"Will the Liberal government give votes to women?"

This was the bodacious booyah of British suffragettes during an infamous political rally that took place on the east side of The Pond exactly 100 years ago, and it had such hear-me-roar-ness that the American National Women's History Project saluted it when it deemed the month of March Women's History Month. From Susan B. Anthony to Rosie the Riveter, Western apocrypha is rife with females, both historical and mythical, who fought for such abstruse goals as the vote.

Of course, comics’ canon is similarly rife with feminist trailblazers of its own, the oldest being beloved "Girl Reporter" Lois Lane...ahhh, though its easy to forget, when admiring the most current version of this character, that said Girl Reporter's feminist trail—her Lois Lane, if you like—was blazed despite the backsteps which manifested as Silver Age codependence and heartache. "The Fattest Girl in Metropolis" is at its subcutaneous core an exploration of the semi-platonic, semi-romance between Superman and Lois Lane, a sometimes-unctuous tale determined to give that ambiguous relationship a name.

The Silver Age Lois's raison d'être is capturing Superman's alien heart—nothing less, and, alas, nothing more. And, for better or for worse, that is why the Silver Age Lois Lane is the quintessential LGBT proxy, a super-diva always pursuing a love that's an arm's length away...and yet just out of reach. But her Rudy-Jones-esque neediness? Her Ray-Palmer-sized self-esteem? Or her Eobard-Thawne-level codependence? That's all Lois, baby!

Driving on a road outside of Metropolis, Superman's Girl Friend witnesses one greedy mobster offing another greedy mobster, as greedy mobsters are wont to do. Lois's absent sense of self doesn't dilute her sense of civic duty, as evidenced by this voiceless realization: "I'm the only witness! I'll report it to the police! But...but how can I describe him? He's so average, with no distinguishing features at all." After that pithy observation, the reader is left to wonder which is at a lower ebb here, Lois's reporting skills or the killer's self-esteem.

Taking a page from Hunter S. Thompson's Gonzo School of Journalism, Lois finds herself on the front page of the Daily Planet in a headline that reads, "Girl Reporter Witnesses Murder," such incidental players as the murderer and murderee presumably relegated to the back pages after Jimmy Olsen's coverage of the local flower show. Not one to rest on her splashy laurels, the Girl Reporter shows her journalistic range by covering the possible cure to world hunger in the form of a ray machine that induces berries to snowball on their vines. Well, this being a Silver Age DC comic, Lois gets inadvertently zapped by said ray machine but is assured by the ray's creator that he's "reasonably certain the growth ray works only on plant life, not humans!"

I did mention that this is a Silver Age DC comic, didn't I?

Then you know what happens. The next morning, a now-200-pound Lois discovers that she'll have to wait a month for a reversal-ray—and you thought your Mondays were bad—so she damns the tamales and takes control of her own health, engaging in a ferrous regiment of exercise that would make Jack Lalanne quail, trying to restore her pirated skinnytude before Superman finds out about her current condition because, as she herself so daintily puts it, "Nobody loves a fat girl...>Sob!<"

Along the secret-and-sob-laden way, Lois bears the myriad Winfrey-esque indignities all-too-familiar to the abruptly obese: a new wardrobe from the discreetly-named Fat Girl's Shoppe, the shattering of a convertible's axle 'neath her catalyzed girth, and the tendering of a job as a freakshow Fat Lady. Even Superman gets in the on the humiliation act: ostensibly not recognizing Lois due to the extra stored energy clinging to her two-dimensional anatomy, the pre-Crisis, planet-juggling Man of Steel, after having lent her a brief flight, tells the fulsome damsel-in-distress, "I must say a girl like you is...er...quite a load! I'm more used to flying Lois Lane around! You would make two of her!" In case you're ever vacationing in Metropolis, please note: murdering mobsters is verboten, but murdering self-worth is perfectly legal. And Superman always upholds the law.

The super-fattening proves to be the culmination of the Big Blue Pixie's hinterland manipulations perpetrated in that practical jokey way that DC's more dysfunctional Silver Age characters have, making poor Miss Lane so portly that the ordinary-looking murderer with the low self-esteem wouldn't be able to recognize her when he sought to cover his first murder with her murder, an inspired precursor to the witness protection program. After all the obvious justice has been properly dispensed, Lois steams like mai-mai at her would-be beau for the nonconsensual corpulence inducement, but, like all the wisest men of the Eisenhower years, Superman mollifies his moll with highly-experimental radiation. Despite earlier claims to the contrary, the growth ray is perfectly capable of reversing its own effects, so the Last Son of Krypton wields the machine in order to revivify his pudgy Girl Friend's petitehood while the potential cure for world hunger likewise shrivels under the boot heel of Lois's bloated vanity.

This story obviously tells the modern reader about how women were judged by men in the 1950's, but it also reveals, uh, tons about how women perceived men...at least from the vista of (male) writer Otto Binder: Superman, Earth's most menschly mensch, is assumed to appraise his not-so-secret love solely by her circumference, a super-superficial judgment for someone with x-ray and microscopic vision.

Evaluated in its historical context, "The Fattest Girl in Metropolis" is actually quite beguiling and genuinely funny. Mister Binder puts a sly twist on the prosy Silver Age theme of gruff weight gain. But then again, so did Elvis. Fellow Fawcett alumnus Kurt Schaffenburger's handsomely wholesome artwork perfectly captures both the letter and the spirit of the story, focusing on the harried characters' facial expressions and making the comedy work. Everyone, from anorexic Lois to fat Lois to bulimic Lois, come across as beautiful and, in one way or another, elegant.

A bizarre parallel between Lois and the pre-feminists of 100 years ago is that when the British suffragettes were imprisoned, they'd go on hunger strike, and their captors—all men, let's remember—would order force feeding, perhaps not making them as fat as Lois, but certainly keeping them from getting any skinnier. Eventually, the Parliament addressed the hunger strikes with legislation whose title bestows the definitive name to the Superman/Lois relationship—the Cat and Mouse Act.

Terrance Griep, Jr. is a writer on "Scooby-Doo," published by DC Comics. Based in Minneapolis, he is also very involved with the queer press, having written for "The Advocate," "Lavender," "QMinnesota," "Queue Press," "Seattle Gay News," and "Out." Speaking of "Out," he was featured in the February 2004 issue as his alter ego, wrestling bad boy Tommy "The SpiderBaby" Saturday.

All images and characters TM and © 1958 DC Comics, Inc. Review © 2005 Terrance Griep.

Prism Comics promotes the works of the LGBT community in comics. It does not implicitly endorse any other material or products associated with those works. Any opinions expressed are those of the author(s).