Profile: Lucy Lane

Lucy Lane

First appearance: Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen, April 1959

History: the younger sister of Lois Lane, she began as an airline stewardess and occasional girlfriend of Jimmy Olsen's. When the DCU was reworked in 1986, she was reintroduced as more of an air traffic controller.

Was subjected to the following act of discrimination: in the early 1970s, she was seemingly killed in issue 120 of Superman's Girlfriend, Lois Lane after a boating accident in Latin America.

What's wrong with how this was done? Depending on your viewpoint, the story from SGFLL was handled far better than a lot of the nastiest storylines DC put out in the post-Crisis era. It did serve as a motivation for Lois in the remaining years of her own series, who quit her job at the Daily Planet at the time and became a freelancer.

Was there anything good to come out of this? A short time later, Lucy was found alive in the series where she'd first debuted, SPJO, towards the end of its own run in the early 70s (both series ended in 1974 and were replaced by the semi-anthological Superman Family, which ran for at least 8 years). She continued into the post-Crisis era and had some pretty good stories built around her.