PHASED AND INTERFUSED PT. 3

Successful spinoffs, in contrast, usually take a path opposed to that of funneling charisma-characters into ensembles, where they have collective stature. Usually a given icon is introduced in a Subordinate relationship to a Prime icon or icons, and then the Sub icon gets a separate serial, thus accruing some degree of stature, depending on how the serial fares in terms of either quantitative or qualitative escalation. -- INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE STATURE PT. 2.

In PHASED AND INTERFUSED PT. 2, I described how a particular stature-bearing icon, Robin the Boy Wonder, completed a phrase shift away from being an icon within a superordinate ensemble to being (in the identity of Nightwing) a stand-alone superordinate icon. Here I want to deal with a phase shift related to a subordinate icon graduating to a qualified superordinate status-- qualified, because the icon remains stature-dependent upon the icon from which she was derived.

For most of her existence, Lois Lane was a part of Superman's subordinate ensemble. Starting in SUPERMAN #28 (1944), the girl reporter got a backup series in that title for about a year. Now, for the length of time that said series existed, Lois Lane was the superordinate icon, while Clark Kent/Superman, whenever he appeared, became a subordinate icon. But for Superman that was a very qualified status, since Lois's popularity was contingent upon that of Superman. 

Now, in the essay referenced in the quote above, I went on to describe how the "spin-off" Batgirl functioned as a subordinate icon within the Batman serials up until the point that she graduated to her own serial. However, BECAUSE Batgirl appeared to be fast-tracked to getting her own series within about five years of her debut, she was also a proto-crossover. Lois by contrast was a pure subordinate icon, and neither her 1944 serial nor the Silver Age one that lasted for about thirteen years-- SUPERMAN'S GIRLFRIEND LOIS LANE-- really did anything to lesson her standing as what I've labeled a "Charisma Dominant Sub." My same verdict holds even given the existence of a couple of television shows in which Lois and Superman were arguably equal Prime types, those being LOIS AND CLARK and SUPERMAN AND LOIS.   

Now, all the serials in which Lois is a stature-dependent Prime and Superman is her Sub do not count as crossovers, the way all of Batgirl's appearances in BATMAN serials do hold that status, simply because Batgirl became a "Stature Dominant Prime." By the same token, Superman does not have any crossover-status with Lois in her own serials, in the way that he does when he teams with Batman in the WORLD'S FINEST feature. The "phase shift" associated with a support-icon being spun off in a separate feature, but a feature that does NOT alter the overall status of the feature's star, is distinct from the one in which such an alteration of status does take place. For this, the example of Robin-turned-Nightwing is instructive, because once Nightwing is independent of Batman he's no longer automatically aligned with the Bat-universe. One example I cited was that because Batman meets Ra's Al Ghul after discontinuing his partnership with Dick Grayson, Ra's Al Ghul does not belong to the Grayson-verse. Thus, whenever Nightwing and Ra's Al Ghul cross paths in any story, that's a charisma-crossover, because Ra's is exclusively Solo Batman's foe. If Ra's has a later encounter with one of Batman's later Robins-- Jason Todd, Tim Drake-- then there's no crossover, because those Robins at that time are aligned with Batman. If one of those Robins phase-shifts his way into a new identity, as "Jason Todd Robin" did to become The Red Hood, then any encounter between Ra's and Red Hood would be a charisma-crossover.

Now, in the Silver Age LOIS LANE feature, unlike the short-lived Golden Age one, the Prime star sometimes met other icons who belonged to Superman's Sub-cosmos, such as Lex Luthor. Everything in Superman's cosmos is also in the dependent cosmos of the girl reporter, so Luthor and other Super-villains have no crossover value, as they would if they interacted with Batman under the WOR LD'S FINEST umbrella. 

Lana Lang presents a slight anomaly, because, by the rules I set up in Part 2 of this series, Lana belongs to the SUPERBOY cosmos, not to that of SUPERMAN, because the personas are different even though they belong to the same person at different ages. Further, at the time that Lana made adult appearances in LOIS LANE, she also continued to appear as her juvenile self in the SUPERBOY title. Lana Lang remains a "Charisma Dominant Sub" in the SUPERBOY feature, but Mature Lana Lang's status is not identical with that of Juvenile Lana Lang (who, incidentally, had only debuted two years previous). 

