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Characters / Superman – Lois Lane

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Superman Main Character Index
Title Character
Clark Kent/Kal-El/Superman
Supporting Cast
Lois Lane | Jimmy Olsen | Ambush Bug | Steel
Villains
Central Rogues Gallery (Alexander "Lex" Luthor, Bizarro, Vril Dox/Brainiac, Cyborg-Superman, Darkseid, Doomsday, Lobo, Mister Mxyzptlk, Mongul, Phantom Zone Criminals [General Zod]) | A-L | M-Z (Superboy-Prime)
Spin-Offs
Supergirl (Kara Zor-El/Linda Danvers/Supergirl, Supporting Cast, Rogues Gallery) | Power Girl | Superboy (Conner Kent/Kon-El, Jonathan "Jon" Samuel Kent, Supporting Cast, Rogues Gallery) | Legion Of Superheroes (The Founders, Silver Age, Bronze Age, Five Years Later, Postboot, Threeboot, Retroboot, Rebirth, Other Heroes, The Fatal Five, The Legion of Supervillains, Other Villains, Supporting Cast)

Lois Lane

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_hhh_8618.jpg
Lois Lane, a lovely lady who lands ledes, looks for love in lofty latitudes, and laughs at liability.

Species: Human

First appearance: Action Comics #1 (May 1938)

"It's my business, looking beyond the external."
— Lois & Clark, "Pilot"

Lois Lane is a reporter and the main Love Interest of Superman. She continues to be an inextricable part of the Superman mythos and appears in virtually every version of the character, be it comics, movies or animations. Lois first appeared in Action Comics #1 (June, 1938), the first published Superman story. She was one of the very first female comic book characters appearing in American superhero comic books.

Lois is a career-driven, Intrepid Reporter who speaks her mind and goes for the big scoop regardless of the dangers. Her creator Jerry Siegel said he based Lois on the film character Torchy Blane, Girl Reporternote  and actress Lola Lane. Her first series, during The Golden Age of Comic Books in the 1940s, was Lois Lane, Girl Reporter, which appeared in the Superman comic book and had her defeating bad guys and getting front page stories on her own.

In The Silver Age of Comic Books, Lois had her own standalone comic book series titled Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane, which lasted for 137 issues from 1958 to 1974. The series focused on Lois' adventures and romances and had a very humorous tone, her character becoming less serious and focusing a lot more on romances with Superman or others. Her suspicion that Clark Kent is Superman and her attempt to prove it greatly increased during this period. An adult version of the character Lana Lang was also introduced to the book. In some of the stories she became a superhero herself, but only briefly or in imaginary stories that were not intended as part of the official canon. Come the 1970s, the series attempted to modernize Lois by having her be more career orientated, no longer interested in romances while respecting her boyfriend's privacy, with the stories tackling more serious subjects.

In 1974, the series, along with Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen and Supergirl, was moved into the Superman Family comic series, where Lois got to strut her stuff in her own stories as an Action Girl reporter who managed to get the big scoops while taking down bad guys without Superman's help throughout the '70s and early '80s.

In the Modern Age comics, much like the Golden Age, Lois was portrayed as a tough-as-nails reporter. In the 1990s, Clark and Lois began a long term romantic relationship in canon, with Clark proposing to Lois and revealing his identity as Superman to her. After a long engagement, which was delayed by The Death of Superman, Clark and Lois were finally married in the 1996 comic book special, Superman: The Wedding Album. The '90s Superman television Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman mirrored the comics with the couple also married on the show. This status quo remained throughout the '00s until the Cosmic Retcon of Flashpoint, which erased the marriage and had them seeing other people. However, the miniseries Superman: Lois and Clark reintroduced the pre-Flashpoint married Lois and Clark to the main DCU alongside their post-Flashpoint counterparts.

