Lana Lang
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Lana Lang is a supporting character in DC Comics' Superman series. Created by writer Bill Finger and artist John Sikela, she first appeared in Superboy #10 (September-October 1950).
Lana has traditionally been Superman's romantic interest when they were teenagers in Smallville. In the Silver Age, she regularly appeared in series featuring the character’s teenaged self Superboy. She also often appeared as an adult in Superman series, vying with current love interest Lois Lane for his attention.
In the modern DC Comics continuity, she and Clark Kent, who was never Superboy as a youth, were and still are close friends with a certain degree of romantic tension between them. She is currently married to Pete Ross, Clark Kent's best friend as a youth.
Lana has been featured in most other media adaptations of Superboy or Superman as a teenager, including the recent series Smallville where she is played by Kristin Kreuk. She has also appeared in many adaptations of Superman, although her role is generally smaller. An exception is the 1983 film Superman III, where she was played by Annette O'Toole and was the character’s main romantic interest.
Original version
In the original Superboy stories, Lana was the girl who lived next door to the Kent family in Smallville, and was a romantic interest of Superboy. In the Silver Age stories, Lana often behaved like a younger version of Lois, spending much of her time trying to prove that Superboy and Clark Kent were one and the same.
At one point, Lana once rescued an insect-like alien trapped by a fallen tree in Smallville. In gratitude, the alien gave her a "bio-genetic" ring which allowed Lana to gain insect (and insect-like, such as arachnids) characteristics. Lana created a yellow honeybee-like costume and mask, and took the name "Insect Queen," under which identity Lana had several adventures.
Lana also had various adventures with Superboy, and several with the futuristic superhero team the Legion of Super-Heroes. Also appearing in some Silver Age stories was Lana's uncle, Professor Potter, an eccentric inventor who had inadvertently created the first Bizarro.
After Clark and Lana graduated from high school, Lana went to college, and eventually became a television reporter; as an adult, she became a rival to Lois Lane for Superman's romantic affection in various 1960s stories, often appearing in the title Superman's Girlfriend, Lois Lane.
During the 1970s and early 1980s, Lana became an anchorperson for WGBS-TV's evening news in Metropolis, as a co-anchor to Clark Kent. Her attraction to Superman during this time had also died off, leaving Superman to Lois. Lana later became romantically linked to the alien super-hero Vartox.
In the early 1980s, with the use of the multiverse system DC had in place, Lana Lang was also shown in one story to have had an "Earth-Two" counterpart (Earth-Two at the time the home of the Justice Society of America and DC's Golden Age versions of its characters, versus its mainstream universe of "Earth-One"). In this story, Lana wound up becoming an Insect Queen like her Earth-One counterpart; in this case, Lana had received a mystic amulet from her archaeologist father, said amulet having been created to allow a Pharaoh to control and divert the locust hordes that threatened ancient Egypt. Unfortunately, the charm associated with the amulet was set to be energized by the sound of approaching insect wings; the next time an insect flew by, Lana was compelled to create a Chitinous golden-brown costume (woven by silkworms under her control) and adopt a villainous alter ego, the Insect Queen. Earth-Two's Superman was able to locate an antidote to the spell, which Lois Lane used to remove the compulsion. (Superman Family #213, 1981)
In Frank Miller's classic graphic novel ', Lana is ''The Daily Planets managing editor. A no-nonsense middle-aged lady, she is Batman's most outspoken supporter, appearing in a series of TV debates in which she and others argue over his methods and influence.
