Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #107 by Drew Barth

Embedded

Many years ago now, I went to school to get a degree in journalism. While I changed my career path, I always have a soft spot for good journalists, from movies like Good Night, and Good Luck to characters like Kent Brockman, but especially Lois Lane. With many of her modern iterations shirking the role of Superman’s damsel to become one of the most well respected characters in the DC Universe, Lois Lane’s series released last year by Greg Rucka and Mike Perkins is a wonderful gift.

Like it says on the cover of issue one, this Lois Lane series deals with an earth-shattering secret that only Lane herself can reveal—that all multiverses seem to have merged into one and that many characters have been mashed together as a result. With Renee Montoya as The Question acting as bodyguard and investigative partner, Lane prods the very nature of the multiverse while simultaneously getting kicked out of The White House and making enemies of powerful financial interests worldwide. That story felt relevant when I reviewed the first issue in mid-2019. Even if the times have changed, that issue still hasn’t lost any of its impact. But what does a journalistic-centric series like this mean when there’s been such a shift in the world, both internally and externally?

Due to the talent of Rucka and Perkins, Lois Lane still reads like a series that debuted last week. Bringing that light to some of the darker corners of the world made Lois Lane such an interesting character for so long—she endures even without the bulletproof boy scout by her side. She even tells him here that he doesn’t need to be a part of her investigations. This can be handled by herself and The Question.

This is the DC Universe before the infinite multiverse was canon again. Also, this is a comic when we all had Trump-shaped ulcers, but removed from all of that context, there is that core mystery driving the story forward. There is the world that is a giant puzzle to be solved and there’s this idea that investigating and just doing some goddamn good journalism can change things for the better. But then this is comics—it’s a medium known for being fantastical.

Get excited. Get writing.

Drew Barth (Episode 331) is a writer residing in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida. Right now, he’s worrying about his cat.