Lois once again seemingly got her own comic series, Superwoman, as part of 2016's DC Rebirth, in which the post-Flashpoint Lois gained Superman's powers, becoming a superhero and protecting Metropolis. However, she died in the first issue leaving Lana Lang, who also gained powers, to take on the mantle of Superwoman. The pre-Flashpoint version, instead, lived with her husband Clark and her son, Jonathan Samuel Kent, who was born in the Convergence event, appeared with his parents in Superman: Lois and Clark and eventually became Superboy.

In 2019, she got her own 12-issue maxi-series: Lois Lane written by Greg Rucka, with art by Mike Perkins.

In Bendis' Superman and Action Comics run, she decided to live far away from Clark in her own apparment following the trauma of travelling through space with a mentally-unstable Jor-El (Clark's father and her father-in-law) and being the wife of freaking Superman — a icon of hope and justice not only on Earth but on a large part of the galaxy — with her returning to independent/freelance journalism.

Outside of comics, Lois has appeared in multiple Superman adaptations in different media, including:

    open/close all folders 
    Animated films 
    Animated series 
    Live-action films 
    Live-action series 
    Radio 
Lois also stars in a series of young adult novels written by Gwenda Bond:
  • Lois Lane: Fallout (2015)
  • "Cloudy with a Chance of Destruction" (2015), a short story
  • "A Real Work of Art" (2015), a short story
  • Lois Lane: Double Down (2016)
  • Lois Lane: Triple Threat (2017)

Lois Lane gives us:

