Is Lois Lane holding Superman back as a character? 

Without even watching the video yet: YES.

This 15:24 is very true and something I've been noticing lately as well. We as humans are social creatures, so we partly relate to a character through their relationships. Right now they've been pushing to have heroes be single or if they are in a relationship it's only given a light mention. The last Superhero comic I can think of that had a really good romance was Aquamans New 52 and Rebirth run. His and Mera's relationship was really well done and those runs had a great balance between romance and action. A large part of that being because there is so much more you can do when you have two superpowered beings in a relationship instead of the superpowered and normal human trope. Also DC had "Superman/Wonder Woman: Power Couple" which was unique because it was the only series out at the time that's main focus was romance. So if you wanted to just have action/adventure you'd find that in their solo series but if you wanted their romance to be the focus they had a book dedicated to it. It's baffling that DC didn't capitalize on the series and expanded it into a spinoff title with other couples, as they do have tons of other really cool and underrated couples like -Batman x Catwoman -Mister Miracle x Big Barda -Green Arrow x Black Canary -Nightwing x Starfire -Hawkman x Hawkgirl -Orion x Bekka -Conner x Cassie -Green Lantern x Star Sapphire In my opinion we need more romance not less and a good writer can find a balance between action and romance.

I agree that Superman shouldn't get divorced or something like that but there are plenty of ways to get rid of that relationship without doing that.

Id like someone to list their favorite Superman stories and point out the ones that don't involve Lois Lane. (For me it's John Byrne, Rebirth, Triangle era, Early 2000s, and 70s to pre-crisis. All of which he was with Lois Lane.) The relationship hasn't been a problem until they kicked Peter Tomasi and Dan Jurgens off Superman for Bendis.

I agree that Superman shouldn't get divorced but I also don't see the need to adhere to his relationship with Lois. The reason is mainly that unlike the other relationships you mentioned: Superman has better options. And it's not even about just having a "hot" wife. Diana is objectively by every conceivable metric a better person than Lois Lane. He gets along better with her, they have similar goals, and ideals etc and have far deeper moments with each other than you ever get with Lois because she can never truly understand him. With Clark & Diana: -They function better as people. -The potential for storytelling is better. You can go anywhere and do anything with the two of them including writing them both as ordinary humans with ordinary daily lives. -Their relationship has better marketing potential. Countless couples cosplay as Superman & Wonder Woman and buy Superman/Wonder Woman merch. Lois sells nothing. -Hell even their potential kids are better. Their kids in the Frank Miller universe were far more interesting than the embarrassing joke that is the current Jon Kent. Even Superman & Wonder Woman's son Hyperman aka the objectively superior Jon Kent from Kingdom Come was way more interesting than the pathetic thing that Lois produced. So they have more interesting kids with unique powers that can also be their own people with their own stories. It's all upsides with that relationship. All things that would improve both franchises. Whereas with Lois you have to *struggle* just to find something for her to do. Do you see how insane the gap is?

There two videos I would recommend watching. The first one is called: "Lois Lame...Amirite?" by Mel Man and the other is a much longer podcast type discussion called "Lois Lane and Steve Trevor: Boring Love Interests" by Comics League. The latter is much more in-depth scathing critique of both characters. Both are worth watching/listening to if you're interested in hearing all the problems with Lois and Steve that many people haven't considered or even want to talk about. Definitely worth checking out if you have time.

Another big problem is that NONE of Lois's skills can actually help Superman because nothing she has is anything he can't already do himself. Whereas someone like Diana would only add to his strengths Lois doesn't really bring anything to the table.

Another common mistake people make is that they think Superman's relationship with Wonder Woman started with the New 52. Thats wrong. It goes back far further than that. They've always been teased and implied to have romantic feelings for each other but couldn't act on it because of his relationship with Lois. One blatant example is the Immortal Beloved storyline. It showed the depth of their bond was far beyond something Lois could ever hope to match but they still had to stick with Lois because of the status quo. It's both fascinating and frustrating to read when you can clearly see the superior relationship on display and writers still choose to go with the lesser one out of adherence to nostalgia.

