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Saturday, July 31, 2010

Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane #68 - Oct. 1966

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Comics Weekend "Superman's Rival, Mental Man" by Jerry Siegel, Curt Swan, and Stan Kaye.

Who is Mental Man and why are we talking about an issue of Lois Lane again? Well, dear readers, follow along and you'll see...
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As a professional illustrator, I dream of the day a client says to me, "Stop talking and start drawing!" But I digress...

Anyway, Lois' passive-aggressive comic strip starts running in The Daily Planet (next to Marmaduke, just to the left of Rex Morgan, MD), and becomes an instant smash:
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What. The. Hell.

Anyway, Mental Man makes a direct play for Lois, claiming his powers are greater than Superman's(!). Initially, Lois says her heart belongs to the Man of Steel, but when he shows up, she decides to feign interest in Mental Man to make Superman jealous.

Superman, presumably having something--anything--better to do with his time, takes off:
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Mental Man is then approached by a shifty-looking guy from the crowd, who asks the new hero of Metropolis (the town being as fickle as Lois) to come to his friend's apartment to listen to...an offer.

Mental Man show up (smashing through the floor instead of flying through the window like a normal superhero), and the gang of crooks make their offer: for Mental Man to help them rob an armored car!:

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Finally, Lois has had enough of all these super-shenanigans and demands to know who Mental Man really is. Normally, it'd be Batman, since he and Supes teamed-up all the time to humiliate Lois. But in a somewhat surprising turn, Mental Man turns out to be...
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...the end!

Of course, since the Mental Man strip was such a hit, Lois was forced by King Features Syndicate to hire a ghost for the strip, where it continued to run in DCU newspapers for many decades, leading to a 1980 movie musical version directed by Robert Altman.


This story, as you can see from the cover, is from a "romance" themed 80 Page Giant edition of Lois Lane, which consisted of reprints from older Superman comics, Action Comics #252 specifically. I had never even heard about it (or Aquaman's role) until F.O.A.M.er Rick Phillips clued me in. Thanks Rick!


Today over the super-excellent blog Gay For Lois Lane (run by F.O.A.M. member and all-around fun gal Amy Bias) is an examination of this very same story, albeit with a lot funnier comments. Go check it out!
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5 comments:

Wings1295 said...

Even Aquaman was in on the shenanigans Supes would play! Who knew!?!

Spectergirl said...

I've just got to say, Aquaman is just too good looking NOT to forgive.

Aaron said...

"Ham it up good, Aquaman!" Ah, what a brilliant title Lois Lane was.

Bribaby said...

That story was a hoot. Ah, those were the days, when all you needed was Krypto and balsa wood to pull off an elaborate scheme of little or no consequence. And it cracks me up the way Aquaman was always telling anybody within earshot of his fatal weakness of only being able to remain out of water for an hour. Did you hear that, criminal underworld?

Shawn said...

LOL (and I REALLY did laugh out loud at work) at the 'King Features Syndicate' and 'musical version' paragraph!