    A-M 
  • Abusive Parents: Her father in Post-Crisis continuity was a hardline military enthusiast who wanted a son and was disappointed when his first (and second) child was a girl. The reason Lois is a tomboy is that Sam raised her as if she was a boy in need of military training, yet he didn't bother to provide her with enough parental affection, causing their relationship to remain jaded and complicated. Ultimately, their relationship turns outright antagonistic when Sam becomes directly opposed to Kryptonians, of whom Superman and Supergirl are a part of.
  • Action Dress Rip: A story has Lois doing it with a wedding dress while shooting up a church at her undercover wedding to a drug lord. And then storms into the Daily Planet like that to re-accept Clark's marriage proposal. No-one at the Planet really notices, because Lois has a certain reputation for pulling this kind of crazy shit twice a month, and Metropolis is wild and crazy like that.
  • Action Girl: The Golden Age and Modern Age comic versions of Lois Lane portray her as a tough-as-nails reporter, strong and aggressive. In Rebirth, she sneaks into Logamba, a country ruled by a military dictator, alone in order to free her imprisoned father, kicking the asses of every person who got in her way and using her reporter connections to get to where she needs to go. Her plan goes off without a hitch until she's cornered by a soldier armed with a submachine gun. Luckily for Lois, her son had tailed her and quickly disarmed the soldier with his heat vision, allowing her to quickly incapacitate her foe.
  • Action Mom: Pre-Flashpoint Lois in DC Rebirth. Special mention when she put Batman's old Hellbat Armor to protect her son from the Eradicator.
  • Adults Dressed as Children: An Action Comics story from The Golden Age of Comic Books, titled "Fairyland Isle", featured Lois Lane disguising herself as a little girl, wearing a sailor suit, Girlish Pigtails, and glasses. Details here.
  • Aesop Amnesia: In the Silver Age, no matter how often she swore off trying to learn Clark's secret identity after one humiliating failure after another, she went right back to trying. One comic even had her seeing an alternate universe where she was the superpowered one and he was the annoying love interest, coming to the realization that all she was doing was hindering Superman's career and giving it up—only for the narration to Lampshade that she'd be right back to it next issue. Sheesh!
  • Alliterative Name: It led to the trend of many of the Superman supporting characters having the initials "LL".
  • Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome: In the Earth-2 comic line, her brain wave was uploaded to the Red Tornado android by her father and she eventually took up the mantle.
  • Almighty Mom: Lois Lane the reporter will personally face down gangsters and corrupt billionaires to uncover the truth. Lois Lane the mother will beat a Superman-level enemy into paste with a warsuit designed to fight Darkseid and intimidate the goddamn Batman if any hint of danger comes towards her son.
  • And Now You Must Marry Me: In the 1960s The Silver Age of Comic Books had her in these. She is inexplicably transformed from an ambitious, independent career woman to someone whose primary goal in life was discovering Superman's secret identity and using it to blackmail him into marrying her. This was especially bad in her own comic, Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane.
  • Babies Ever After: In Convergence, the pre-Flashpoint Superman and Lois have their first baby and name him after Clark's father, Jon. Often Supes and Lois are shown having twins with names like Lyle and Lili, or Joel and Kara. A 1964 Imaginary Story, "The Sons of Superman", showed super-powered Jor-El Jr. and non-powered Kal-El Jr., who developed an inferiority complex and sought his own path.
  • Big Sister Instinct: With Kara. Although not to the same extent as Superman. When Kara needs someone to confide in, Lois is there. She also helps Kara with other personal issues.
  • Badass Normal: Very much so. She's a crusading idealist who works as a reporter to bring down corrupt elements, and she's got the martial arts skills to back up her idealism. Lois is frequently shown to be courageous and often refuses to be intimidated by supervillains, resulting in several CMOAs for her over the years, one notable one being in Superman Unbound when Brainiac is monologuing about how insignificant Earth and its people seem to him, and Lois responds simply by giving Brainiac the finger, much to his confusion.
  • Betty and Veronica:
    • In Silver Age, Lois Lane was somewhat Veronica-ish compared to Clark's childhood sweetheart Lana Lang. In the early modern continuity, Lois, a brassy investigative journalist who wouldn't give Clark the time of day romantically, was the Veronica, while sensitive, feminine, openly-in-love-with-Clark Cat Grant was clearly the Betty.
    • Reversed with Lois (now portrayed a sensible no-nonsense reporter) and Cat (vain and demanding gossip columnist) as respectively the Betty and the Veronica in Superman: Secret Origin, which once again re-established Superman's origin in the post-Infinite Crisis continuity.
