by Hanley, Tim
Wonder Woman always got over her jealous feelings, but the men were much more difficult. If Steve was in a Silver Age issue of Wonder Woman, chances were that marriage was going to come up; the man was nothing if not persistent at proposing to Wonder Woman. She always politely declined, not with an outright refusal but by saying she couldn’t yet marry him and asking him to be patient. That rarely soothed Steve’s hurt feelings, and he was prone to outraged comments like:
“Angel—if you really cared for me, I should be able to convince you within the next thirty seconds to marry me!”
“I don’t care whether you think it’s fair or not—I want you to marry me!”
“I’m getting sick and tired of hearing that excuse, Wonder Woman!”
“I’m tired of waiting around for you to make up your mind! I’ve had enough! Goodby!”
“If you really loved me—you’d let nothing interfere! I’ve had enough of waiting! I’m through! I’ll marry the next girl I meet! I don’t care who—or what she is!”
To calm his outrage, Wonder Woman submitted to ridiculous contests to prove her love. In one, if Steve picked Wonder Woman out of a crowd three times in twenty-four hours, she’d have to marry him. In another, marriage was again the “prize” if Wonder Woman had to save Steve three times in twenty-four hours. Not only did Wonder Woman agree to these silly contests, but Steve cheated; he marked Wonder Woman with a tracking device so he could find her with ease to win the first contest, and then planned the second contest on a day when he was testing dangerous aircraft, failing to mention that fact when he made the bet. Steve always just failed to win, but not before making Wonder Woman submit to inane activities to prove she still cared for him.
In Wonder Woman #118, Steve came to the conclusion that Wonder Woman refused to marry him because she was interested in someone else, and he used government spy equipment to stalk her to see if he had a rival. Upon finding her with Mer-Man, the grown-up Mer-Boy, Steve tried to show her that he was braver and stronger, insisting that she pick one of them, but Wonder Woman refused. This love triangle became a common feature, with both Steve and Mer-Man trying to prove themselves more worthy of her affections by coming up with ridiculous competitions.
The rarely tactful Steve handled the situation with constant irritation, reading into everything Wonder Woman said and did. In Wonder Woman #132, Wonder Woman was distracted while out bowling with Steve, upset that he’d brushed off Diana to go out with her. For no discernible reason, Steve thought that she was actually thinking about Mer-Man, and he went on a tirade laden with aquatic-based insults. When Wonder Woman got a strike without even looking, Steve exploded, “Now you’re trying to make a fool out of me! […] You’d never act that way with your boyfriend, the half-man, half-fish!”
Both Wonder Woman and Steve had issues with anger and jealousy, but the core of their feelings was completely different. Wonder Woman’s problem was one of identity. With Diana Prince no longer just a mask to fit in but now part of who she was, Wonder Woman felt that Steve, by rejecting Diana in favor of Wonder Woman, was rejecting half of herself. Thus she was furious when Steve was interested in robot doppelgangers and herself in disguise. Steve was attracted to other forms of herself, just not the one she most wanted him to love. She wasn’t really angry with Steve but with her own dual nature.
Steve, on the other hand, was angry with Wonder Woman. Paranoia was the hallmark of Steve’s fury, and he manufactured things to be upset about and read her dedication to her mission as a lack of affection for him. No matter how many times Wonder Woman proved she loved him, it was never enough. Steve felt he was entitled to the life he wanted with the woman he wanted, and anything less was unacceptable. This unbalanced gender dynamic was a hallmark of the Silver Age, and Cold War culture generally.
Lois Lane
At first glance, life had improved for Lois Lane at the dawn of the Silver Age. Her days writing the lovelorn column were far behind her; now she was a top reporter at the Daily Planet. Lois got her own comic book series in 1958, a rare occurrence for a female character. The only problem was that the series wasn’t called Fearless Journalist Lois Lane or Lois Lane: Intrepid Reporter; it was called Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane. Even in her own series, Superman still got top billing and Lois was defined by her relationship to him.
In Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #17, the staff of the Daily Planet threw Lois a surprise party celebrating the anniversary of her joining the newspaper. While discussing her many scoops, Jimmy Olsen pointed out, “It seems you owe your career to Superman! All your big scoops are about him!” Lois disagreed, citing three stories she had written without the aid of Superman years before when she was first hired as a reporter. However, as she recounted each scoop, Superman recalled that he had been involved in all of them without Lois knowing. He decided, “I … er … won’t hurt Lois’ feelings! Let her think she got her first scoop all by herself!” She was a top reporter now, but it was all because of Superman.
An advertisement for the launch of Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane included a fact sheet on Lois. It gave her occupation (reporter), hair color (brunette), age (twenty-two), weight (121), and the last line listed her goals. It read, “AMBITION: To become Mrs. Superman.” Lois’s quest to marry Superman was the main plot of her series from the get-go.
Nearly every issue of the series featured a scheme to make Superman fall for her. Lois heard the adage that “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” so she took a leave of absence from the Daily Planet to become a chef. She wore a new, exotic outfit every day to entice Superman with the many varieties of woman she could be for him. She used an experimental youth ray to rid her twenty-two-year-old self of any wrinkles.
Lois also hid herself from Superman anytime she thought she wasn’t desirable enough. She went out of her way to avoid Superman when a growth ray turned her into “the fattest girl in Metropolis.” Lois took more drastic action when she was hypnotized into thinking she had the face of a cat, encasing her entire head in a lead box so Superman couldn’t see her, even with his X-ray vision. Marrying Superman was her primary concern, and she’d do anything to make it happen or to prevent any setbacks.
However, Lois didn’t love Superman because of his winning personality or their shared interests. She was only interested in his strength and heroism, a point hammered home by the ease with which Lois was prepared to ditch Superman for any other strong and heroic man who came along. Time travel was common in the Silver Age, and Lois instantly fell in love with a local hero named Samson in ancient Rome, then with Robin Hood in medieval England. In the present day, when an alien named Astounding Man arrived on Earth in a spaceship and immediately proposed to her, Lois agreed to marry him and leave Earth right away. She even fell for Clark Kent when she mistakenly thought he was roughing up a rude pedestrian, thinking, “Whatever got into Clark? I’ve always liked him, but now, he’s so manly, I could love him!” None of these relationships worked out, but they showed that Lois was keen for any man who met the masculine ideal of the time.
Unfortunately for Lois, the fellow she was most interested in treated her like an impetuous child. The Man of Steel regularly took it upon himself to manipulate Lois in order to “help” her see the error of her ways. In the first story of the first issue of Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane, Lois was in disguise doing research for an article, and Superman decided, “I’ll have to teach her a lesson for using such tactics to get a story!” He then faked the death of Lois’s story subject, causing a distraught and weeping Lois to exclaim, “Oh dear me—how stupid I was to try a hoax like that! I’ll never, never do it again!”
Superman’s aim was to get Lois to stop being so curious and impetuous, but in teaching her lessons all he did was cause her extreme grief. During her disguise-wearing lesson, Lois believed that someone had been killed because of her and was beside herself with grief. In another story, Superman told Lois not to touch a box of objects from another planet, and when she
did he pretended that Lois had developed Kryptonite vision that caused him terrible pain whenever she looked at him. Lois felt so terrible about hurting the man she loved that she decided to move to Alaska, where she was unlikely to ever see him again.
Superman’s sense of superiority to Lois often manifested itself in angry and hurtful outbursts. When teaching Lois a lesson, this anger was staged, but Lois’s tears were real. After she touched Superman’s space artifacts, Superman yelled, “You little idiot! I warned you to keep hands off! Now you’re a menace to my life! Go far away! Get lost!!” His outburst resulted in Lois crying for most of the remainder of the story, until Clark came to Alaska with a fake antidote to cure her “condition.” Superman’s response to Lois’s extreme grief was chuckling about how “the biggest laugh of all is that Lois never did have Kryptonite vision!” He never told her the whole episode had been a ruse.
