Where is the male Lois Lane?

[I.R Joey]

Now that I got your attention.

My brother and I had an interesting discussion the other day about super hero romances. It seems to us that Super hero’s often become involved with normal every day women. The most famous example of this of course is Superman and Lois Lane. There are other examples to of course. Peter Parker(MJ), Wally West (Linda), Ben Grimm (Alicia) and many more. But my brother and I began to think about how many female comic book crime fighters we could name who were involved with normal men (IE not super heroes or other forms of crime fighter.) Quite honestly we were stumped and all I could come up with was Donna from the 80’s Teen Titans. Why does it seem so uncommon for super heroines to be involved with non crime fighting guys?

My brother came up with a theory.

Super hero comics are (or were at one time) predominantly male adolescent fantasy outlets. So he assumes that most guys who read comics as kids dreamed of being the big muscle guy, who has all these cool powers, and an attractive woman at his side. The guy appears to be strong and in charge. When things are turned the other way around though and the woman is powerful, and the man is just average he somehow appears to be weak. Guys don’t like reading about men who come off as wimpy so we don’t see these sorts of relationships as often in the predominantly male oriented world of superhero comics. We’ll see female crime fighters involved with male crime fighters (even ones who are less powerful then them), but that’s usually as far as creators seem to venture.

I’m not sure I agree with some of my brothers general assumptions about the mindset of comic book readers but the whole topic does raise an interesting point.

What do you folks think?

[Antiyonder]

Super hero comics are (or were at one time) predominantly male adolescent fantasy outlets. So he assumes that most guys who read comics as kids dreamed of being the big muscle guy, who has all these cool powers, and an attractive woman at his side. The guy appears to be strong and in charge. When things are turned the other way around though and the woman is powerful, and the man is just average he somehow appears to be weak. Guys don’t like reading about men who come off as wimpy so we don’t see these sorts of relationships as often in the predominantly male oriented world of superhero comics. We’ll see female crime fighters involved with male crime fighters (even ones who are less powerful then them), but that’s usually as far as creators seem to venture.

I’m not sure I agree with some of my brothers general assumptions about the mindset of comic book readers but the whole topic does raise an interesting point.

Pre-Crisis Wonder Woman did have Steve Trevor as a main love interest, her Earth-Two counterpart eventually tied the knot with him.

As for your brother's theory, I'd say that's the reason half writers do so. The other being (IMO at least) that some male writers have had negative experience with the opposite sex, so they use their writing as means of flauting their superiority over women.

[Ed Liu]

Interesting question. I have a few uncollected thoughts about this:

- I'm pretty sure the Silver Age Supergirl had a non-powered boy she was chasing. I don't know much about the 70's Spider-Woman, Ms. Marvel, or She-Hulk, but they might have had romatic entanglements with non-powered men. I don't know if you can call the Zatanna/John Constantine pairing of the same type, since JC techincally has no powers, but he's got skills of his own.

- It does take two to tango. The question could easily be rephrased by asking why male superheroes never get involved with powered companions as easily as asking why female superheroes never get involved with non-powered ones. Personally, I'd say that's driven by the societal perception, conscious or unconscious, that women should be subordinate to men; it's still considered strange a wife to make more money than her husband, for instance. Same thing could be at work with superheroes. It's a far better explanation for why Superman never got involved with Wonder Woman "in continuity" than the unchallenged assertion that Lois is the love of his life.

- Part of the cause may be the generally low number of female superheroes, many of whom are also spin-offs from established characters and very few of whom have been able to sustain their own books. Male superheroes get introduced into their own books with largely civilian supporting casts. Female superheroes usually get introduced with other male superheroes in team books or into existing superheroic contexts. If the entire supporting cast is mostly powered, it's only logical why they'd hook up with powered men. This shifts the problem to the older one of why female superheroes don't have much staying power in the marketplace.