    • And later, after Lois fell in love with Clark and discovered his secret identity, she viewed Wonder Woman as the Veronica on several occasions. This was an unfounded worry on her part though, since Supes and Wondy are Like Brother and Sister... although not in the New 52.
  • Black Like Me: One of the more notorious stories, "I Am Curious, Black" has Lois being turned into a black woman (with a big afro) to see what the African American experience is like. Based on John Howard Griffin's Black Like Me, it could have been a powerful story, but it was patronizing and superficial.
  • Bound and Gagged: Happens to Lois quite frequently, but considering her determination to get a story no matter what, being tied to a chair and gagged is just a minor inconvenience.
  • Brainy Brunette: Tied in with Fiery Redhead. She has both the brains and the attitude and has been depicted as both over the years, though jet black hair is her most common look.
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Terrible at spelling, to a mild degree, a running gag throughout several of the media she has appeared in, despite her fame and success as a newspaper journalist.
    Lois: The sex maniac profile. Right. Nine to five it's a Pulitzer Prize winner. What do you bet?
    Perry: There's no "z" in "brassiere.
    • As the 2019 Greg Rucka series highlights, for all her constant spelling mistakes, Lois always gets the names right.
  • The Bus Came Back: Lana Lang in the comics.
  • Cain and Abel: During the New Krypton storyline, Lois becomes the Abel to her younger sister Lucy's Cain as the latter decides to become Superwoman in the hopes of finally winning her father's approval, even if it meant becoming a military weapon to oppose extraterrestrials. Needless to say, Lois is saddened and disappointed by the decisions that Lucy chose.
  • Captain Ersatz: While Lois has been endlessly homaged and parodied, most people don't know that she was based on a 1930s movie series about a tough woman reporter, Torchy Blane.
  • Character Shilling: Post-Crisis, Lois got a lot of free shilling from most characters having anything to do with her, praising Clark Kent for having such a wonderful wife.
  • Characterization Marches On: Golden Age Lois was a lot more level-headed in early stories, occasionally getting herself out of trouble before Superman could do it. Chickification set in the Silver Age and Xenafication in the Modern Age. Lois as she is now is actually quite accurate to the day-one character.
  • Chickification: The Silver Age incarnation. After the more intrepid Golden Age incarnation, conservative values influenced by The Comics Code set in, so she went from being a somewhat bitter rival to Clark to being more focused on getting Superman to marry her.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
    • In the Golden Age comics, Lois had a young niece named Susie Thompkins, whose shtick was getting into trouble by telling fibs. Susie's last appearance was in the mid-'50s; a few years later, Lois' (unmarried) sole sibling Lucy Lane was introduced, and Susie was never seen again, save a few appearances in the "Mr. and Mrs. Superman" stories of The '70s. There, she's shown as the daughter of Earth-Two's married Lucy Lane Thompkins.
    • When DC launched their New 52 program, Lois and Clark's relationship was retconned out of existence (to make room for a romance between Superman and Wonder Woman) and Lois had a new boyfriend named Jonathan Carroll. He disappeared sometime prior to the "Truth" arc, and as of DC Rebirth Lois and Clark are very much together.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: Silver-Age Lois and Lana, though not Lori.
  • Color-Coded Eyes: Has violet eyes, and is the only non-super to have them. So if she's undercover in a disguise, or if the story has another brunette woman in civilian clothes but the artist was incapable of drawing different faces (which happens a lot), then the eye color is the tip-off that it's Lois Lane or a different woman.
  • Color Motifs: Lois is often seen and associated with purple and its' many different shades. In fact, in some forms of media Lois is depicted with purple eyes.
  • Cosmic Plaything: As with Jimmy, some of the things Lois experienced happened because she was connected to Superman... and others just happened out of nowhere.
  • Damsel in Distress: The major example in the superhero world. To the point of some meta jokes about it, and some savvy comments. Several of the versions of Lois (from comic to cartoon and films) have needed to be saved by Superman.
  • Damsel out of Distress:
    • She provides the page image. This is a woman who gets caught by villains all the frickin' time, but only because she knows that if she does so, she'll not only get the scoop on the front page story, but also somehow survive to write it. And not just by getting rescued — if Superman doesn't know/is depowered/is busy, she'll pretend to fall in love with the drug lord who captured her, then blast herself out of their wedding, veil, gown, and all, with a Mook's stolen machine gun.
    • Even in the early days, Lois had quite the nerve. In some of the earliest Fleischer cartoons (now public domain) she pulls such stunts as trying to sabotage a getaway vehicle, climbing onto the back of a mechanical monster to see where it was going, blasting away with a submachine gun at would-be train robbers, and disguising herself as a Nazi to warn the American fleet of a U-boat threat (well, it WAS the early forties).
