Croon With Boone
Cover Artists: Curt Swan, Stan Kaye
Edited By: Mort Weisinger
Executive Editor: Whitney Ellsworth
Cover Price: 10 cents
Cover Date: May 1959
Published By: DC Comics
**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE BOTTOM**
I think that, after devotedly reading several of my reviews of Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane, you might think she’s pretty square. Nothing could be further from the truth! She’s such a hip chick, she sang a duet with Pat Boone! Who the hell is that, you ask? You can find out by reading my review of Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #9, seen below!
Explain It!
“The Most Hated Girl in Metropolis”
Written By: Robert Bernstein
Art By: Kurt Schaffenberger
One beautiful day, Lois Lane wakes up and heads to her job at the Daily Planet. At the office, she finds that kid photographer Jimmy Olsen has left her a bouquet of roses, with a note! It reads, “To a RAT!!” Well that seems like a lot of effort just to be mean to someone. Not to mention the cost. Clark Kent is also miffed at Lois, though she doesn’t know why. |
| "The only language we speak in this office is sending each other rude floral arrangements." |
Editor-in-Chief Perry White calls her into his office, and she learns why the newspaper’s staff is peeved: they almost ran a story by Lois revealing Superman’s secret identity as Clark Kent! Perry was able to snatch the papers off the press before too many were printed, but the secret is now out. Which begs the question: why is Clark sitting at a desk, still working for the Daily Planet?
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| They don't normally let reporters run headlines beginning with their own names, but this was a special occasion. |
Lois says she never released this story—though she admits to having written it years ago, during a manic period in which she guessed Clark Kent was the Man of Steel. Perry doesn’t buy it though, since the copy boy said he got it from her copy-basket. Yep, you gotta trust the word of the copy boy. He may sniff printer’s varnish all day, but he’s on the square.
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| "If it's in the copy box, it gets printed. That's how we ran my wife's 'Dear John' letter last month." |
Lois promises to write another article, redacting the claim and explaining the gaffe, but here’s an interesting wrinkle: Clark Kent has confessed to being Superman! So again: whyis he still working at the Daily Planet?
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| "He's staying on with us for the health insurance." |
Lois steps outside of Perry’s office to confirm his claim, and Clark angrily smashes a desk to prove he’s Superman. You, uh, you didn’t need to destroy company property, Clark. You could have just floated or something.
Clark even disrobes in front of Lois, showing off his Superman togs underneath, which also seems superfluous. Later, Superman has drawn a crowd for some contrived reason or another, and Lois aims to get him alone and explain herself to him, no matter what the outcome!
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| "The union is giving us headaches, but we'll save a bundle on construction costs." |
But when Lois heads over to Superman after he’s done dazzling the crowd, he tells her to pound sand! She won’t be getting any more Superman story exclusives!
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| "All of my communication with Lois is now done in semaphore." |
Seems that Superman’s secret identity isn’t public knowledge yet, but Lois guesses the word will be out soon enough. The staff of the Daily Planet sure knows the scoop, as shown when they’re rude to Lois at some watering hole frequented by them. Say, isn’t there some kind of rule in journalism about being truthful? Some sort of an oath, maybe? Never heard of it, you say? Pay it no mind, then.
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| "Any reporter that does her job is no friend of ours, the other reporters!" |
With everyone pissed off at Lois for doing the thing she promised to do, Lois determines that she can no longer live in Metropolis!
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| "I'll move to Coast City. A person can really start over there." | ' |
The next day, while packing to leave, Lois sifts through some Superman memorabilia she’s pilfered collected over the years: a trophy, a lock of his nose hair, pictures of Lois being carried through the clouds that, by rights, could not have been taken by anyone living. Sad that she won’t be able to rob Superman anymore, Lois reconsiders her plan to run away.
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| "I have to admit, a lot of my character motivation is based around Superman." |
Just then, the phone rings, and on the other end is Lois’ sister, Lucy. She’s an airline stewardess and, after having dinner with her, Lucy says she can get Lois a job flying the friendly skies, provided she’s got a butt that’s very resilient to mid-century pinching.