- The non-powered civilian women mentioned aren't entirely normal and everyday themselves. MJ is currently a supermodel/actress, Lois is supposed to be a Pulitzer-prize winning reporter, Linda is an award-winning newscaster, and Alicia Masters is a fairly renowned artist (at least as much as any artist in America can be renowned these days). It's not quite the same as super-powers, of course, but they're also pretty unique women. MJ is really the only one who can claim a relatively mundane background.

- The X-Men may be the only real exceptions to the rule, although they may score that on a technicality. Since most of the cast members are mutants or turn out to be mutants, it shouldn't be surprising that there are so many mutant-to-mutant pairings in the bunch on both sides of the gender divide. The only X-Men who got involved with civilian women did it outside the group entirely (like Angel, who was associated with a normal woman named Candy Southern for a while, and Wolverine, who met Mariko Yoshida outside of the X-Men).

- There are also the thoroughly messed up gender relations established by stuff like Batman/Batwoman and Robin/Batgirl, where superhero women literally got into the business to land their superheroic men, only to be rebuffed repeatedly. Whether we'll admit it or not, a lot of the mentality that drove that kind of thing still holds true in superhero comics today.

There's more stuff swimming around right now that I'd like to chew on more thoroughly, but there's enough babble here already that a lot of eyes have probably already glazed over ;).

-- Ed

[DisneyBoy]

Whether we'll admit it or not, a lot of the mentality that drove that kind of thing still holds true in superhero comics today.

So true. But under that light, I can't help but wonder now if many people's aversion to the DCAU's Barbara/Bruce romance stemmed from the fact that we're presently less tolerant of the "woman chases powerful man" situation. I'm not saying that's the main reason, but maybe it factors in....

I wanted to point out my one and only experience of a female superheroine going after an ordinary male...Wonder Woman and an African American ambassador to the UN...but I've completely forgotten his name. I remember being pleased with the idea of that match, written by Phil Jiminez, but the way it played out - her crush on him went unreturned - screamed "over-compensation of political correctness" rather than seeming organic. It was like he was trying in one fell swoop to go against the previously-established grain by presenting an "ordinary" male as a potential love interest, and then making him African American, and then having him turn her down.

[Karkull]

There does seem to be a bit of a disparity there, I suppose, but there are cases of it that kind of fall through the cracks. For example, She-Hulk's apparently had a few relationships (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She_hulk#Relationships) with non-superhuman men, though they don't tend to last for too long.

[Shawn Hopkins]

Pre-crisis Supergirl had Richard "Dick" Malverne. I think there was a guy in the Peter David series that had a crush on Supergirl too, a bald photographer guy.

It's not comics but I consider Buffy a superhero, and she had Riley Finn for two seasons.

And although we've glossed over Terry and Steve Trevor, they are totally male Lois Lanes.

I believe there's historically been a disproportionately small number of superheroines who were taken seriously enough to carry their own titles. It's only in a solo title that a relationship with a non-team member is usually explored, just for convenience-sake. Except for Wonderwoman heroines have usually been female versions of male heroes, members of teams, love interests for male heroes or a combination of the same.

When heroines did get their own titles, especially in the Silver Age, they got a Steve Trevor or some other boring "Ken" like guy who was resourceful and manly, but not so much that he didn't need to be saved once in a while or that he would push the heroine around and take over the book.

[I.R Joey]

I intentionally left Steve Trevor out because even though he doesn't have powers he is a secret agent (I think) meaning he is a crime fighter of some sort.

And I don't see how people can say there's a lack of female crime fighters involved with male heros.

Spider Woman and Luke Cage.
Starfire and Dick Grayson.
Black Canary and Green Arrow.
Mr. and Mrs. Fantastic.
Vision and Scarlet Witch.

You can name a bunch of them.

[Shawn Hopkins]

I intentionally left Steve Trevor out because even though he doesn't have powers he is a secret agent (I think) meaning he is a crime fighter of some sort.