  • Deadpan Snarker: From day one.
    Clark: Why is it you always avoid me at the office?
    Lois: Please Clark! I've been scribbling "sob stories" all day long. Don't ask me to dish out another.
    —Action Comics #1 (June 1938)
  • A Death in the Limelight: After spending five years in the New 52 as a supporting character, Lois becomes a superhero and finally gets a spotlight with her first ongoing title... only to die in the first issue.
  • Decoy Protagonist: The marketing ahead of Superwoman first issue led readers to believe it would be about Lois Lane (New 52 version). It's pretty safe to say nobody was expecting Lois to be dead by the first issue's end.
  • Depending on the Artist: Even with her iconic-ness, she doesn't have a definitive design with many artists drawing her how they prefer to make her stand out.
    • Her hair changes constantly between black, brunette or auburn.
    • Her hair style changes considerably depending on the artist, going from long to medium to Dido flip to asymmetrical.
    • This became very notable during the final days of the New 52 and DC You with both the younger New 52!Lois and the older Post-Crisis!Lois (who was living in the New 52 Earth in secret) being drawn considerably different with the former having sharper features and long black hair and the latter having a rounder face and medium brown hair.
  • Derailing Love Interests: If it is an Elseworld story, you can bet this is what happens to Lois, that is if she isn't just killed off.
    • In the New 52, Lois and Clark never became an item (even though Clark had a crush on her) with Clark ending up dating Diana Prince all the way until his death in 2016.
  • Distress Ball: Oh so very often. She followed her journalistic instincts into danger so frequently it's a miracle she ever survived before having the personal attentions of a Physical God (aka Superman).
  • Establishing Character Moment: In her very first appearance Lois: reluctantly went out on a date with Clark, got annoyed that Clark didn't stand up to a mobster that was bullying them, slapped the mobster herself, got promptly kidnapped by the mobster, and was rescued by Superman. A rather good overview of what her life would be like for the rest of her existence.
  • Expy: By creator Jerry Siegel's own admission, Lois' entire characterization was lifted straight from the Torchy Blane movies, and her name was nicked from actress Lola Lane.
  • Friendly Enemy: Pre-Crisis, Lois and Lana were usually very good-natured about their love rivalry with each other.
  • Friend in the Press: As a reporter Lois is always willing to give Superman information on stories she is investigating if she believes its relevant.
  • Going for the Big Scoop: Frequently. She is a reporter after all.
  • Graceful Ladies Like Purple: Purple is her main color.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: The monster part is Downplayed Post Crisis, but intrepid reporter Lois Lane is intially intimidated by Wonder Woman, intimdation becomes jealousy as Wonder Woman starts getting friendly with Superman, and when Lois Lane gets a tell all interview with Wonder Woman, ostensibly to inform the world exactly what Wonder Woman's intentions are as ambassador of Themyscira, Lois ends up using it to discern Diana's weaknesses and insecurities out of a need to prove Wonder Woman is not perfect. Lois mostly lets go of her jealously when Wonder Woman reveals she had been deliberately avoiding Lois up until then due to the assumption that Lois hated her.
  • Happily Adopted:
    • Before the New 52 erased it, she and Clark adopted General Zod's son Lor as Chris Kent.
    • In Phillip Kennedy Johnson's run, Clark brings home Osul- and Otho-Ra, twins from a Kryptonian offshoot species, and adopts them.
  • Happily Married:
    • To Clark Kent/Superman in the Post-Crisis timeline.
    • In Kingdom Come, Norman noted that even though Lois was famously a very independent woman, she would still tell people, "Well, Clark thinks..." Not because he was a crutch, but because she loved her husband that much.
  • The Heart: Especially in modern stories. Without Lois, Superman would have a hard time maintaining his humanity and sanity. She's a loving mother as well and is loyal to her friends. Even Batman considers her a good friend.
  • Henpecked Husband: What Superman becomes in some of the Imaginary Stories.
  • Hero with Bad Publicity: While she is always portrayed as competent and is widely respected in her professional life, some stories depict her as this due to the public seeing her as the woman who cheats on her husband Clark Kent with either Superman or Lex Luthor.
  • Hidden Heart of Gold: She does often attempt to hide her softer side, but the truth is she's willing to go to the ends of the earth to fight for justice and protect the people she loves.
  • Informed Attribute: Lois's skills and reputation as an unstoppable and awesome reporter are strangely absent in some incarnations.
  • Interspecies Romance: With Clark Kent/Superman. Clark is a Kryptonian and Lois is a human.
