Several years ago, I did a post about the Lee Family, a group of semi-recurring characters who I liked and wanted to see more of. As I have noted extensively on this site, a book called Superman Smashes the Klan came along and retold the 1940s radio story in which they debuted. I’m a big fan of that book and highly recommend it to all Superman fans.

But that radio show wasn’t the only appearance of the characters, I argued. Tommy Lee had also shown up as Clark Kent’s roommate in some Bronze Age stories. I didn’t know then if this was coincidence or not, but this year I decided I might as well get to the bottom of it. I sent an email to Bob Rozakis, the writer of the stories that introduced the comics version of Tommy, and got this reply: “Clark’s college roommate Tommy Lee was named after one of my college friends.” This proves that the 1980s Tommy and his family and their similarities to the 1940s versions wasn’t an homage, it was pure coincidence.

This just makes me all the more certain that these characters need to come back. On a rational level, I can understand that with the thousands of Superman stories told over decades, such coincidences are bound to happen just because of the sheer numbers. I don’t actually believe that the ideas of these characters is destined by the universe to break through and just needs our help to get it to be permanent. And while I may not actually believe it, I’ll gladly pretend to believe it if it helps me justify bringing these characters back.

As I said in the previous post the woman named Lee who served on Metropolis’s “SCU” police force in some 90s comics was a potential post-Crisis version of Tommy’s sister (then unnamed, now known as Lan-Shin “Roberta” Lee). The Lan-Shin of Superman Smashes the Klan is an inquisitive and adventurous young woman, traits that could easily be remade into the traits of a police detective. And I’ll also note that the connection between the SCU Lee and Tommy’s unnamed sister came to me in a dream. Another sign that the ideas are trying to manifest on their own.

I admit that apart from Rozakis’s input, this update is just me reiterating what I already felt. But I still feel it, so why not reiterate? Bring the Lee family back to the Superman franchise. It’s the only way to shut me up about it.

I don’t have a complex Superman Thought here, but have you ever noticed that the recent television shows in the Superman Family line have a thing for giving characters siblings that aren’t present in the source material?

In Supergirl, they gave Kara an adoptive sister named Alex. They also gave Kara’s mother a sister named Astra. They gave Jimmy a sister named Kelly. Then, over on Superman and Lois they gave Jon a brother named Jordan. And then (big ol’ spoiler here) Superman is revealed to also have a brother. Heck, even Steel is mentioned to have a sister he doesn’t have in the books, though it remains to be seen if she’s a reworking of his sister-in-law from the books or what.

It varies when this works and when it doesn’t. Some of the sibling characters are fine. But it even when it does work out it raise my hackles for one of the things that I dislike about superheroes as a genre that seems to be beloved by most others: personal stakes. Just say they’re siblings and it is supposed to matter when they are in trouble or one is revealed as a villain or whatever. It’s way easier to just tell us they have a pre-existing relationship than actually show two characters relating on screen and letting the audience see it. It isn’t always lazy, but when it is, it’s Especially Lazy.

Anyway, that’s just crankiness. What really bothers me about the need for personal stakes is that it makes it feel like the world revolves around the superhero. If the writers think that we can only have stories about the hero’s parents dying or their spouse being murdered or their friends turning evil or their headquarters being demolished, it really feels like the only thing the characters actually care about is their own bullshit. And that’s not what I want from my superheroes.

There’s a story in the comics going on these days about Clark finding out that there are some oppressed people who have a connection to Krypton, so he leaves Earth to go help them out. I just want it known that I’d be a lot more invested in a story in which Superman goes on an epic quest to rescue an oppressed people who have nothing to do with him whatsoever. That’s the Superman I like.

The television show Superman and Lois has recently finished its first season. It’s not often I try to keep up with a piece of live-action superhero media as it comes out, but this show, and its cousin Supergirl, are obviously things I feel required to keep up on. But that’s okay, because it’s been mostly decent.

But one thing this show does that I’ve seen in too many adaptations of stuff from comics: it uses names from the source material in ways of which I do not approve.

Here’s what they did wrong (Full of Spoilers):

Captain Luthor

For the first couple episodes there is a man identified to the audience as Captain Luthor, whom we’re led to believe is the Lex Luthor of an alternate universe. Eventually, this is revealed to be false. He’s actually the John Henry Irons (aka Steel) from an alternate universe.

This is the most forgivable misuse of a name on this list, in part because I genuinely think the show’s creators named the character without knowing where the show was doing. I genuinely believe they did some rewriting and that Luthor was original what he appeared to be. I can understand wanting to change if you think something will work better, but I think they missed a storytelling opportunity here. As far as I can remember, none of the characters are ever led to believe that Irons is Lex. It’s fully a trick played on the audience, never used within the story.

Even so, the reason I find it so easy to forgive is that the Steel reveal was just great. One of the high points of the season.

Morgan Edge

The use of Morgan Edge as a name on this show is another trick played on the audience, because the character began as he’d appear in comics and went WILDLY different places.

In a way I was pleased, because I was worried that Morgan’s presence meant that they’d be bringing in Darkseid, and as I’ve said, I don’t care for Darkseid in my Superman stuff. But, as I’ve also said before, I prefer Morgan Edge when he’s just a supporting cast member who happens to be a jerk businessman, not a supervillain. That’s not what they did here either.

