Side of the Justice League!" by Robert Kanigher, Werner Roth, and Vince Colletta.

It's a two-fer for this installment of Comics Weekend!

Today the Shrine is covering similar issues from the same series: Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane. Both issues feature Aquaman (and other heroes) in small and very goofy roles.

First is this issue, with its provocative JLA-doing-the-Gulliver bit on the cover (by the late, great Dick Giordano). It opens with Lois headed to the beach (and dealing with some overt misogyny):
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(click to embiggen)

Ah, of course--this isn't the real JLA, its a miniaturized group of duplicates created by Darkseid (who apparently didn't know what color Hawkman's uniform was).

Anyway, Lois wakes up and heads home. The next day, all she can think about is Superman (she sits at her desk, typing "I love Superman!" over and over, Jack Torrance-style). They run into each other several times that day, and at one point they kiss.

This seems to drive Superman mad, and the Man of Steel begins smashing parts of Metropolis!

Lois contacts a super-secret group known as The Project, and they tell her to return to The Daily Planet to await further instructions. Lois does, and then falls asleep. She then wakes up, seeing something even more surprising than an insane Superman:
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Out of Lois' purse comes an army of super-small Lois Lane duplicates(!), and they attack the evil JLA.

Thanks to various skills the duplicates have, each of the mini-Lois's defeat the JLAers:
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After the evil JLA is defeated, The Project sends Lois another message: they have made a lipstick out of Superman's cells. All Lois has to do is put it on, plant another on Supes, and that should bring him back to normal.

Lois, amazingly, does this, and even more amazingly it works. Superman is back to normal, having no memory of what just happened!


Whew, this story is completely insane. I've always thought Bob Haney was the gold standard for bizarre, seat-of-your-pants comic book plotting, but he's got nothing on these Bob Kanigher Lois Lane stories.

In just fourteen pages, you've got an evil mini JLA, Lois acting completely insane (see the whole "All work and no play makes Superman a dull boy" bit), an appearance by The Inter-Gang, Superman longing to get...well, some action ("I may be a Superman, but I'm hungry for companionship...for the touch of another human when night falls!"), robot elephants, Superman going on a destructive rampage, an army of mini-Lois Lanes, and mind-altering lipstick.

Finally, I love how mini-Aquaman's cries for hydration are summarily ignored. I guess he died in that trashcan. An ignominious end for Evil Mini-Aquaman!


This book (and the other issue of Lois Lane we're talking about today) were given to me, like, a year ago by F.O.A.M.er George Rears. Thanks George, and sorry it took me so long to get to these!

2 comments:

Diabolu Frank said...

That's pretty hot, and I'm curious how Kanigher avoided squeezing Wonder Woman into this kinky mess.

Russell said...

And where's the Atom? I guess he was... overlooked? ;-)