  • Intrepid Reporter: Much more intrepid in the Modern Age, but to an extent in the old stories as well.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's gruff, hard-nosed, sharp-tongued, quick-tempered, bossy, rude, and more than a little bullying; but she's deeply compassionate, has unshakable integrity, is fiercely loyal to her friends and husband, and loves her job because it allows her to help people and fight for truth, justice, and the American Way. And kind, laid-back Clark Kent's attraction to her has strong (though gender-flipped) All Girls Want Bad Boys vibes.
  • Literal Split Personality: Mr. Mxyzptlk reveals in Superman Reborn the pre-Flashpoint and New 52 Lois are actually two halves of the same person. They merge back together in the end.
  • Living Emotional Crutch: Many modern takes on Lois portray her as serving this for Superman showing that he would fall apart, go insane or evil without her. She provides a loving human and down to earth counterbalance as The Cynic to keep Superman's nature as The Idealist from hitting a Despair Event Horizon due to his alien origins and troubles as a superhero.
    • This arguably began with Superman: The Movie where the finale showed that Superman would rather disregard his father's advice and turn back time than live without Lois.
    • The DC Animated Universe had one alternate universe, Brave New Metropolis presented that without Lois, Superman would become a Knight Templar puppet of Lex Luthor. When Prime!Lois accidentally visits this world, she sneers at this trope by mocking AU!Superman, "Look at you now, married to Luthor". A later AU however averts this, A Better World shows Justice Lord!Superman becoming a dictator while keeping Lois under house arrest.
    • Kingdom Come (which came out around the same time as the animated series) also fanned the flames with popularizing the "Lois Lane dies and Superman takes a darker turn," plotline.
    • Injustice: Gods Among Us takes this to the absolute extreme with Injustice!Supes becoming evil in grief over the Joker making him accidentally kill a pregnant Lois and detonating a nuke in Metropolis.
    • Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice has Superman telling Lois that she is "my world" and a vision by Batman shows that in a Bad Future, Superman becomes a dictator in grief over losing Lois (though another vision does clarify that Clark was pushed to the Despair Event Horizon over her death, leaving him vulnerable to being corrupted by the Anti-Life Equation).
  • The Load: Every now and then but by far, most of this Lois trope is concentrated around the Silver Age.
  • Love Makes You Dumb
    • In The Silver Age Superman starts spurning Lois Lane and paying more attention to botique owner Diana Prince. Lois actually starts training to fight this Diana, who catches on and dares Lois to try. Lane had no business accepting even if Prince was a shadow of her former self, though Lois isn't so dumb to start realizing something is off about Diana's behavior.
    • In the Bronze Age Superman dumps Lois Lane for a now re powered Wonder Woman and Lois by now realizes it is just a ruse to protect Lois from criminal activity. Despite this, Lois insists on doing her best to snoop around on them anyway, nearly getting herself killed by said criminal activity Superman's ruse was supposed to keep Lois away from in the first place.
  • Loves My Alter Ego: The former Trope Namer. A Running Gag during the Golden Age and — mainly — the Silver Age. In fact, her Silver Age's iteration currently provides the page image of this trope.
    • When she and Clark Kent became Happily Married in the mid-1990s, he only revealed the truth to her once he was sure she loved Clark instead of Superman.
    • Post-Crisis Lois was initially very skeptical of the Man Of Steel and far more interested in Clark since he was the only person able to routinely scoop her.
  • Loving a Shadow: Her infatuation with Superman often looked like this in the Golden Age and the Silver Age and even a little bit into the Bronze Age.
  • Mama Bear:
    • She proves to be this with her son Jonathan - when the Eradicator tries to kill him because of his half-Kryptonian/half-Human nature, Lois ends up discovering Batman's Hellbat Armor, a suit of armor designed to go toe-to-toe with friggin' Darkseid, and using it to pummel the construct. Hell, Lois name drops the trope herself in this scene:
      Lois: There's some facts about Earth you need to learn... never mess with the baby bear when the mama bear is around.
    • When Poison Ivy has Jon barricaded in the barn with her after incapacitating Clark, Bruce, and Diana with the White Mercy plant, Lois rams the door down with a truck.
  • Military Brat: Ever since the mid-1980s reboot this has been a key part of her characterization, as it provides a backstory, a source for her Action Girl badassery, and plenty of dramatic tension between her, her strict father General Lane, and her sister Lucy (who often sides with the General over Lois). In many stories, Lois's military friends and the knowledge she gained about military protocols often come in handy for stories she's chasing as well.
  • Most Common Super Power: In modern comics, she's shown as very busty.
    N-Z 
  • Never Be a Hero:
    • If she gets superpowers in a story, she'll be back to normal by the end.
