Monday, May 4, 2009

Superwoman Clues Reviewed Part Two - Lucy Lane Scenes


We know that Superwoman is Lucy Lane. But we don't know how she is Superwoman just yet. And we don't know why just yet.

Now that we know it is Lucy, I figured we could look back at the scenes Major Lane was in to see if anything should have tipped us off.



One thing we have seen in the 'Who is Superwoman?' story arc is that Superwoman will listen to General Sam Lane's orders no matter what they are. I get the sense that Lucy Lane has that same degree of loyalty to her father.

We first see Lucy Lane in the Superman:New Krypton Special #1.

Here Lucy talks to Lois at their father's grave. Lois asks her sister if she joined the military more for herself than for her father. Lucy answers she did not, implying that she joined the forces more to please Sam Lane. That sort of blind fidelity, changing her life completely for him, makes it more plausible that she (as Superwoman) would kill for him.


Later Lucy chides Lois for loving Superman more than their father, an act that killed General Lane. It is said with such venom, you can feel that Lucy has just as much hatred for Superman as her father does. That also should have made me suspect Lucy more.


The next time we see Lucy is in Supergirl #38.

Here she demands the body of Agent Liberty before Inspector Henderson can complete his investigation. She states she is doing it on orders of the President. I assumed she was doing it on orders of General Lane to hide the evidence of his death. He was spying on the General when he died.

Of course, now we know Lucy killed him. She may be acting on her own here, covering up her own trail.

Maybe this should have made me think Lucy was Superwoman.

This exchange happens just after the prior one.

Look at how Lucy pauses when Henderson asks if she is related to Lois, as though that struck a nerve.

I don't think Lucy likes Lois that much. The fact that Lucy might have an 'anti-Lois' agenda which could include hurting the super-family also would make her being Superwoman more plausible.


We next see her in Supergirl #39.

Not much to this scene to add to her being Superwoman. It is clear that she is using the discovery of Superwoman's killing of Agent Liberty as a smear to the 'House of El'.

Again, if Lucy became Superwoman to disgrace the Super-family then this scene could make me more suspicious of her in retrospect. But I think I am grasping here.


Here is the only solid clue that Lucy Lane was Superwoman, as seen in Supergirl #40 (just pages before the reveal). Her cell phone makes the same 'vee vee vee' noise that Superwoman's communicator does.



I still wonder if this really is Lucy Lane. I keep wondering if she is talking about herself somehow when she says Henderson is 'harboring an illegal alien'.

It still doesn't make great sense for me why Lucy is Superwoman, what she was hoping to achieve.

From a metatextual point of view, Lucy Lane only appeared in the Supergirl title, not Superman or Action Comics, making her an important Supergirl character, not a super-title character. As a reader, that should have made me wonder more about her as a suspect.

Anyways, I am eager to read the finale of the arc. It has been a great mystery.

3 comments:

Heath Edwards said...

although i quite enjoy lucy as superwoman, i would like to see the story of how she became who she is these days from the person she was before. its nice that she's back, but its quite a change of personality.

Jason said...

Anj...I have to agree w/ your assessments thus far of the possible clues that should have pointed to Lucy. I don't think in retrospect that we could have really guessed her from any of them. None of these moments point out right to her being Superwoman or explain why other than the now-somewhat-obvious-in-hindsight explanation that she donned the Superwoman costume to disgrace the House of El. I really think we are going to simply have to wait until we get the full explanation in the following issues. I do think you pointed to several very legitimate possible clues we could have picked up on.

TalOs said...

Mmmm, sincerely no intentional disrespect meant to Sterling here but I hate the fact that we now have a non E-3 CSA known Superwoman being finally introduced in to our E-0 DCU proper only to have her revealed as being evil now too on top of her being none other then Lucy Lane herself. *Sighs* I'm all for having a Superwoman in E-0 DCU proper but why does she have to be evil though? Why can't we have a Superheroic Superwoman like the Pre-COIE E-1 original? :/