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u/Blue_Maven 8d ago
Please tell me the alien has LL initials
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u/MrZJones 7d ago
They often point out the LL in words, but sometimes those associations are very very loose. (One story had Lois taking Florence Nightingale's place for a short time, and tried to spin that as an "LL" name — Florence Nightingale).
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u/FractalGeometric356 8d ago
“Ladies, ladies . . . I think there’s a way we can get it to work out for everyone. . . .”
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u/Boccs 8d ago
Space girl? And here I was thinking Clark had fallen for some young twink.
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u/Used-Gas-6525 8d ago
I think he unwittingly might have. Knowing the stories of the adjacent Supes titles, it's probably Jimmy in drag.
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u/Awkward_Bison_267 8d ago
I like how these comics never factor in Superman’s super hearing. “Lois I can clearly hear you.”
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u/MrZJones 7d ago edited 4d ago
I've been feeling under the weather the last few days (and I'm still having computer issues, which should be fixed sometime on Tuesday when I get a new power cord), so my recaps have been a bit shorter than usual.
Anyway, "The Lois Lane-Lana Lang Truce!" is the third story in this issue (October, 1964), and definitely the most interesting of the three... which is, as you'll see, damning with faint praise. I don't even think I'm going to do a full recap of the others.
When we begin, Lana is visiting the Planet, she opens Lois Lane's window, which nearly blows an invitation from Superman out the window. Lana didn't mean to (or even know what it was), but this starts an argument between the two women that ends with them promising never to speak to each other.
Meanwhile, a flying saucer lands in Metropolis, and Superman contacts it by just shouting really loudly "If you're here to invade us, go away! I'm Superman!" The woman who steps out from the spaceship doesn't look like an invader. She introduces herself as Illena from the planet Kromal, and she's long been an admirer of Superman (to the extent she learned English in preparation for this trip).
Superman, already somewhat smitten, welcomes her to Earth and offers to show her "the world's most colorful sights". She says fine, but only if she can snuggle really close to him because flying without a ship is scary. People all over the world see his tour, and the next day, both Lois and Lana (who works as a TV reporter) are told to follow the story. Lois is told to get the full story on Illena, while Lana is told to play up the romance angle.
The next day, at a Charity ball (where Superman brought Illena as his plus-one) that both Lois and Lana are covering, Lois is angry that Superman is spending so much time with this new girl, and both Lois and Lana make it a point to ignore each other. At least, until Superman dances with Illena, at which point they declare a truce and an alliance (an aLLiance, if you will) until the "scheming space-hussy" is gone.
They stake out the hotel where Illena is staying, and when Superman is off-world, a mad dog attacks. Illena uses her Super Secret Super Power, which turns the dog to stone, apparently forever. Lois and Lana both worry that she's too powerful for them, but continue to secretly follow her. Later that day, she likewise turns an "enemy spy" to stone (Illena calls it the "Stone Death"), but his wallet falls out of his pocket before he transforms. Lois snags it and realizes the "spy" was actually a counter-espionage agent for the US, and Illena killed an innocent man.
This spurs them to search Illena's hotel room for more dirt on her (the superintendent recognizes them as Superman's friends and so trusts them when they say they have an important message from Superman for Illena), and as they're searching, they hear Illena come back and radio Superman Revenge Squad Headquarters, identifying herself as Secret Agent X983IQ. She reports that now that Superman is off-balance, she'll use the Stone Death on him. Her turban hides a "Medusa Skullcap" from the actual Medusa, which scientists from Kromal turned into a weapon after figuring out that it was the snakes that gave her her petrifying power (Just Go With It™).
She explains all this to her own superior, apparently just so Lois and Lana can overhear all the details of her plan. They wait for her to fall asleep and then sneak out of the room, though Lois pauses to do something off-panel first, but that wakes Illena up. She commands them to turn to stone, but nothing happens. Then Lois commands her to turn to stone, and she does. (The off-panel thing that Lois had done was stealing the skullcap and hiding it under her own hat)
Superman soon shows up, only to find the two girls and the stone statue of Illena, and they explain the whole plot to him. Superman takes the skullcap to first reverse the stone transformation (so they're not all permanently dead after all), and then store it at the Fortress. He tells Lois that he owes his life to her, and Lana momentarily thinks she should have used the skullcap to turn Lois to stone, but immediately realizes that thought was unworthy since Lois saved her, too. They vow to be friends again, despite the competition for Superman's affection. THE END.
Story: Not a great story, but I like when Lois and/or Lana get the win. Superman is a total dufus in this one and has no clue Illena is a villain at all until after Lois has already defeated her. 6/10.
Cover accuracy: 100% percent. 10/10.
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u/MrZJones 7d ago edited 5d ago
Going back to the first story in the issue, "Lois Lane's Pen-Pal Romance"... Lois goes undercover as a wealthy widow to expose a ring of swindlers operating through Pen-Pal Magazine. She meets a wealthy man who seems to be one of the swindlers, so she leads him on. At the end, both of them call the police on the other, because the man was actually also an undercover reporter trying to expose the same ring of swindlers and who thought she was one of them. The ring of swindlers goes un-exposed. 2/10.
And "Lois Lane's Love Trap!" sees Lois helping a blonde nurse who is also named Lois Lane win the man of her dreams, lumberjack Rafe Nelson. She manages to get them together despite ruining his work and even nearly killing him at one point (with nurse!Lois getting the blame both times). But Rafe was as much in love with her (and too shy to tell her) as she was with him (and too shy to tell him), so thanks to a masquerade ball where Lois, Lois, Clark, and Rafe all go (and Lois and Clark swap places with other!Lois and Rafe in order to get them together - each without realizing that the other swapped, too), and it works and they live happily ever after and eeeeeeehhhhhh. 1/10.
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u/capsaicinintheeyes 7d ago
B*******—that's Jimmy Olsen in a turban and walk-over-me boots!—this ain't my first gender-bending cultural mangling with this writer/artist team
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u/Paguristes_Cadenati 6d ago
I count four separate comments positing that the space hussy is Jimmy Olsen in heels. Great minds think alike.
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u/Cherveny2 5d ago
Space Girl... or lois clone, or lois robot, or a time traveling lois. GIven the Lois Lane comics, all are possibilities.
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u/Lazy_Assumption_4191 8d ago
Odds that the space girl’s a robot?