This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the most legendary marriage in comic books. Superman and Lois have been a love story since the Man of Steel created the superhero genre all the way back in Action Comics (1938) #1. They defined the iconic will-they-won’t-they that became the standard for so many heroes for decades, and as we all know, comic books are notoriously terrified to change their status quos. Of course, a Superman and Lois marriage was inevitable, with the two icons planning to finally tie the knot in the early ’90s. However, that wasn’t to be, but not because DC was against the change.
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See, DC fully intended for Superman and Lois to tie the knot in Superman (1987) #75, but this comic famously changed direction to instead showcase the Man of Steel’s death at the hands of Doomsday. Instead of the ever-present status quo, this time fans can blame a then-unreleased TV show, Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. This romantic comedy derailed the Super-marriage for years, and while the comics definitely suffered the drastic change in plans, they got the last laugh.
The TV Show that Changed Comic Book History
Clark and Lois have a romance that stretches back decades, but DC was always hesitant to take the next step with the main versions of the characters, afraid to shatter what worked so well. However, the Crisis on Infinite Earths reboot offered the chance for a brand-new version of these characters, modernizing them and fully fleshing out Clark Kent as the heart of Superman, instead of the other way around. It let the romance between these characters truly step onto the next level, culminating in Clark finally asking Lois to marry him. However, their engagement proved problematic for the ABC workers writing Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.
See, this show was based heavily on the post-Crisis incarnations of the characters, and would be marketed mainly on the dynamic of Clark and Lois’s budding romance. Far more so than the superhero side of the story, even. The showrunners were worried about the comic book marriage taking the wind out of the new show’s sails, and asked the comic book team to postpone the wedding for a few years. Thus, DC received one of the most pivotal and earliest examples of adaptation synergy, forcing the Superman writing team to scramble to find an excuse to postpone the wedding for at least a couple of years.
Practically on a whim, the team decided to take the cover to the next level and killed Superman off, taking his comics to the next level by introducing Steel, Superboy, Doomsday, and kick-starting so many more iconic moments for this era. In fact, the funniest part about all of this is that, while the TV forced the comics to delay their plans for three years, the comics actually forced the TV show to wait just the same, which might have played a role in its fall from grace.
The Final Laugh of a Wedding Well-Intended
Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman clearly wanted to marry the titular characters in season three, but by that point, the comics were in the middle of a year-long breakup between our two favorite reporters. Thus, given that the entire point of delaying the comic wedding was to tie the TV and comic ceremonies together, just as the Spider-Man comic and newspaper strip did, the TV show was forced to throw up blocks and stepping stones to push the wedding off. Ultimately, this resulted in the ABC crew making a crucial mistep. They didn’t want to give away that the season three wedding was a hoax, so they went all in.
ABC made a big show of the fake wedding, even announcing that it would premiere over Valentine’s Day weekend and sending heart-shaped invitation announcements to the news staff. So, when “I Now Pronounce You…” finally hit twenty-one million TVs, and it was revealed that Clark married a clone of Lois while the original was kidnapped by a mad scientist, it was the ultimate betrayal. Sometimes, pulling the rug out from under an audience works wonders, but if there’s one thing fans cannot stand, it’s a fake wedding. Just take a look at the buildup and fallout of Batman and Catwoman’s failed wedding, which is infamous to this day. This was exactly that but on a much grander scale, and it’s quite possible that it contributed to the show’s untimely cancelation.
There’s likely more than one reason as to why the show fell from grace so hard, and why ABC decided to cancel plans and contract for a fifth season, but a jilted audience is definitely a big one. Heck, the actual wedding episode, released in the same week as Superman: The Wedding Album, was actually titled “Swear to God, This Time We’re Not Kidding,” which you can check out a scene from right here.
The first fake wedding destroyed people’s trust in the show, and it never quite soared to those heights again. The show forced the comics to swerve, but while their new direction served to set the stage for some of Superman’s most important characters of that era, the TV show shot itself in the foot. The comic books may have been victims of Lois and Clark, but they definitely got the last laugh.
At the end of the day, Superman and Lois were made for each other, and their marriage still stands as the one every other comic relationship is measured against. Let us know your favorite superhero wedding story in the comics below!
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