Modern version
After the 1985-1986 miniseries Crisis on Infinite Earths was written, various aspects of Lana's history were retconned, starting with comics writer John Byrne's miniseries Man of Steel, which was designed to rewrite Superman's origin from scratch. In the "post-Crisis" version of events, Lana was a childhood friend of Clark, with a certain degree of romantic tension in the air as Lana had long pined after Clark who had loved her only platonically in return. After they graduated from high school Clark took Lana on a private walk, saying that he had to tell her something important, which Lana honestly expected to be a marriage proposal. He then divulged to her that he had superpowers, displayed by flying her around the state, before explaining that he felt he had to leave Smallville to help humanity as a whole. Kissing her goodbye "like a brother," Lana was left in considerable shock, not only over the revelation of Clark's superpowers, but also over the final realisation that he held no reciprocal romantic feelings towards her, leaving Lana heartbroken and alone. When Lana finally aired her grievance with him years later, Clark felt very bad over how he had hurt her.When Clark appeared in public as Superman some years later, the lonely and depressed Lana deduced his true identity and became something of a stalker, to the extent that Lex Luthor noticed the frequency with which she appeared in the vicinity of the hero and actually had her tortured in an attempt to gain whatever inside knowledge of Superman she might have. However, Lana bravely kept Clark's identity a secret and upon his rescuing her their relationship became more healthy once again, albeit still at a distance. Unlike the pre-Crisis Earth 1 continuity, Lana did not go on to have a journalistic career, compete with Lois for Superman's affections, nor play a significant role in Clark's life in Metropolis. However, one visit to Smallville with Lois created an awkward moment when she discovered them embracing which spurred an impromptu cover story by the Kents of Superman being an adopted sibling to Clark to explain the incident.
Years later, the post-Crisis Lana eventually married Pete Ross, and the two settled into a quiet life in Smallville, with Lana eventually giving birth to their son, whom she named "Clark." In 2000, Pete Ross became Lex Luthor's vice presidential running mate in Luthor's bid to become President of the United States, and after the two won, Lana moved to Washington, D.C. Eventually, Luthor was forced from his office, and Pete Ross became president (and Lana the First Lady of the United States). Recently, Lana and Pete separated with plans to divorce; and Lana began to subtly attempt to regain Clark's affections, much to the anger of his (now) wife Lois Lane. Part of the background to this subplot was that around this time the retcons of began to take effect and new references and flashbacks to Clark and Lana's youth in Smallville depicted their attraction as being more mutual, albeit still unconsummated. However, Pete and Lana have recently reunited after Superman saved them from being killed by the villainous Ruin in Adventures of Superman #647.
In Superman #654, Perry White reported that Lana had become CEO of Lexcorp following the ouster of founder Lex Luthor.
Other media
In the failed 1961 TV pilot The Adventures of Superboy, Lana Lang made her first live-action appearance, portrayed by Bunny Henning, alongside Johnny Rockwell as Superboy.
In 1966, Lana appeared in the Superboy segments of the animated series The New Adventures of Superman. She was voiced by Janet Waldo.
In Richard Donner's in 1978, Lana Lang had a brief appearance in a scene at Smallville High. She was shown to be a cheerleader at the school with a fairly obvious crush on Clark, even though her current boyfriend was a football player named Brad. She was portrayed by Diane Sherry.
In the 1983 movie Superman III Lana was played by Annette O'Toole (who went on to play Martha Kent in the TV series Smallville). In this film, she is a divorcee with a son named Ricky. Lana's former boyfriend Brad, a former jock and Clark's childhood bully, is now a security guard and is still vying for her attention. (Brad possibly inspired the character of Whitney in the series Smallville.)
In the late 1980s Superboy TV series, Lana was played by Stacy Haiduk. In this version, she was a lifelong friend of Clark, who accompanied him to Shuster University (named after Superman's co-creator) and later the Bureau for Extra-Normal Matters, where she and Clark investigated all of the unusual incidents that took place in Capitol City, Florida.
Lana made one appearance in , where she was played by Emily Procter. Lana's appearance was in an episode set in an alternate universe where Lois was dead and Lana was engaged to Clark, encouraging him to keep his abilities secret. When the mainstream universe's Lois persuaded that world's Clark to become Superman, Lana ended their relationship.
