Now you MAY recall that my last review was "The Fattest Girl in Metropolis", which was PHENOMENAL. I decided that I'd review another story in that comic, which was "The Girl of 100 Costumes" because in a Jimmy Olsen comic where they boasted he'd have a TON of disguises, he had three. So I owe it to you all to see if Lois Lane is a woman of her word. DOES she have 100 costumes?! I know you're curious, so enough of listening to this big joker, let's do this!
Summary: Okay, so this comic starts off in quite possibly the dumbest way I've seen a story begin. Superman arrives and Perry tells him that the fashion editor for the newspaper didn't show up and her column is locked in a cabinet. Okay, great, so you have Superman use his super strength to open the cabinet. Or his Ice breath to freeze the lock and break it. Or his heat vision to melt the lock. Nope, Superman uses his X-ray vision to read it, then types up the story verbatim... sure, GREAT use of your time, Big Blue. Lois sees Supes copying off someone else's homework and believes that this is how he feels about fashion, so she decides to follow his advice.
I feel like Superman should be doing more important things and Clark Kent should be here...
Superman sees Lois and congratulates her for "winning a contest and giving away the prize to charity" What a philanthropist that Lois Lane is! Superman wants to do something for Lois and she plans to ask him to the newspaper ball... terrible name, but first, she needs to follow his fashion tips!
Lois calls in a favor from some actress she knows and gets a bunch of costumes so she can impress Superman. She wants to wear a hula outfit but she thinks she'll look silly, but lucky for Lois, Superman just HAPPENS to be doing a movie called "Idol of The Volcano" and that has a Hawaiian background. Now, dear reader, you may think to yourself, isn't sneaking onto a movie set just to wear a hula outfit a little much? Well, Lois Lane says, fuck that noise! Lois crashes the set and luckily she happens to be dressed EXACTLY LIKE the extras in the movie. How convenient! Sadly, Lois misses out on having Superman see her in her dumbass costume, so she decides to try again.
I love that Superman is like "Watch me WHIRL AROUND!"
That's one gay-eyed Senorita!
This would take SO much pre-planning to actually work. Can't he just FLY there?
Why didn't you just ask him at the beginning of the story?!
Thoughts: I don't understand why this story just abruptly ended. I also don't understand why it ever started. The weird thing is, you'd think she'd just ASK Superman at the beginning then try to impress him with the dresses! Why we had her dressing up and going to events every day and never even REPORTING ON THEM was so weird! Also, there's a part where Lois tries to spy on two movie stars during a proposal so she can report on it... like that happened in here... for no reason! Then she got caught and they told her to buzz off and it never amounted to ANYTHING! What was the point of that?!
Also, who is this book for?! I can't imagine boys in the 60's wanted to read about Lois Lane and all of her fancy dresses. But if it's for young girls, why would they constantly want to see Lois, the "hero" fail time after time to get Superman to notice her! Not to mention all the "DONT BE FAT!" and "BETTER DRESS NICE!" messages in this issue alone.
And my biggest gripe... she only had 4 COSTUMES! Where the hell were the other 96 ?! Oh DC, you and your bait and switch story titles. And all this talk of the Newspaper Ball and we don't even get to see it?! Tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk.... yep, I gave you FIVE tsks! I came back for this?!
# of pages: 8
# of costumes Lois wore: 4....
# of costumes Lois had more of than disguises by Jimmy Olsen: 1
I have to say, I don't know what to think going into reading this review, lol. Also, there were a LOT of events going on in these 8 pages. Lois seemed a bit thirsty in this story. Went above and beyond to try and get his attention.
ReplyDeleteI love that you addressed/questioned the audience for this story. I'm sorry but little boys could give zero fucks about Lois and her fashion show she got going. Maybe if there were a few panels of her in a bra or something, maybe they would care, haha. And if it's geared for the little girls in the world, what is this telling them? They have to spend time and money on elaborate clothes to try and get the attention of a boy they like? That's too much work. But then again, that is still a message that's being put in the face of little girls everyday in 2017.
Have to love these old comics right, lol. Makes me want to start reading some golden age Wonder Woman. I'm sure there are some golden moments of comedy in there. Besides the bondage thing she had to deal with all the time, haha.
Ah yes... JT put up his once monthly post, all is right with the world! :P I gotta say, you put WAAAAAY more work into this than I would! Hell, you gave us pretty much every one of Lois's wacky costumes! Also, if I hadn't seen the panel with the dragon, I would have just thought it was a legit dragon head, which seems kinda gory.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'm right with you about the open!! The fact that Superman decided to spend so much extra time reading and typing up a fashion article seems... I don't know, unnecessary? Like, I KNOW he could probably find a better way to spend his time...
The question about who the audience of this comic is for is actually kind of interesting... I'd guess it's for girls who were reading the romance comics of the time? Maybe some crossover male Superman fans? Regardless, it's amazingly sexist, as it's just Lois screwing up over and over again, while Supes rescues her. And then she doesn't even get the guy in the end!! That daffy dame...
As for the Swiss? Dis big joker can take or leave them. Last I knew nobody from Switzerland read this blog, so screw 'em! Unless down the road we get a ton of Swiss readers, then disregard that last line, and replace it with me saying how great and neutral the Swiss are! Huzzah for Switzerland, what with their bank accounts and...... um, yodeling?
Lisha - Lois was SUPER thirsty in this and every comic I've read that's pre-90's! She's just trying to get Superman to wife her up for some reason, when it seems like he's the world's biggest asshole. Maybe he's negging her or something.
ReplyDeleteI think it's funny you mentioned Lois in her bra, I can see kids back then going crazy over stuff like that, but I feel like if that's the case they'd just read Wondy, she's already showing much more skin than Lois.
X - You're lucky I post even ONCE a month, I lead a busy life, full over Overwatch and Zelda and... other things! And yeah, I figure if I'm only gonna do one post I may as well make it detailed as hell, plus it was a quick write-up.
The fact that Supes is literally going to events and acting in movies throughout this book and stopping now crimes or anything shows that he is not needed in Metropolis at all.
Yep, I think we can all agree that whoever the target audience was for this book, they were not being represented properly, which is weird considering it ran for SO long...
Look at you now, tryna suck up to the Swiss! And they have more than bank accounts and yodeling... they also have time pieces and um... briefcases. And they gave us Cesaro, so there's that!
Shit, if I keep it up I guess I'll be lucky to get you here once every other month... Please accept my genuine apology o vaunted one.
DeleteYeah, what the hell gives with Supes being in movies?! That seems really shady. I can't imagine he's getting movie roles just because, which means he's parlaying his heroics into fame and money, which seems like a really un-Superman thing to do... Original Superboy? Yes. Superman? No.
Oh yeah! Swiss watches!! I forgot about those! And the good ol' swiss army knife. So those, wrestlers and bank accounts. Hey, we knew more about the Swiss than we thought!
Finally, you realize how lucky you are to have such a hot commodity!
DeleteDude, the weird thing is he wasn't even IN the movie. He did a stunt for them that would've costed them millions... it was flying a pyramid across some water or something equally stupid.
Honestly, I'm surprised we did. I would've thought we'd be able to name five things max! Look at us... getting six.