I was transfering some vhs to dvd and there was the Superman animated show where Lana first showed up. Got me to wondering, was the first meeting between the L's important or did they meet up off panel and simply seemed to have always known each other? Was it in the 1940's or the SA?
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Luthor wasn't established as Lex Luthor until the early '60s (before that he was just Luthor--I think they got the name Lex from Lexington Avenue, but that's just a theory)--in the story that established how he met Superboy and lost his hair (although the grown-up Luthor had met Superboy before this)--ADVENTURE COMICS 271 (April '60). So I think that's when Luthor first met Lana. Lana didn't appear in the Superman stories until she appeared as a grown up in SHOWCASE 9 (July-August '57)--the first Lois Lane try-out issue. Before that she was just a regular in the Superboy stories.
I think the first official meeting between Lana and Lois was in ADVENTURE COMICS 261 (June '59). They both met when they were away at camp. Lois had met Superboy before this--but that was before Lana had been introduced as a character.
I'd have thought given that these are arguably the two most important people in Clark's life -for completely different reasons- that their meetings would have been the focus of any story.
It seems like during most of the '50s they were in a kind of holding pattern with their characters. There wasn't a lot of development. But that's just an assumption. It's hard to find a lot of '50s Superman stories to say for certain. But it seems like Mort Wesinger started to push forward with the characters in the late '50s and that's when you saw more stories about different characters meeting each other. And some characters met each other for the first time on more than one occasion.
Weren't Lil' Lana & Lil' Lex shown together in some of the Superbaby stories? In that case, they've either known each other all of their lives, or met sometime before kindergarten.
Yes, I was going to mention that. I have at least one comic where lil Lex and lil Lana are shown with lil Clark. You either have to treat that as a retcon--because Lana came to Smallville when she was a teenager, as did Lex later on--or you have to treat the Superbaby stories with a grain of salt. I have my salt imported from the Himalayas just for this purpose.
Yes, Superbaby stories are like that. At some point, didn't someone (I'd guess ENB) claim that the Langs had lived in Smallville during the Superbaby period, moved away for a while, and then moved back when Lana was a teenager? That the Luthor family would have done the same thing seems to strain disbelief.
That sounds like a Mort Weisinger/Stan Lee convoluted justification for a mistake. IIRC Julie Schwartz would be more likely to admit to the mistake and move on.
Dave Elyea said:
...As far as the timeframe in which Superbaby stories took place , I recall reading a reprinted Superbaby story in which S-B , in his usual non-intentional manner , helped the police catch World War II rationing black marketeers - all the while the official Superboy continuity was set in the 30s this being at least the aftermath anyway of the " relevance " period ~ Pete Ross was written out during this time as his family having lost all their money and become Okie-like migrants leaving with a Grapes Of Wrath-style collective IIRC .
Emerkeith Davyjack said:
Well, not quite. True enough, Pete Ross had a fairly good run as a recurring character---popping up fairly often from his debut in Superboy # 86 (Jan., 1961) through Superboy # 135 (Jan., 1967)---and all of his appearances during this run were set in the 1930's Smallville. Then came Pete's appearance with the Legion in Adventure Comics # 370 (Jan., 1968), also set in the '30's.
He wasn't seen again until Superboy # 160 (Oct., 1969), still in Smallville and still in the 1930's.
The editorial shift of Superboy's era to the 1950's occurred in the second story in Superboy # 170 (Dec., 1970)---it wasn't specified to the readers until the next issue.
Through all of this, Pete Ross had dropped off the scope, and he remained M.I.A. until "The Revolt of the Outcasts", which appeared in Superboy # 179 (Nov., 1971). It's fans' sketchy memories about this story and the change in Superboy's era which cause this tale to be misrepresented on some sites.
As "The Revolt of the Outcasts" describes, in the town of Fairdale, a "swank suburb" near Smallville, an abandoned section of town has been revived by down-on-their-luck families, who have turned to skills of artesianship to earn a meagre buck. Dubbed "Hungry Hill" by its inhabitants, the community boasts a blacksmith, a tinsmith, a potter, a chandler, a printer, and other craftsmen.
There is never a mention of migratory workers, in the fashion of the Joads from The Grapes of Wrath. And certainly, Pete Ross and his family were never migrant workers in Oklahoma or anywhere else. When Superboy discovers his old pal living in Hungry Hill, Pete explains: "After Dad went broke, we moved here, where Mother developed a girl-hood hobby into this hand-weaving business . . . ."
The story is consistent with the 1950's era of Superboy. It's difficult to tell because most of the events take place in Hungry Hill, where equipment and appliances are supposed to be old; but enough is shown of Fairdale to establish that the technology, equipment, and apparel are more modern than the 1930's.
The confluence between the fact that most of Pete Ross's appearances occurred in the 1930's era of Smallville and the information that his family had gone broke and he lived with other poor people is what evokes the idea of The Grapes of Wrath in the minds of many fans. And, of course, once ideas like that get posted on web sites, folks who have never read "The Revolt of the Outcasts" for themselves accept the notion that Pete and his family became migrant workers as true.
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