Lois Lane #50

“Lois Lane’s Luckiest Day”  

Lois Lane #50 (July 1964)

Writer: Leo Dorfman

Artist: Kurt Schaffenberger

Review by Emsley Wyatt 

Editor's Note: Recently, it was brought to our attention here at Legion of Super-Bloggers that we had missed an important Legion appearance in our The Original Series reviews. Ultra Fan Emsley Wyatt reminded us of Lois Lane #50, and even offered to review this guest-star appearance for us. So take it away, Emsley....!

The story opens with Lois Lane visiting her fan club.  (Hey, Jimmy Olsen has a fan club, why not Lois?  No word on Perry White.)  And in the kind of foreshadowing that was a hallmark back then she shows them her special earrings.  The earrings have pictures of the Legion of Super-Heroes.  No word on the origin of the earrings themselves, perhaps the “Super-Hero Clubhouse” has a gift shop.

 After giving some reporter lessons, Lois speaks to three prospective new members.

Now, it’s pretty obvious to us that the three prospective members are Phantom Girl, Shrinking Violet,  and Triplicate Girl, particularly since their initials are the same as those of their Legion code-names.  But back in ’64 the Legion feature in Adventure wasn’t that old yet.  I truly liked the fact that they’ve donned somewhat more demure versions of their normal costumes, a concession to the mores of the early-mid Sixties.  Phantom Girl looks great in that red top, but her white bandanna gives just a hint of her normal cape.  Nice touch by the artist there.

So Lois invites these three “prospective reporters” to accompany her to the hospital where she works as a volunteer nurse.  While she is scrubbing up to assist with surgery, she drops one of the earrings in the sink.  When she returns it’s in the sink even though she was sure it had gone down the drain.  She also finds a bracelet with the initials “SV”, which Shri, er, Sharon Vaughn claims.  Guess it was a day for the ladies to be careless with their jewelry.  Curious incident number one.

Then Lois goes to give some medication to a wounded veteran, who gets the drop on her and is ready to bean her with a chair, when suddenly…………..

…he calms right down.  Curious incident number two.

Moving on, Lois sees a Mister Appleby, a big fan of Superman.  Lois tells him that Superman is loaning him a collection of flags from “planets throughout our galaxy”.  But then a gust of wind blows the flags away and around a convenient corner.  “Tina Glenn” runs after them and as Lois rounds the corner she has them all in hand, explaining that they got caught on hedges.  Curious incident number three.

But Lois isn’t fooled.  She notices the single set of footprints diverging into three and the jig is up.

She then calls out Triplicate Girl.  Tells Violet that she knows she lost her bracelet when she shrank down to retrieve the earring from the drain.  Knowing that two of the three girls are Legionnaires she deduces the identity of the third.  Phantom Girl then reveals that she cured the homicidal veteran with a neck massage.

That part of the story didn’t really work for me.  It would probably have been better if they had used Saturn Girl and calmed the guy down using her mental powers, but hey. 

Phantom Girl then explains to Lois that the reason that the three girls are in the twentieth century is to gather information about “the various fan clubs in honor of Superman’s friends” for a “Superman Encyclopedia”.  Gosh, maybe Perry White does have his own fan club.  They sit around smoking cigars and the president tells everybody not to call him chief.

But because history had no record of their visit, the girls wipe Lois’s memory of their actual identities with a “hypnotic mirror”.  (Every super heroine’s purse should have one.)  Again, a task better suited for Saturn Girl.

Now for the amusing closing, the girls got all the facts right for their “stories” but missed Lois’s “amazing good fortune”.  She tells them they don’t make the grade as reporters.  They slink off, feigning dejection.

But back in the Thirtieth Century they watch Lois on the time monitor and are all smiles.