Action Comics #662 "Secrets In the Night"

[skjam]

In response to a request from Shadowpsykie, here's Action Comics #662.

For the previous fifty years, the Superman mythos had a status quo of "Lois Lane loves Superman, but isn't too keen on his secret identity Clark Kent. Meanwhile, Superman loves Lois, but conceals his double life from her for various reasons." But with the reboot of the franchise after Crisis on Infinite Earths the relationships had slowly progressed, and by 1991, Lois had gotten over her Superman obsession enough to realize that she had feelings for Clark, and they got engaged.





The story actually opens with an attorney checking through the late Lex Luthor's paperwork, and discovering his will.




Not sure if Baron Sunday ever got out of jail; like many minor villains, he spends a lot of time in Comic Book Limbo.

The arm belongs to Silver Banshee, who was supposedly sealed away a couple of years earlier. She's after Superman, but his Clark Kent guise fools her and she lets Clark off with merely being throttled. Lois gets teary when she can't find a pulse, but Clark wakes up and finds out who attacked him.




Superman tracks the Banshee to the Daily Planet (where she smells Superman everywhere but can't see him) and gets stomped for his troubles. Rather than finish off the Man of Steel right there, Silver Banshee is asked by her new ally Blaze to bring him to Blaze's temple for ritual sacrifice.

Naturally, Superman recovers just in time, and manages to hold the banshee off long enough to trigger a "you have failed me" moment from Blaze. Afterwards, he consults with the Crone who supposedly created the Silver Banshee, who admits that Blaze may be a greater menace. "Guard against her darkness..."





And there you have it, the official no backsies, no amnesia, no fooling reveal to Lois.



It occurs to me that this kind of blocks off Silver Banshee's appearance in this issue; if at some future point someone's doing a character profile on SB, let me know and I'll trim a few pages at that point to make room.

Otherwise, your thoughts, comments, questions?

suggested tags
char: Lois Lane
char: Silver Banshee
char: Superman/Clark Kent
creator: Bob McLeod
creator: Brett Breeding
creator: Kerry Gammill
creator: Roger Stern
publisher: DC Comics
title: Action Comics

Comments

[oldmanrain]

How does she take the news? I can't imagine how I'd take it. (Well I can, it would be awesome, but I'm comic book biased)

[skjam]

Her reaction is in Superman #53, which I don't have access to at the moment.

But I will say that they stay engaged.

[zordboy]

What I always thought was wonderfully interesting was that this came about because Lois and *Clark* started dating. I don't know, that seemed like such a wonderful inversion. Yeah, Lois has always had a bit of a thing for Superman, but it just seems like a nice character-thing that she fell in love with Clark, and the reveal about him being Superman was almost secondary to that.

I would like to see her reaction to the news, as well, actually.

[jaybee3]

Yes. Maybe it's because I've only known (although I'v read the old stories) the reboot Superman where Clark is the real man, Superman is not but the whole fake "love triangle" some people at DC want to revive has always sounded dumb to me (this was the basis of the part of the Millar/Waid/Morrison/Peyer rejected Superman pitch of 2000 to do away with the marriage OMD style and bring back the "triangle). Prior to COEI, Superman and not Clark Kent was the real personality and so obviously that's the one Lois fell in love with but in the modern era even though Lois was infatuated with Superman for a long time it never went anywhere and she wouldn't have said "yes" to Clark if she was really "in love" with Supes. As it is the L&C relationship was actually shown pretty realistic (although they moved to the engagement pretty quickly after the two hooked up maybe because of the TV show) since Lois and Clark had been friends (and not-friends at times) and co-workers for YEARS before they started going out (thus knew each other pretty well) and when they did it was Clark who made the first move and pushed it - something the pre-Crisis Clark would never have done.

[nezchan]

I like how her cat is totally not phased by the whole proceedings.

[phosfate]

It's a cat. It already knows he's Superman. And, as a cat, it is not impressed.

[bliumchik]

I am always amused by Superman's ...interesting relationship with buttons.

[nezchan]

He actually uses super-velcro.

[jelly_ace]

That one panel where they're kissing and then something goes Pop! makes for a very interesting Context is for the Weak.

[pallas_athena]

SHE'S NEVER SEEN HIM WITH HIS GLASSES OFF

[jaybee3]

Which was weird because IIRC it was clearly insinuated that L&C had done the deed (or just held hands all night or whatever) after their first "official" date because after they went back to the office the next day everyone in the Daily Planet could tell they were now a couple and teased them unmercifully (and they could also have been wearing the same clothes as the night before but I forget about that part).

[alcimines.livejournal.com]

The burning question of the day: what's the name of Lois' cat?

[sarno001]

She calls it Elroy in the scans. And more characters need cats. The cat is easily one of my favorite parts of Power Girl.

[fairprincess]

I believe that is Elroy.

[silverzeo]

Lois had cat?

[mullon]

I wonder why Lois' hair is red.

[jaybee3]

During this period Lois had brown hair so I assume the reddish tinge is a coloring error.

It needed to be said

[nezchan]

Re: It needed to be said

[shadowpsykie]

writers who actually care about the characters

heh, i know this is sad.... but i cant help but laugh at spidey here

Re: It needed to be said

[kagome654]

Heh.

[kingrockwell]

The title "Secrets in the Night" at once brings to mind Frank Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night" along with Pat Benatar's "Promises in the Dark". Make of that what you will.

It's interesting to think of how big a thing this was at the time. We take it for granted now because they've been married for about fifteen years now, but she'd spent the preceding sixty trying to find this very answer! I'd love to see the letters columns surrounding this and how the fans took it.

[zordboy]

Knowing that fans probably haven't changed that much in 15 years, I bet there was a rather large volume of "This will ruin the Superman mythos FOREVER!!1!" and the like, actually.

[skjam]

Well, the issue itself only has one brief comment on the Lois/Clark relationship: "The Clark/Lois romance is stunning (when they first kissed, that's all I could talk about for three days!)"--Chuck Ripley of Fremont, MI.

Most of the other comments were about the "Sinbad" story (a Quraci character who's a hero!) which was coincidentally published just as Iraq invaded Kuwait. And a couple of letters were about Toyman, and how perhaps he should be better at being evil--this was before the whole "Toyman kills children" twist.

[shadowpsykie]

thanks SK! i always knew about the whole, she loves Clark, now bonus! he's also Superman!

but dont know, and even now i dont think, i ever read the actual story. thanks for this :)

Didnt Lois at one point say she kinda already knew for a while? was that part of the "dealing with it story?"

[skjam]

I think she did at some point.