#“I'm an Asian Lois Lane scholar” i say like a liar bcuz I refuse to watch maws s2 or read the maws comics cuz I value my mental health

[jesncin]

The Potential of Asian Lois Lane: An extra addition

A bonus addition to my Asian Lois essay. I know Lois Chaudhari isn't technically a Lois since the premise of the comic she's from is where the Superman mythos is fictional and the characters in it happen to be named Clark/Lois etc. But since she's a Lois stand in and romantic partner to the Clark Kent of that story, I figured she deserves an honorable mention at least.

Here's where I position her in my Spectrum of Asian Lois Lane chart. And I'd like to talk about her!

Compared to American Alien, this Lois is actually specific and textually Indian in Superman: Secret Identity. Unlike American Alien Lois (that never specified what kind of Asian Lois was), she can't be replaced as a white woman because the text acknowledges her Indian identity (her name, lines of dialogue like this, etc.) hence she's not interchangeable with whiteness. So this take has that going for it.

Where Lois Chaudhari still falls behind Girl Taking Over (and what it shares in common with American Alien) is yet again a sense of missed opportunities narratively.

In Superman: Secret Identity, a man named Clark Kent from Picketsville suddenly has Superman's powers. After years of being made fun of for his namesake, he suddenly is what everyone has been making fun of him for- and as he lives through life he slowly understands why fictional!Superman is the way he is. It's a great story but where it misses the mark for me is its failure to recognize Superman as an immigrant. Secret Identity's Clark isn't an alien immigrant, or a human immigrant, and is instead ostracized because of his name. Government baddies want to do experiments on him so he has to hide from them too. But then he meets city girl Lois Chaudhari, and they connect because people keep teasing them for their names and Lois knows what it's like to keep secrets because she,,, committed a crime as a teen once.

"I guess we're both dangerous felons, then. Public menaces."

Being hunted by the government and being experimented on isn't really the same as being caught shoplifting.

It works well enough as a connection but to me is a huge missed opportunity to have an Indian American relate to your Superman stand-in as an immigrant. To connect on a deeper level other than "people make fun of us for sharing names with fictional characters". Later in the story, Clark and Lois have twin daughters who are visibly Indian. They too, have Superman's powers. While we're treated extensively to the narrative showing us why Clark would hide his powers from the government wishing to seek harm on him, we never get to see what Clark's daughters have to deal with on top of being visibly non-white.

Superman as an alien immigrant is an anecdote in this story. Because after all, that's not what a white American man from Picketsville would find relatable about him, is it? I have the same thing to say about Secret Identity that I did with American Alien: "Clark isn’t the only American Alien in American Alien, if you catch my drift."

I think this story is the perfect encapsulation of the limits of a white writer. One of my hottest takes on Superman is that the best and most holistic take on his character doesn't exist in the white imagination. Take a look once more at the Spectrum of Asian Lois Lanes chart that I made. All save for Girl Taking Over were headed by white men (MAWS may have Asian directors and writers on their team but ultimately its pitch and main ideas are the brain child of Jake Wyatt, a white man).

People have taken issue with me saying this and assume that I mean white people can't write a good Superman story, and no. That's not what I'm saying. I like Superman: Secret Identity. I even like American Alien. But it's been 80 years of predominantly white writers of all backgrounds getting the chance to write Superman- and already multiple attempts at an Asian Lois- and yet it took until Gene Yang (and artists Gurihiru) with Smashes the Klan and Sarah Kuhn (and artist Arielle Jovellanos) with Girl Taking Over that I felt Superman's themes as an immigrant finally took center stage and weren't just a mention or anecdote.

In no way do I want to imply that getting writers of color or Asian writers specifically will mean you'll be guaranteed a great Superman story. I'm against promoting the idea that diverse talent is infallible or tokenizing and essentializing them in such a way. What I am saying is that the best and most holistic story on Superman as an alien immigrant isn't even a goal in the white imagination. Immigrant Superman doesn't live in that mind. He doesn't pay rent there. He doesn't stop by to visit. And no, Superman creators Shuster and Siegel wouldn't have written that story either. Superman may have been the "Champion of the Oppressed" from another planet under their pen, but he would never have related to or have had immigrant solidarity with America's perpetual foreigners the way Smashes the Klan portrayed him as having. Superman's creators were too busy writing Slam Bradley to be able to write that kind of Superman.

The appeal of these cape characters for me, is the process of adaptation. Seeing them be handed off to someone else with different life experience. Seeing them bring a whole new perspective that surpasses even the creator's intentions on their character. That's what makes these characters rich and worthy of constant revisits. I just think that people of different backgrounds should be able to get as many chances as white men have with writing Superman and his cast of characters.