The former first appears in a 1952 story, "The Girls in Superman's Life," in SUPERMAN #78, but this story is just a one-off. Mature Lana does not show up again until the first Silver Age LOIS LANE comics, 1957's SHOWCASE #9. The two stories don't blend, because the SHOWCASE story ignores Lois having previously met Mature Lana in 1952. Mature Lana is a Sub to Superman in 1952 and a Sub to Lois in 1957, and she continues in that capacity whenever she appears in either feature from then on. She's arguably more strongly aligned to the LOIS feature than the SUPERMAN one despite having probably made more total appearances in the latter. This superior alignment to the LOIS feature s qualitative in nature, because Lana as a competitor to Lois for the hero's heart proved much more significant in that feature than any function(s) she served in assorted SUPERMAN stories. Since "phase-shifted Lana" makes two separate but not congruent debuts in both 1952 and 1957. I would regard that both debuts are crossovers, whether between Superman and Mature Lana in 1952 and between Lois and Mature Lana in 1957. 

MYTHCOMICS: "THE CURSE OF THE SUPERBOY MUMMY" (SUPERBOY #123, 1965)

By 1965, many of the Mort Weisinger-edited comics of the SUPERMAN line had gone beyond the fustiness of their Golden Age precursors. If one goes beyond my specific connotations of "mythicity," and speaks only of how each of the titles nurtured its own mythology, then both of the SUPERMAN books, the SUPERGIRL backup, LOIS LANE and JIMMY OLSEN all showed unprecedented inventiveness in creating new characters and concepts, or in causing old ones to interact. (I'm leaving the LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES feature outside these considerations because it sported a very different conceptual format.) But of the features set in the 20th century, SUPERBOY was the least distinguished in sheer creativity. 

I've only read bits and pieces of the late forties/early fifties SUPERBOY, I've found them extremely jejune compared to the SUPERMAN scripts of the same period, even allowing for SUPERBOY's simpler, kid-focused plots. Only one event in the feature's late Golden Age era is still remembered by fans today, the creation of Lana Lang, which as I argued here began as a recapitulation of Lois Lane's character. Then two more "myth-events" followed in the first five years of the Silver Age. First came the introduction of Krypto in 1955. Then in 1960 came one of the feature's few mythic stories, "How Luthor Met Superboy," which debuted the appealing idea that Luthor and Superboy grew up together in Smallville long before they became implacable foes in adulthood. The "retcon" of Luthor was followed other tales which borrowed from the SUPERMAN comic books (or, in one case, from the SUPERMAN comic strip), so that the Boy of Steel began meeting Phantom Zone villains and the like. But even by 1965, his writers showed little sign of evolving any new myth-material original to Superboy's universe-- again, not counting the Legion.

I suspect that the premise of "The Curse of the Superboy Mummy" might have begun from an idea for an arresting cover image-- Lana Lang and Superboy finding archaic doppelgangers of themselves in an Egyptian tomb. Given that idea, writer Leo Dorfman and artist Curt Swan then probably had to "work backward" to find some way to justify the image. But this time Dorfman rooted his makework story in one of the key myths of the Superman cosmos-- the War Between Men and Women.

The three-way relationship of heroic Superboy, admiring Lana Lang, and apparently-timid Clark Kent had of course been borrowed from the SUPERMAN comics, but a few interesting divergences arose. For one thing, Lana became at some point the daughter of an esteemed archaeologist, so she could sometimes be tied to arcane or unusual discoveries. 

Now, the cover does not specify the nature of the "curse," but the opening caption does, implying that somehow Lana's presence is going to bring doom to the hero-- even though she doesn't show any of her more annoying traits here or in the issue's other two stories. Nevertheless, when Dorfman takes us back to 3,000 B.C. in Egypt, the writer changes the Smallville setup-- "young girl only thinks the guy she knows is weak"-- to a literal reality. Seth, weakling son of royal magician Ahton, is humiliated when the taunting Neferti demonstrates that even she's stronger than he is. Doting father that Ahton is, he goes for the quick fix, asking Isis for help.

