I was looking at the cover for this issue for a while, trying to remember what Lois's pants were called:
jodhpurs! Which I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually wear in real life. Also, it's a
José Luis García-López cover, but no interior work from him. It feels like a couple strikes against this one already, and then we have Lucy Lane as a platinum blonde in the first story, so...from 1977,
Superman Family #186.
"The Bug Lady" of the lead story of course isn't Lucy, but an Aunt May-looking old lady Jimmy Olsen is sent to investigate: she lives with a ton of bugs in her house in the sticks, but the bug-hating owner of a chemical plant is leading a push to have her evicted. After a man is attacked by hornets, the mob is ready to burn her out, but Jimmy isn't having it, even if he has to call in Superman. Jimmy does the legwork, and sure enough the plant owner is in on a real estate scheme; but the insects then attack, driving the citizens out of town, but not biting or stinging anyone. The bug lady had got word of a gas leak at the chemical plant, and warned everyone the only way she could. Everything ends happily, even if the plant owner should be up on charges.
Next, "Save My Friend, Kill Your World!" is the opening chapter of a two-parter, but we saw the
conclusion earlier: the insanely powerful Krogg appears on the JLA satellite, accidentally transported there as the Earth-2 Superman was trying to get to Earth-1, since he needed to borrow Jimmy Olsen to save his counterpart. Then, Lois and Superman go to Africa, in search of a GBS reporter lost while exposing a local dictator. To (over)protect Lois, Supes ditches her outside of town, where she gets captured by soldiers when she tries to stop a beating; but when he confronts the dictator he might not be as insane as he sounded. He had Kryptonite, which was somewhat more rare than it used to be, and had a machine that gives him control of Superman! Lois does, um, wear blackface here, as part of a disguise so she and the reporter Melba Manton can overpower some guards, defeat the dictator, and free Supes. And O.J. Simpson is referenced, to make this curdle even harder. ("Dateline: A Kingdom of the Mad" Written by Gerry Conway, art by Win Mortimer and Joe Giella.)
After more Krypto and Nightwing and Flamebird stories, Supergirl fights to save her adopted dad, so he can save her real folks. (Back in the day, both sets of her parents were perfectly nice; in later continuities who knows how many of them went bad?) "Rendevous with Reality" Written by Jack C. Harris, pencils by Alan Weiss, inks by Joe Rubinstein.
Not the best issue of this series I've seen, but every time I find another I'm surprised, so that's something.
Wow. Not sure how going from turning into a black woman for 24 hours is any better than donning Black face, no matter the good intentions.
ReplyDeletePretty sure, no, that might not fool the Juice, but had she stayed her usual white self, she'd might've gotten his attention regardless.
We've all heard of the crazy cat lady, but not a crazy bug lady. Sounds like a missed opportunity to become a member of the Atom's supporting cast to me.