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| Nepotism is the scourge of progress. |
Lucy and some colleagues take Lois to some kind of a contrived excuse for a movie shoot, then they ditch her without even explaining Lois’ character motivation!Behind Lois, a curtain raises to reveal a studio audience! Suddenly, she’s standing on stage with Ralph Edwards, host of the show This is Your Life! This was a real show that ran from 1948 to 1961, on two networks. The idea was that a member of the studio audience would be brought on stage without their prior knowledge, and then Edwards would go over their life’s story in detail, with guest appearances by familiar faces the audience member had met along the way. Sounds positively horrifying for everyone. |
| "Looking over your biography, it seems like a series of horrible pranks and cons." |
And what’s this? The whole Daily Planet staff that were busting Lois’ balls earlier are here! And her own, dear sister was in on this elaborate prank, too. Lois should know by know that eighty percent of the events in her life are totally manufactured by Superman or his chuckle-head buddies. |
| "We all had a wonderful time betraying you, Lois!" |
But what about Clark proving to be Superman earlier? Well, that was all bullshit, of course. Now, however, Clark has to produce Superman—and appear on stage with him at the same time! |
| "Oh, why didn't I just arrange for the Haunted Tank to be the special guest?" |
Superman pulls this off by finding a captain at the docks who has amnesia, then he dresses the poor guy up like Clark Kent and hauls this confused fellow on stage for appearances’ sakes. |
| "Never mind the fact that Clark seems confused. He just smoked angel dust." |
After his debut, the severely concussed Captain is taken high in the sky by Superman, just to compound his frustrating torture! |
| "This is either cure you or kill you. Either way, I'm in the clear." |
This move by Superman, which he claims to have tried before, does the trick! The Captain’s memory prior to being kidnapped by Superman is restored, and, uh—what the hell was the point of this story again? I’m sure that’s all resolved, too. Incidentally, Superman did pull this gimmick another time that we know of—but much later, in Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #38 from 1963! So we can assume that he got really good at snatching addled people off the street and making them pretend to be Clark Kent before mind-wiping them completely. |
| "Plus I fucked Edwards' wife while we filmed your episode." |
“Lois Lane’s Stone-Age Suitor”
Art By: Kurt Schaffenberger
Lois Lane and Clark Kent are headed back from a trip to Mexico City, funded by the Daily Planet, which was apparently a fact-finding mission about novelty lighters.
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| "We can worry about whether our careers are justified later!" |
On the way back to the United States, their plane is attacked by a pterodactyl! Or possibly a Xudarian. |
| Flying the friendly skies. |
The dinosaur attacks Lois and Clark’s plane, tearing Clark’s clothing to shreds and leaving Lois unconscious. With her knocked out, Clark can abandon the aircraft and fly Lois to safety. |
| "That pterodactyl seemed interested only in making me sexy." |
While Lois naps, Clark explains why he’ll have to stash his Superman togs…to no one. |
| "While I have you here, let me tell the story of my costume. It all began when I was rocketed from the..." |
Then, the pair are beset by cavemen! They look like Neanderthals, but I won’t make any assumptions. Lois wakes up to this all-too familiar scene.It looks like Clark and Lois have wound up in some hidden valley, lost to time! This is going to make communication diffi…uh, well it looks like these cavemen know rudimentary English already. That’s convenient. Any word as to how you learned this language, chaps? No? Alright then. Since Lois the first woman without a beard to show up in decades, they decide that she’s got to marry the shlubbiest guy in the tribe: Blog! Hey, wait a minute…! |
| "If you marry him, you will be known as a 'Blogger.'" |
Lois wants Clark’s help in getting out of this arranged rape, but she made fun of him before, so he refuses! Let this sexual violation serve as a teaching moment! |
| Ladies: when in doubt, defer to a man. |
According to tribal law, Blog must perform three feats of his bridegroom’s choosing. Seeing a generic dinosaur has lumbered into frame, Lois tells Blog that his first task is to face down the giant lizard! |
| "Hurry up, we've got to return this dinosaur to the Batcave by noon." |
Holy shit, Lois, you’ve just potentially condemned a stranger to die! Blog isn’t thrilled with the job, but he steels himself to face down the dinosaur. Luckily, Clark is going to lend a little help with his X-ray vision… |
| "D'ya want I should do yer taxes, Mistah Dinosaw?" |
…which he uses to prematurely hatch some dinosaur eggs off-panel. Hey Kent, have you ever heard of “leave only footprints; take only photographs”?The dinosaur scurries off the eat the brand-new baby dinosaurs, technically fulfilling the task Lois set for Blog. |