Isis shows Ahton the futuristic feats of Superboy-- proving that even archaic gods are big fans of the Kryptonian franchise-- and Ahton learns how to duplicate Superboy's powers with a magic potion. There is of course no internal reason for Ahton or Seth to duplicate the Superboy costume too, except to make the cover-image work out. But I give Dorfman extra points for coming up with a rationale for the insignia, since the Egyptians didn't have the European letter "S."

During Seth's short super-career, his major accomplishment is really to blow off Neferti when she tries womanly wiles to attract his attention. But Neferti shares the snoopiness of her later doppelganger, so she not only learns Seth's true identity, she even sees images of Superboy and Lana in Ahton's magic oracle-shield.

Then, just as the nosiness of Lois and Lana sometimes put their romantic idol in one kind of peril or another, Neferti has a "Deianeira moment," where she trusts in an unscrupulous adviser to give her a love-charm. The jade scarab she wears to attract Seth kills him, and her as well, when she tries to rescue him from the sea. (The story has an unusual amount of death for a mid-sixties SUPERBOY tale.) 

This half of the story is the most resonant for its use of a trope one might call, "Hero Killed by Woman's Egotism." Astute readers are expected to notice that Lana appropriates the very jade scarab that killed Seth, and so there's no great mystery to those readers when modern-day Superboy begins experiencing non-romantic heartaches when he gets near Lana. The Big Reveal of the next three pages is pretty routine and not worth recapitulating here; those interested in the denouement may read it here. The only mythic element of the modern-day section of the narrative is that, even though Lana isn't intentionally endangering Superboy, the hero's dimestore self-analysis is never actually invalidated. According to the way Lana normatively functions in the SUPERBOY canon, she does at least endanger the hero's peace of mind with her frequent identity-hunting. And if one chooses to amplify the potential feelings of these purely fictional characters, Lana also could incur a lot of resentment by her frequent complaints about Clark Kent's meekness-- though to my knowledge she never went so far as to embarrass Clark in a contest of strength/skill. So if Superboy does harbor secret resentments of his potential girlfriend, it's not because he's swayed by any ancient superstition. He just resents nosy, nagging women.

CURIOSITIES #33: "THAT SURE WAS A BONER I PULLED WITH LANA" (SUPERBOY #13, 1950)

 Much funnier, IMO, than the better known "Joker's boners" meme.

I found this item reviewing the earliest appearances of Lana Lang in the Golden Age SUPERBOY. In her first outing, she's all but a xerox dupe of Lois Lane, and is overtly compared to the lady reporter. In this, her third appearance in the title, she monologues what I assume was the established credo of all the nosy women in the life of the Kryptonian hero: they think that if they can learn his secret ID, they can insinuate themselves into his private life and romance him. However, later in the same story she also makes clear that she wants to boast about her cleverness to all of her friends. Just like a woman!

Of course Superboy punishes the young girl for her pride and snoopiness. But in one sense Clark's more backward than Lana, for the super-Boy Scout doesn't seem the least complimented that this hot young redhead wants to romance him. All he can think about is how she may endanger his status as a superhero-- and I'm not sure if his indifference to romance makes him more mature or more childish. (I know which one DC writers meant to emphasize, but it would be an interesting bit of trivia to figure out the first time Superboy ever, like, noticed the unique appeal of pretty girls.)

ADDENDUM: Though in 1950 Whitney Ellsworth edited both SUPERBOY and the anthology ADVENTURE COMICS, where the Boy of Steel was the lead feature, he didn't bring Lana into the AC continuity until issue #161, dated February 1951. This quasi-introduction went further on portraying Lana as a demi-Lois, to the extent that both Lana and Clark get temporary summer jobs at a Smallville newspaper. Though this Lana still suspects Clark of being Superboy, she's less Superboy-crazy than scoop-crazy. I imagine the editors dropped the idea of "Lana Girl Reporter" pretty quickly.

And surprise, surprise-- I wasn't really expecting to find stirrings of romance between Clark and Lana (albeit with miscolored blonde hair) as early as November 1951. But the ADVENTURE COMICS for that month allows readers the first peek at Clark Kent's fancies turning lightly to-- well, maybe just puppy love.