    • The Lois of the New 52 gained Superman's powers after The Final Days of Superman, and even got her own title, Superwoman. She's dead by the end of the first issue, as Lana Lang is the true protagonist.
    • A couple of Elseworld stories had her become a superhero — either with superpowers or without — and end with her still a superhero and also either Superman's equal or his successor.
  • The Nicknamer: In adaptations that internal monologues or thought bubbles would be giving too much screentime or sounding unnatural, Lois would be the person to give the iconic names for the villains and even Superman himself, so it would give a quick explanation where they got those nicknames.
  • Official Couple: With Superman in the Post-Crisis timeline. Notably, she didn't find out that Clark was Superman until they were already engaged.
  • One True Love: The love of Clark Kent's life. In nearly every form of Superman media, it is always her he ends up with in the end.
  • Outdated Name: "Lois" was a pretty trendy girls' name during the Golden Age of Comic Books, but underwent a significant drop in popularity since then. By The '80s, when it dropped out of the top 1000 names for girls, it was associated more with middle-aged women than twentysomethings.
  • Parents as People:
    • Recent interpretation of her father Sam to be in this light. He's a high ranking military officer, which frequently clashes with her career as a famous journalist who exposes corruption and dirty deeds of the government. He has hesitation about Superman - the man she supports and is in love with.
    • Lois herself is portrayed as this after she gave birth to Jon. She is loving and wants the best for him, but she still doesn't really know what to do with a child with superpower on top with balancing her love for her career. In fact, she sometimes got herself into trouble that Jon has to use his superpower to help her.
  • Parental Substitute: Earth-2 Lois Lane became this to Power Girl when she and Clark took the young Kryptonian woman in. Post-Crisis Supergirl also became kind of a daughter to Lois.
  • Pictorial Speech-Bubble: In one story, when she's undercover as the bride of a notorious criminal and talking sultrily to him, her entire speech balloon is a pink heart.
  • Pretty in Mink: Has worn a few fur coats over the years, including in some Christmas issues.
  • Purple Is Powerful: Starting since The Animated Series, Lois in both the comics and in animation is nearly always depicted as having violet/purple eyes, and most appearances also have her wearing something that is purple or lavender. The latter about wearing purple enters into Contrived Coincidence at times, like when Lois gained acceptance into Granny Goodness' Female Furies while marooned on Apokolips during Imperious Lex, and Granny happened to have purple armor available after another Fury's death.
  • Real Award, Fictional Character: She's almost always introduced as a Pulitzer Prize recipient.
  • Relationship Upgrade: With Superman or other comic characters.
  • The Reveal Prompts Romance: With Superman, in some continuities, at least.
  • The Rival: She considers Clark Kent to be her rival as the Daily Planet's star reporter, which is especially apparent in the early Golden Age stories.
  • Say It with Hearts: There's one story where she goes undercover as the bride of a notorious criminal. When she's talking sultrily to him, her entire speech balloon is a pink heart.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Lois let these out quite often, in spite of repeatedly being told not to, even after all the other times she'd done it.
  • Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Lois in the Modern Age is in love with Clark not because he is Superman, but because he is a sweet, kind-hearted farmboy from Kansas.
  • Speak Ill of the Dead: When visiting her father's grave at the end of New Krypton, she is questioned why she didn't bring flowers. Lois's response is that her father didn't like flowers and didn't deserve them. Given that Sam Lane committed mass extinction to New Krypton out of irrational hate and paranoia as well as grooming Lucy into being a weapon, Lois has every reason to disparage her father.
  • Split-Personality Merge: At the end of Superman Reborn, the pre-Flashpoint and N52 Lois combine into a single, complete version of Lois Lane; ensuring her integration into the new DC Universe.
  • Stalker with a Crush: During the Silver Age, intentionally or not. Modern writers have struggled ever since to push her away from that.
  • Stepford Snarker: Infamous for her sharp sarcastic tongue and abrasive sardonic wit, but it's implied in later stories that her repetitive sarcasm is a coping mechanism for all the trauma she's experienced while being Superman's love interest as well as her various personal losses related to her family.
  • Superdickery: Sometimes she was the victim, and sometimes she was the instigator, but Lois is a Trope Codifier.
  • Super-Empowering: She tended to run into situations wherein she gained super-powers of her own, most often in the Silver Age. These powers would often be only temporary or dangerous in some manner, necessitating a restoration back to status quo, or they'd be part of an "imaginary story".
  • Take Up My Sword: New-52 Lois sees her new superpowered self in Superwoman as an opportunity to honor the late Clark's legacy.