The pilot episode of followed the "post-Crisis" comics, with Lana being the first person Clark confided in about his superpowers. Beacause of this, when Clark became Superman, Lana was able to deduce his secret identity. Lana, as an adult, appeared in later episodes as a world-famous fashion designer. The young Lana was voiced by Kelley Schmidt, and the adult version by Joely Fisher.
Smallville
In the 2000s television series Smallville, Lana, played by Kristin Kreuk, is again the (often forbidden) love interest of the young Clark Kent, with at least some of each episode devoted to their potentially developing relationship. Although Kreuk's performance is rarely faulted, many fans of the series consider the long, drawn-out and seemingly endless permutations of Clark's relationship with Lana to be a weakness of the series, especially as it is clearly Clark's "destiny" to end up with Lois rather than Lana. Especially for the first three seasons, Lana's character seemed to suffer from the series' writers never quite knowing how to make her character truly relevant on a weekly basis, resulting in an absurd number (even for Smallville) of episodes in which she is exposed to temporarily power-bestowing and/or personality-changing events, or needing to be rescued from life-threatening danger. Throughout the series, Clark feels guilt because of the death of Lana's parents. When she was a child, the meteor shower that accompanied Clark's arrival on Earth killed her mother and father. She then moved in with her Aunt, and eventually moved out later in the series. She has always had an interest in the meteor shower, and has a suspicion that Clark knows more than he lets on (as he indeed does).Kreuk has long, dark hair and is part-Chinese, part-Dutch, which is a marked difference to the comic book character. Lana's historical ancestry on her maternal side included a French witch whose vengeful spirit later returned to possess her (named Countess Marguerite Isobel Theroux).
In Smallville, Lana and Clark's relationship is depicted (at least initially) as the complete reverse of the post-Crisis version, whereby it was Clark who long pined over Lana without the other really knowing. This initial scenario also incorporated elements of the 1978 movie continuity by introducing the character of Whitney, Lana's quarterback boyfriend and antagonist of Clark's at the beginning of the series. Although their relationship goes through many permutations in which Lana does develop her own genuine feelings for Clark, the series ongoing premise very much relies on a hitherto unprecedented notion that Clark had been deeply, deeply in love with Lana throughout his entire youth.
In the 100th episode of the series, Clark revealed his powers to Lana and proposed to her, to which she answered "yes." Eventually, Lex discovered that she knew Clark's secret and he chased her down the road while he was drunk. This led to a horrific car crash in which Lana died. Appealing to Jor-El, Clark was able to go back in time and save Lana's life (this time not proposing or revealing his secret). Unfortunately this was at the cost of Clark's father, whose heart failed after a confrontation with Lionel (it was implied that Lionel had found out Clark's secret, which he does in the episode where Clark convinces Martha to become the Senator).
Several events have happened since the 100th episode. Lana and Clark's relationship was on the rocks. Lana started researching about the mysterious spaceship in Smallville with business partner, Lex Luthor. Lana and Clark have broken up, and she and Lex Luthor, (played by Michael Rosenbaum) have begun a new romantic relationship, much to the dismay of Clark. In the season five finale, Lana decided to remain loyal to Lex after his development of Kryptonian powers. Unknown to her, Lex's mind had been replaced by that of General Zod.
Trivia
Lana is one of several Superman characters with the initials "LL", including Lex Luthor, Lionel Luthor, Lena Luthor (whose surname was changed to "Thorul" in the Silver Age, to distance herself from her criminal brother), Lois Lane, Letitia Lerner, Lori Lemaris, Lucy Lane and Linda Lee (aka Supergirl).In the Smallville Season One episode "Craving", Lex writes a check to Dr. Steven Hamilton which is dated as "11/12/01." The date he wrote this was on Lana's sixteenth birthday. The Lana Lang portrayed by Kristin Kreuk was born on Tuesday, November 12, 1985. However, this was later retconned to be her fifteenth birthday. Another retcon made was the timing of her birthday. In season four, her birthday is in the episode "Gone", only the second episode of the season.
External links
- [Supermanica: Lana Lang] Supermanica entry on the pre-Crisis Lana Lang
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