Nat Irons

In the show, there’s an alternate universe in which John Irons and Lois Lane had a daughter named Natalie (I don’t remember catching her surname). In the comics, John Irons has a niece named Natasha. Both go by Nat.

The thing is, I love Natasha. The existence of Natalie on this show almost certainly guarantees that Natasha will not appear. And that’s a dang shame.

Dabney Donovan

And then the worst of all these nominative crimes! They gave the name Dabney Donovan to a normal run-of-the-mill superscientist who was perfectly pleasant, cooperated with authority, and was utterly normal.

Dabney Donovan in the comics is the kind of unhinged loose cannon of science that he created a miniature planet! That had horns! And he hid it in a cemetery! And created life on it that he raised with horror movies! AND THAT IS JUST HIS FIRST APPEARANCE!

At no point should anyone involved in this show have said “We have a scientist here, we could throw in a name from the comics” and landed on Dabney Donovan. Call him Emil Hamilton if you want to phone it in. Call him Harold Vekko if you want to be more obscure. Call him Bernard Klein maybe. Call him Professor Pepperwinkle if you need to. But don’t waste Dabney Donovan on this minor character.

Look, television people. I can promise you that an appropriate name exists within the Superman franchise for anything you’ve got cooked up. I can name those characters for you. Just ask me before you cast Dabney Donovan as the kind of scientist who WOULDN’T create a horned horror planet.

There is a running gag in Superman media that Lois Lane is bad at spelling. It seems to me that the momentum of this gag is 99% referencing Superman: The Movie, which seems to be the first place it came up. In that instance, it was a moment in which Perry White quickly glances over an article that Lois has handed him. “There’s only one ‘p’ in rapist,” Perry says. The scene continues and Jimmy Olsen mutters “Told you one ‘p’.” It’s a little bit, but it’s good. The joke is less that Lois has misspelled the word and more that the article is apparently so dark.

There have been similar scenes crafted where the juxtaposition of macabre article content and a spelling error has been used to amuse. But sometimes, especially in media that are geared more toward younger viewers, the spelling error on its own is enough for the joke. And sometimes, over time, it has come to just be a part of Lois’s characterization, regardless of joke context. She’s just a bad speller. It even comes up in Gwenda Bond’s Lois novels, which are a favourite of mine.

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned in any other Superman Thoughts post, but I’m currently attempting to get caught up on all the Superman podcasts out there. It’s an exhausting task, but I’m working at it. A couple times people on podcasts have noticed the Lois Spells Bad runner and they’ve said they don’t like it. I don’t want to put words into their mouths, but I think they feel that this is something that makes Lois look dumb. I don’t feel that way. I’ve always thought that Lois is just so passionate about getting her story out, she doesn’t stop to check her spelling. That feels right to me. My ideal Lois Lane is absolutely a person who doesn’t let arbitrary things like rules get between her and the truth.

There’s a lot of mistakes on the Internet, and nobody ought to be surprised by that. I am not smart, so I don’t always catch the mistakes. Sure, I’ll notice if a lyrics page has the wrong words to a song I like or whatever, but most of the time I just innocently wander the Internet and assume that somebody knows what they’re talking about. I’ve probably taken in all sorts of incorrect information from such mistakes.

But not all incorrect information on the Internet is a mistake. Some of it has been put there on purpose. Yup. Sometimes, people on the Internet lie. (It’s okay, take some time to deal with the shock you are feeling to learn that.) And some of those lies relate to Superman.

For example, the DC Fandom page for Bash Bashford, a minor Superboy supporting cast member, insists that he is named Bradley. There’s no basis for that in the comics. But someone who edited that page decided to claim he is named Bradley.

Similarly, several sources on the Internet think that the minor Superman villain called the Archer was named Fenton Quigley. The surname is correct, he was called Quigley in the comics, but given name Fenton comes from someone claiming it once, and it propagating from there. (In fairness the the DC Fandom page, they correctly do not call him Fenton.)

Even the mighty Wikipedia, which has mostly overcome its former reputation for being inaccurate, has such errors, one example being on the “List of Superman enemies” page, where the one-appearance villain Mr. Sinister (who predates the Marvel villain of that name by decades) is given the real name “Lylo”. Again, this is the invention of someone outside the source material.

I have my suspicions about why people make such “mistakes” on the sites: I think they are hoping the inaccuracies will become real. I think that they think that some writer who wants to use an obscure supervillain or reference an obscure Superboy cast member might search the ol’ Superhighway for easy information, see the lies about character names, and use them in official books unknowingly. On some level I can respect that. I don’t particularly like that the Superman franchise is entirely controlled by corporate interests, so I can almost root for these people to add a dash of the common folk into the lore. But it’s also dishonest. The Internet doesn’t need more inaccurate information.

I don’t think I’ll ever call Bash Bashford “Bradley” (Smallville is already home to Brad Wilson and that’s Brad enough for me), but I admit the name “Fenton Quigley” has kind of grown on me over the years. If that or Lylo were mistakenly added to official canon in some way, I’d be conflicted. It would be a victory for some regular fan person who wanted to get their fingerprints on a part of Superman’s world, no matter how small that part is. But it would also be a victory for a jerk. That’s not as good.