And I don't see how people can say there's a lack of female crime fighters involved with male heroes.

Spider Woman and Luke Cage.
Starfire and Dick Grayson.
Black Canary and Green Arrow.
Mr. and Mrs. Fantastic.
Vision and Scarlet Witch.

You can name a bunch of them.

Spider-Woman and Luke Cage? He's with Jennifer Jones/Jewel/Knightress from ALIAS. It's an easy mistake to make because Jessica Drew was supposed to star in that series until Marvel got cold feet.

Trevor was an army intelligence officer, but he was still a regular dude without powers, not some kind of Nick Fury superspy.

Captain America had Sharon Carter/Agent 13, who is kind of like the female Steve Trevor. Clay Quartermain from SHIELD was retconned to have dated Jennifer Jones/Jewel/Knightress.

My point still stands. None of those women you mentioned had an ongoing solo title except for Spider-Woman. In her series she dated a SHIELD agent named Jerry Hunt.

[Sandoz]

Dani Moonstar dated Justin Pierce in New X-Men, though it's unlikely that we'll ever see the relationship fully developed considering how abruptly Dani was shoved out of the book.

And as far as human girlfriends go, I don't think it can get any worse than poor Lee Forrester, who was dumped by Cyclops and Magneto (and then made eyes at Cable before she learned he was her ex's son).

[Gokou Ruri]

There was Rahne Sinclair (Wolfsbane) a teacher at Xavier's School who had a fling with one of her (underaged) students, Josh Foley (Elixer), but I'm not sure if that counts, even if it is unusual.

[Ed Liu]

It's not comics but I consider Buffy a superhero, and she had Riley Finn for two seasons.

That's true, but while Riley wasn't in Buffy's weight class power-wise, he was still a member of a paramilitary organization in the same line of work. I think he's even less of a male Lois Lane than Steve Trevor.


And I don't see how people can say there's a lack of female crime fighters involved with male heros.

Spider Woman and Luke Cage.
Starfire and Dick Grayson.
Black Canary and Green Arrow.
Mr. and Mrs. Fantastic.
Vision and Scarlet Witch.

It's worth pointing out that of those couples, only Jessica Jones/Alias and Luke Cage are still together, and they're also the most recent pairing. Jessica was certainly never a long-running cast member of Power Man's comic. I'm convinced that breaking up Reed and Sue Richards isn't going to last long, too (bah to you, Civil War!). I suppose you can also add Black Panther and Storm to the list, too. Don't know how long that pairing will last when Reginald Hudlin leaves the book eventually, but you never know.

In any event, I'm thinking more and more that the lack of similar relationships on the female side of the fence is driven more by market realities than it is on any male/female hang-ups in the audience or the creators. Superhero comics have been about the adolescent male power fantasy, which makes them pretty hostile ground for female superheroes in general. You don't get the long-lasting relationship without a long-lasting supporting cast, and most female-led superhero books just don't last long enough to get that supporting cast. Even the one that has (Wonder Woman) never managed to come up with a core supporting cast the same way that Superman's had Lois, Jimmy, and Perry. Steve Trevor's been written out of the book for long stretches at a time, even pre-Crisis, and he was never as critical to the concept as Lois was to Superman.

-- Ed

[I.R Joey]

I thought for sure that Spider woman and Luke were together and had a kid. My mistake.

[Shawn Hopkins]

Fair warning, never use Jessica Jones/Alias/Jewel/Knightress to try to prove a point about Marvel in an argument. She's a retcon character, sort of a continuity implant, that Bendis created to play with various aspects of Marvel mythos and archetypes. She's been newbie hero, grim vigilante and a postmodern antihero, has an origin that reads like Stan Lee's greatest hits and even has an alliterative name.

I only point it out because I've run across many people who do not know this.

[tb4000]

Point blank, any man dating a superpowered female being will always have some competency about him as far as physical prowess, as making him a weakling would probably mean she wouldn't be attracted to him anyway.