At times, Superman’s anger was genuine. In Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #16, Superman gave Lois a signal watch so she could alert him if she was ever in trouble. After Lois used it for several nonemergency situations, Superman responded to her last alarm thinking, “Now she’s stuck in a revolving door! This is it! Here goes my temper!” As Lois thanked him for saving her, Superman exclaimed, “PEST!!” and told her that he’d take the watch back if she didn’t stop wasting his time, while a crowd of people watched and laughed. Lois was so upset that she later refused to use her watch after she was captured by a gang of villains and was nearly killed by a bomb in the process.
Superman treated Lois terribly. Their relationship resembled that of an irate, unfit parent frustrated with his child. Superman didn’t see Lois as a capable adult, but as a nuisance that he needed to straighten out, and he had Lois in tears with his condescending, patronizing attitude in nearly every issue. Even in her own series, Lois wasn’t treated with any respect.
In the Golden Age, Wonder Woman and Lois Lane had very little in common, but they found themselves in a very similar situation in the Silver Age. Their superpower disparity made no difference at all. They were subject to the same oppressive gender dynamics in their unconsummatable relationships. Their angry beaux made them jump through hoops, be it an inane contest to prove their love or an elaborate ruse to teach them a lesson. Steve and Superman both lashed out angrily when they were frustrated, and Wonder Woman and Lois had to appease them.
Both women cared only about having a strong, heroic man and not at all about how he treated them. Much like Lois fell for any tough man who crossed her path, Steve would do something brave and heroic to remind Wonder Woman what a strong man he was and all would be forgiven. Love wasn’t about affection, but rather about a stereotypical ideal of manliness. It didn’t matter how domineering the men behaved; their passive girlfriends only wanted to swoon at their strength. The main message of both Wonder Woman and Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane was that men controlled the relationship and women shouldn’t question their actions, however cruel, demeaning, or unnecessary.
Supergirl
First appearing in Action Comics #252 in May 1959, Supergirl was Superman’s long-lost Kryptonian cousin. When Krypton exploded, a small portion of the planet survived, and two of its inhabitants were Zor-El, the brother of Superman’s father, Jor-El, and his wife. They later had a daughter, Kara, and when their village began to be affected by Kryptonite radiation, they searched the galaxy for a new home where they could send her. Using a superpowered telescope, they learned that Superman was from Krypton, so Zor-El sent Kara to Earth where she too could have superpowers and be spared the deadly effects of Kryptonite radiation.
Superman discovered her rocket, and he decided to put his teenage cousin in an orphanage where she could interact with other children and learn the customs of Earth. He gave the blonde Supergirl a brunette, pigtailed wig, and she chose the alias Linda Lee.
After her first appearance, Supergirl was regularly featured in Action Comics, but she also appeared occasionally in Superman, Adventure Comics, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, and Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane. Because of their age difference, Superman assumed a sort of parental, caregiver role for her. For all intents and purposes, Superman was her surrogate father and, as a good child, she obeyed him as such. However, much like with Lois Lane, having Superman in charge wasn’t a pleasant experience.
Ostensibly, Superman put Supergirl in an orphanage so she could learn how to fit in on Earth, but an ulterior motive quickly became clear: Superman wanted to keep Supergirl as a secret weapon. When Supergirl asked if she could reveal herself to the world, Superman responded, “No, Supergirl! I have many cunning enemies! If I’m ever in a bad trap, you’re the only one who could rescue me!” So Supergirl stayed in the orphanage, and was initially fine with her secret weapon role. When Superman was in trouble or needed assistance, she would jet off and help, all the while making sure that no one noticed her so that her existence remained a secret.
In an early appearance, Supergirl saw a newspaper story about one of Superman’s exploits and stated, “I won’t get any headlines for my feats like my cousin Superman does! But it’s still super-fun to work secretly as Supergirl and help others!” Supergirl even sabotaged her interviews with couples looking to adopt her so she could remain at the orphanage; in one issue, she used her heat vision to burn a roast she was making in hopes that a couple would think she was careless and a poor cook. She dutifully remained Superman’s secret weapon, giving up the establishment of her own identity and the love of a family so that Superman could have a safety net, but her happiness with this arrangement soon wore thin.
