The easy joke about Lois Lane is something like “If she’s such a good reporter, how come she can’t tell that the guy she works with is Superman except he’s wearing glasses?” This is all well and good when done in jest, but sometimes people who don’t care for Lois will use this as actual evidence that she’s not a good reporter. The temerity!

Over the decades of Superman’s existence we’ve had almost every kind of story play out with these characters. More often than not these days, Lois does find out that Clark is Superman. I don’t know that there’s been a Superman continuity for decades in which Lois doesn’t find out Clark’s secret identity (actually, maybe the Superman Returns movie, but I legitimately don’t recall). When people mock Lois in this way, they’re actually mocking the Silver Age Lois, which is probably still the most iconic version of the character, which is a shame because it’s not the best by any means.

But even that Silver Age Lois was suspicious that Clark and Superman were one-and-the-same, right? You Loismockers have to admit that. And how did Silver Age Superman escape her suspicion? He used robot duplicates, hypnotism, amnesia, shapechangers, time-travel, and all manner of other Super-Schemes to throw her off the tail. Superman had to use these high-concept deity-level tactics to avoid being found out by Lois Lane, ordinary human reporter. And she was STILL suspicious of him. If anything, Lois Lane’s inability to prove the Clark-Superman connection in that era is a sign that she’s capable of rivalling a human god in a grand intellectual game. Lois Lane is not a bad reporter, people. She’s a super-reporter.

I feel like it is important to note that Bob Farrell, the Rocket Racer, is at least as old as Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man, if not a year or two older. The only time we’re given an exact age is Spectacular Spider-Man #104, in which a newspaper article notes that Bob is twenty-three years old. This is in an era when Peter was in university, and so probably only around twenty-one himself.

But some of the stories that came after that had a tendency to act as if he were a teenager. When they told the story about Bob going to university, they felt the need to include a line about him passing a high-school equivalency test first, forgetting that he was already an adult high school graduate when he first appeared. When he tried to register with the government as a superhero, they stuck him in the “Avengers Academy” for training alongside a bunch of teenagers. And later, when one of those same teenagers tried to gather a bunch of other young heroes to fight a threat that could control adults, they included Bob on a list of potential recruits.

It’s clear that people, both inside and outside the Marvel Universe, think of the Rocket Racer as if he were a teen.

There’s something to be said about the way society treats Black men simultaneously as naive children when it wants to and other times as dangerous adults, but I don’t think that even I can say that’s what’s been happening in Rocket Racer stories. I really just think that people have an understandable tendency to assume the skateboard-themed character is a teenager. If I were to start telling someone about a skateboard-themed character from superhero comics, I’m confident most would assume “teenager” until told otherwise. And, indeed, the idea that he’s got an embarrassingly “childish” style is one source of Bob’s self-esteem issues.

I don’t have much of a deeper thought behind this post. I’d just like for writers to remember Bob’s correct age when they write him. For posterity I must note: Bob’s appearance on the 90s Spider-Man animated show did indeed treat him as a teen. Perhaps that’s correct way to have taken the Rocket Racer, but I think his adult failures in the real Marvel Universe make him a more compelling character.

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On a hill in the grasslands, a Boavaie takes a break while a small herd of Hethrooau lazily wander by.

Boavaie

An Aehubar species that lacks the ability to hear. Boavaie are highly social creatures, but don’t utilize the chirps and whistles common to their communicative cousins. The “tail” of the Boavaie contains organs for creating complex scents that they can use to mark territory and leave messages. For closeup communication, the topmost limbs have evolved for semaphore-like communication.

Vivaiyin

A large part of a Boavaie’s diet is made up of Vivaiyin, a fuzzy little Vootuph that is a useful pollinator in the grasslands. Feeding off plants that secrete their genetic material, that material sticks to the Vivaiyin’s fur, where it is carried off to mingle with other plants. That is, assuming the Vivaiyin is not eaten before it gets there. Fortunately, there’s a lot of them around.

Hethrooau

An example of Gurxian megafauna, Hethrooau are the largest Aehubar. With their topmost limbs and their mouths having adapted to grazing, they roam the grasslands in herds. Their backs are covered in leathery shells that help to protect them from sharp-limbed Glounaph who might try to attack from above and their sheer size tends to protect them from land-based predators.

I have just not found the time to draw another scene of life on Planet Gurx, so I’m just gonna do a post with a bunch more of the Gurxian animals I’ve already drawn, aren’t I? I sure am. Here they go.

Drovoo

A predatory armoured Vootuph with four eyestalks, which allow them to seek out smaller creatures along the Gurxian beaches, and two stabbing appendages, which allow them to kill that prey. Drovoo are the largest of this branch of the Vootuph line, and often prey on smaller examples such as Pwiak.

Twel

Docile river-swimming creatures, the Twel use their hindmost limbs to gather fallen debris to build complex nests in which they, in monogamous pairs, raise their young. Early Strondos (and other Varians of those ages) would hunt Twel and they were a mainstay of their diet.

Hotaein

An Aehubar relatively near the Strondovarians on the evolutionary tree, the Hotaein occupy a similar place to them as monkeys do to humans. That said, Strondos don’t have the sentimentality toward their cousins that some humans have toward theirs, and generally consider Hotaein to be pests.

Urloay

A rare kind of Lapaouger whose hindmost limbs have adapted into tendrils that can snare prey. These, when joined by the claws on the forelimbs, are the weapons that make Urloay one of the most fierce hunters on Gurx.

Guoar

Living in the crowded branches near the canopy of the rare green forests found on some of Gurx’s more isolated islands, the Guoar like to calmly climb around the branches and eat the tiny Vootuph who also live on the trees. Guoar are mellow and slow.

Ayaih

With topmost limbs adapted to digging, the Ayaih live in large systems of tunnels beneath the grasslands, coming out to forage for meals. They’re skittish creatures, used to fleeing back to their tunnels to avoid predators and have a complex language of chirps used to warn each other of threats.