Comic Couples We Love — Lois Lane & Clark Kent In ‘Superman: The Wedding Album’

It’s the week of Valentine’s Day, and you know what that means! This entire week, the Comicon.com team is going to take a long at some of our favorite couples from some of our favorite comics, and to start it all off, we’re looking at one of the greats.

Really, to embody why we love Lois Lane and Clark Kent together, we could have chosen nearly any story from the 1990s (outside of the several months-long period immediately preceding their wedding). After John Byrne left the Superman titles, the writers who took over immediately began building the relationship between the two.

The duo was a relationship of equals, despite Clark having the literal power to move mountains. They always respected and loved each other, and neither ever condescended or looked down on the other. Hell, to show how much they were equals — though Batman is always cited as the world’s greatest detective — Lois Lane on her worst day can give him a run for the money, and on her best, the Dark Knight needs to watch out. Frankly, Clark is no slush either, which many Superman detractors forget about.

In Superman: The Wedding Album the creators of DC’s expansive Superman line faced a unique challenge. The creative teams had originally planned for Lois and Clark to get married in the landmark Superman #75, but had postponed it to prevent confusion with the upcoming ABC television series, Lois & Clark The New Adventures of Superman, which intended to feature the titular duo in a superheroic rom-com. After several years of Moonlighting style will-they-or-won’t-they, the comics moved past it and broke them up…

Then the TV show announced a wedding.

The editorial office quickly pivoted. The five creative teams at work on the Superman titles teamed up and had Lois and Clark reconnect, get engaged again, and get married in a whirlwind affair. And they made it a big deal. Not only did the line’s regular or recent creative teams participate — Dan Jurgens, Ron Frenz, Joe Rubinstein, Jerry Ordway, Paul Ryan, Brett Breeding, Louise Simonson, Jon Bogdanove, Dennis Janke, Karl Kesel, Stuart Immonen, Jose Marzan Jr, David Michelinie, Kieron Dwyer, Doug Hazelwood, Barry Kitson, Ray McCarthy, Roger Stern, Tom Grummett, Dennis Rodier, Bill Oakley, Glenn Whitmore and Digital Chameleon — but they brought back Superman legends to help (both with modern and original collaborators): John Byrne, Terry Austin, Gil Kane, Bob McLeod, Dick Giordano, Art Thibert, Jim Mooney, George Perez, Curt Swan, Jackson Guice, Nick Cardy, and Al Plastino.

After her months away, Lois Lane returns to Metropolis in the most Lois Lane way possible — busting a heroin smuggling operation by pretending to be enamored with the head of the drug cartel. When she arrives at the Daily Planet to file the story, she and Clark have a yelling match that turns into reconnecting that turns into rekindling their relationship and engagement. What follows is a whirlwind month of wedding planning, bridal showers, bachelor’s parties, and a very special ceremony.

The special wasn’t just a celebration of Lois and Clark’s relationship, but one of Superman in general. The couple’s relationship is at its core, as it often is with the best Superman stories. They’re a team at their best, loving rivals at their worst, and they’ll always find their way back to one another.

Now this special isn’t perfect. It has to deal with a lot of continuity BS. Aside from Lois being away from Metropolis and the engagement being off, Clark is powerless, thanks to the Final Night crossover, Jimmy Olsen no longer works for the Planet, Perry White is on medical leave, and there are a lot of characters very unique to this era of stories. Fans today are barely aware of Lori Lemaris, and I doubt you can find anyone who wasn’t a regular reader of this era who knows who Alpha Centurion is (hell, I barely know who he is).

Beyond that, a few elements don’t age well. The heroin smugglers are very ’90s, as is Clark’s civilian hairdo. So many fans mock the Super-mullet, and it’s just shaggy, but Clark’s ponytail is a choice. Lois’s bridal shower is painful because it’s so tied up in sexism that it was weird even at the time, and worse today. The portrayal of Sam Lane is dreadful, tied up in some weird stereotypes of bumbling over-protective fathers that were outdated a decade before this special was published.

Overall though, this special demonstrates that the leads are best together, when they’re working as one, whether it’s as reporters, as heroic crusaders, or just as Lois and Clark. There’s a reason they’re the most stable relationship in comics, and I don’t want it any other way.