Although Supergirl had to stay at the orphanage, she worked hard to get the other children into loving homes. These instances included:
Helping Timmy Tate with a magic show that impressed his potential parents, resulting in his adoption
Proving that Paul was not lying about seeing Streaky the Super Cat perform fantastical feats so that potential parents wouldn’t be told he was a liar
Using her superbreath to help Frank Cullen shoot several holes in one, impressing his potential new father, a golfer, so much that he adopted him
Warming an iron with her heat vision so Nancy could iron her dress and look nice for her interview, after which she was adopted
Flying underwater to help Eddie Moran rescue a drowning man, who then adopted Eddie
Her commitment to family and adoption extended beyond the orphanage as well: in an adventure in the future, she helped a boy named Tommy Tomorrow find parents, and she found a home for a Bizarro baby with Bizarro parents.* Just as the desire for marriage was a common theme in other DC comic books, so too was the desire for family well illustrated in Supergirl stories. The nuclear family was again paramount, and Supergirl soon wanted a family of her own.
In a guest appearance in Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane, Supergirl thought, “Jeepers! If … if cousin Superman and Lois got married, they could adopt me! … ‘Mother Lois’!! … ‘Father Superman’!! … Gee! I’d be the happiest girl alive!!!” Note the rare usage of three exclamation points. Supergirl ached to be adopted and have the happiness and security that came with being part of a family, but Superman wasn’t interested and punished her when she tried to meddle in his love life. A year and a half after her first appearance, Supergirl was still housed in the orphanage. After seeing another girl get adopted, she thought, “H-how long will I have to wait for a mother and father to adopt me? … >Sob!<”
Supergirl was finally adopted in August 1961, but only because she had lost her superpowers in the previous issue. Without her powers, she wasn’t able to pull her usual tricks to sway couples from adopting her and, with a career as a superhero no longer a possibility, Supergirl became Linda Lee Danvers, the dutiful daughter of Fred and Edna Danvers. Her superpowers did eventually return, and she remained with her adopted parents, but it’s striking that the only way Supergirl could have a family was for her to no longer be of any use to Superman.*
Superman, despite being
raised by caring parents who taught him everything he needed to know, actively deprived Supergirl of a loving home. To Superman, Supergirl was little more than a tool. Furthermore, even though he was her only family member in the entire universe, he came by infrequently, popping in only when he needed her help or, even worse, when he wanted to teach her a lesson or submit her to a test.
When Supergirl saw Krypto, the super dog, and flew over to meet him, she was chastised by Superman because Krypto could follow her to the orphanage and expose her secret identity. Superman declared, “You must be taught a lesson for breaking my rule!” and he exiled her to an asteroid for one year. After a week, she received a message from Superman to return to the orphanage for a day. It turned out that the exile was a test to see if Supergirl could protect her identity and cover for Linda’s weeklong absence, which she did. Again we see Superman forcing a female character to endure an elaborate ruse so he could make an insignificant point. To Superman, the ends always justified the means, even if the means involved making a teenage girl feel ashamed, sad, and alone.
While Supergirl and Lois Lane were both maltreated by Superman in similar ways, Wonder Woman is a more apt comparison to the Maid of Might. With their superpowers, both had the capacity to rebel against the controlling man in her life; Lois, for all her gumption, was just a human up against a superpowered Kryptonian. Wonder Woman and Supergirl didn’t have to put up with these domineering males, yet they willingly did. Although their relationships were different, romantic for Wonder Woman and parental for Supergirl, their superpowers kept them from having a normal life, and these men offered them the hope that someday they could be part of a nuclear family. They were kept in a sort of limbo, unhappy with their lot but unable to change it, looking forward to some idyllic future where they would feel complete.