Action Comics #196 (Sept. 1954)
Circulation at the Daily Planet is down, and gruff but loveable editor Perry White orders Lois Lane to create a comic strip. Now, while asking your star reporter to draft a comic strip makes as much sense as, I don't know, asking your classical music critic to start reviewing plays, the connection here might not seem odd to your average comic book reader. After all, Brenda Starr, Reporter had been a successful daily strip since 1940 -- and was even created by a woman, Dale Messick.
Of course, few knew Dalia "Dale" Messick was a woman at first, she changed her name to conceal that fact. She and Lois may have gotten along just fine. If Lois was a real person. I digress.
So, Lois sits down to write and draw a daily strip. The main character is Mental-Man, a hero with supernatural mental abilities! And he has a girlfriend named Laura Lovely, whom she draws to look exactly like herself! Good Lord! That is really ... embarrassing!
A comic strip about a superhero inside a comic book. Could have called him Meta-Man. Get it? See what I did ... there ...
Anyway.
After not too long, a real Mental-Man appears and asks Lois to marry him.
However, the entire "real" Mental-Man thing was a ruse to trick some actual villains who were planning to do bad things to the world. Working behind the scenes with Superman, Mental-Man was actually Aquaman in disguise ... because it was necessary to ... uhm ... fuck with Lois' head?
The 50s was a really bad time for superhero comic books.
Nice box.
Sources:
Various
Gay For Lois Lane
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