  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: Her main point of contrast to her sister Lucy.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Thanks to her fondness for getting a front page story, and always having Superman to back her up if/when she needs it. Sometimes it's shown that she takes these risks because she knows she has backups, or can handle herself just fine. And sometimes she puts herself into these situations because a hostage can get the best details of what the criminals and supervillains are up to.
  • Took a Level in Kindness: Her character has soften a lot over time in regarding to trusting other people and believe in the goodness of other people, mostly due to the influence of Clark and later her son Jon.
  • Transformation Comic: Often rivaled the Jimmy Olsen comics for this.
  • Tsundere:
    • Many incarnations of Lois over the years could be called tsundere. Superman almost always gets the dere side and everyone else gets mostly tsun, but there's overlap; once she's known Clark for a while, she tends to be about half-and-half with him.
    • Now she's been married to Clark in the comics for fifteen years, he and Perry and Jimmy have exclusive rights to her dere side while everyone else gets her (genuinely intimidating) tsun side.
  • Undying Loyalty: Towards Superman and her family and friends.
  • Ultimate Job Security: She can sometimes be grating to work with due to her aggressive reporting and her Brutal Honesty on top of her tendency to rush into ridiculously dangerous situations to get the story. She's also an award-winning reporter recognized as one of the best in the world with impeccable grammar, a sprawling network of connections, and years of experience, so her job at the Daily Planet is about as secure as it gets.
  • Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Superman or Clark Kent in several incarnations and comics.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: In those continuities where she doesn't know Clark Kent and Superman are the same, she's usually this to Clark, enjoying a very friendly workplace rivalry with him and chastising him for his timidity. In the early Golden Age her dislike for Clark was genuine but their relationship quickly evolved into this trope. Later, more often in the post-crisis stories, this went even further as her teasing covered up a massive crush on Clark.
  • Weak-Willed: During The Golden Age she was frequently hypnotised. Oddly this was much more a trait of the Golden Age Lois who was assertive and had a very strong personality than The Silver Age's less feisty version.
  • Weirdness Magnet: As much as Jimmy Olsen. Been aged prematurely, forced to marry a gorilla, and much, much more.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: Well, "Well Done, Daughter" Gal, actually. Lois had this relationship with her father Sam Post-Crisis. He wanted a son, badly.
  • Xenafication: Starting at least since the late 1970s in Superman Family, when Lois started kicking bad guy ass quite well in her solo stories without Superman around.
  • Younger Than They Look: Since the 1978 film, Lois has been mostly played by an actress slightly older than the actor playing Clark Kent in live-action, despite the two characters being roughly the same age, or, as was the case in Donnerverse films, Lois being the younger one.note  This is probably to reflect her hard bitten, Street Smart reporter persona against Clark's farmboy naivete.

Alternative Title(s): Lois Lane

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