| "Hey kids, let me tell you about this balding nebbish I almost ate." |
Moments later, a bolt of lightning strikes a tree and sets it ablaze, and then the cavemen frantically rush to preserve the fire. Clark observes that this group hasn’t discovered the mystery of creating fire, which I understand to be an unlikely remote music festival co-signed by rapper Ja Rule.Lois’ next attempt at murdering Blog is to send him into a cave inhabited by saber-toothed tigers. Just tell the guy to jump off a cliff and be done with it! Clark surreptitiously slips into the cave ahead of Blog, and fucks up all the saber-toothed tigers handily. Before Blog steps through the cave’s opening, Clark uses his super-breath to knock down stalactites, giving the impression that the prehistoric cats were knocked out cold naturally. Clark, Blog is a caveman. Just tell him they passed out from a witch’s curse and he’ll believe you. |
| "Truthfully, I'm not a cat person." |
Blog steps forth from the cave, hauling a tiger by its tail, one step closer to getting into Lois Lane’s tattered pants! |
| "Looks like Blog gets to screw you in the mud." |
With it pouring rain outside, and knowing that this tribe cannot create fire without a strike of lightning, Lois tells Blog that his final task is to build a fire! That’s right, she wants to force an evolutionary change within the group. Clark decides to help out by giving Blog the lighter picked up from Mexico City. For one thing: that’s Lois’ lighter, man, you can’t just give it away. For another thing: you have just destroyed this indigenous culture, good job. |
| "And remember: Chesterfield's have the smoothest taste of any class 'A' cigarette!" |
Without having a heart attack when presented with this world-changing technology, Blog lights a fire to the delight and amazement of the rest of his crew. Though Lois is honor bound to blow him, Clark decides to take this opportunity, while the cavemen are distracted, to escape through some random hole in a rock face. |
| "Just think, in several thousand years, they'll have four channels of fire to choose from." |
While Lois is hanging out elsewhere in the cave, Clark punches an escape route through solid rock…and she wouldn’t hear this? Where did he leave her, at the bottom of a mine shaft? |
| If you've got it, flaunt it. |
Once they get out, Clark decides to seal the only exit, to preserve this ancient culture that he and Lois have utterly destroyed by communing with them. Lois wonders about Blog, and hopes he’s okay—a peek through Clark’s X-ray vision proves that he’s doing juust fine except for a lingering bout of gonorrhea. |
| "Damn, if Blog is getting pussy like that, I'm going back to the prehistoric valley." |
“Superman’s Mystery Song”
Pencils By: Dick Sprang
Inks By: John Forte
Alright, here it is folks: the cover story. It involves Pat Boone, a pop singer who was second only to Elvis Presley in the late 1950s. Indeed, he was the corny, parent-approved alternative to the sexy, hip-swinging Elvis. And apparently, Lois Lane can’t get enough of him—and not just Pat Boone’s music, but his merchandise, too. Who does this guy think he is? Superman?
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| "It's easy to afford this stuff when you eat three meals per week." |
Lois even buys every product Pat Boone endorses! Which explains why she’s got a case of Erection Suppressant in her bathroom. Lois tells Clark that, despite spending half of her income on Pat Boone crap, she still loves Superman more. Then she’s off yammering about Pat Boone again! |
| "Now make a right, I'll show you the hotel where Pat Boone will take his underage groupies." |
All of Metropolis is gripped with Boone Fever, as a crowd lines up to watch him perform that evening…and leading the crowd appears to be two hideous fish girls. Later, back at the Daily Planet, Perry White tasks Clark Kent with covering the Pat Boone concert, because he’s not a groupie and therefore won’t ruin the article by trying to fuck the talent. |
| "I know you're free tonight, Kent, because you have no life." |
But even Clark is caught up in the swinging tunes of Boone, though that magenta jacket is probably helping to put him in the mood! |
| Wow, the Daily Planet scored some shitty seats to this thing. |
After the show, Pat Boone is so mobbed by fans and stalkers, that Clark changes into his Superman costume, so he can snatch Pat up for some private smooching! |
| "Has anyone ever told you that you have pretty eyes?" |
After they make out a little at the Daily Planet office, Pat hears some music through the walls. Time to investigate, and possibly prosecute for copyright infringement! |
| "Let's go check them out after you read my screenplay." |
Why, the whole staff is rehearsing for some kind of talent show bullshit or something! There’s Jimmy Olsen, juggling everyone’s lunch. |
| "Strangely, Jimmy can juggle only toasters and random foodstuffs." |