The true failing of this video is that it actually fails to answer the most important question: Can Lois Lane actually make money? Because the reality is it doesn't actually matter if you can tell a decent story or two with her. Is the book gonna sell? This video seems to be about saving Superman. Is Lois Lane gonna be enough to bring Superman out of the gutter back to prominence? I don't think she is. I don't think she can. Theoretically Wonder Woman could. For reasons other people have already mentioned. A lot of people really underestimate the role that merchandise plays in a lot of media. A lot of shows and franchises are fueled buy toy sales. Plenty of shows get canceled purely because the toys weren't selling. The simple fact is: Lois Lane just isn't marketable. Wonder Woman is. At the end of the day marketing Superman & Wonder Woman together as a romance is gonna make them more bank than Lois Lane ever could. It's the greatest male hero and the greatest female hero. It's a pair that would grab a lot of attention. It just makes way more sense than DC desperately trying to force Lois to be more important than she actually is. He's never needed Lois to stay grounded or be the hero that he is. He was Superman before her and he'll be Superman long after she's gone. If DC really wanted to turn heads with Superman's romance aspect they'd go with Diana. If they were bold, and committed to it long term, you can't tell me that romance wouldn't cause an absolute uproar that would get people talking about both characters again.

Ok so theres a lot of points I disagree with in this video. I would disagree with the notion that Lois grounds him. His humanity isn’t defined by being with Lois. That’s exactly why you get stories like injustice and Superman becomes this shallow codependent flying brick. Clark and Diana acknowledge that they are outsiders of both the godly and mortal worlds existing uniquely but Superman is still humbled as he says he is Superman because of Smallville and its people. He is still Clark but is far more balanced as he can truly relish in his uniqueness with someone who shares the same. Diana enjoys learning of different cultures, while also being an educator and ambassador, socializing/ dancing at night clubs in London and tasting food from different countries. They blend in instead of trying to fit in. You can ground Superman without Lois. She's not needed to ground him mainly because he was already grounded by the Kents. You can have him seek to be human and thats fine but that also works perfectly fine with Diana. That story becomes more interesting when it's both of them doing that together. Because they actually relate to one another. You even literally have that in the New 52 where Clark asks Diana "come be human with me". I don't think that "but Lois has always been there" is a good argument because ultimately all you're saying is that she should be there "just cuz". Which is why you have the current situation we're in where Lois doesn't do anything and is only here out of obligation and not because anyone knows what to do with her.

For me, it's both a yes and a no. She is an important part of his mythos, but imo she doesn't always have to be his love interest and she doesn't always have to be in the story(contrary to popular belief Lois is a side character, the series is called "Superman" or "Action Comics"). A lot of my favorite Superman stories don't even have them romantically linked(Kingdom Come, Golden Age, Red Son, Doomed, Grant Morrison's Action Comics run) I feel so many writers and fans overate her importance, I don't even hate the relationship but the more it's pushed that it can only ever be Lois the more I find myself disliking it. Again, we've pretty much seen everything the relationship has to offer, and it should've ended with the pre-flashpoint timeline and not have been brought back, IMO. Practically every other hero in comics gets to explore a different love interest in comics and film except for Superman, which is just dumb imo. At this point, I just want to see a different love interest explored other than Lois, whether that be in comics or film. I'm not saying get rid of Lois they also work just fine as friends, or you could even have Lois be a light antagonist. His most interesting love interest to me is Diana. They have a deep connection that no other hero has in that they're both outsiders, they're both kindhearted, compassionate, and selfless beings who have dedicated their lives to serving humanity. They only enhance one another, and they're the mother and father of the superhero genre(also Diana + Clark = DC). DC had something unique with their series during the New 52, and they literally self-sabotaged it. Their series was the romantic version of the "World's Finest," and it was good until Tomsai came on and destroyed it. Also, contrary to popular belief, Superman doesn't need to be romantically linked with a mortal to be grounded his grounding came from his parents Martha and Johnathan Kent. "Champion of the oppressed, The physical marvel who had sworn to devote his existence to helping those in need" This quote is on the first page of "Action Comics" issue #1 where he wasn't even romantically linked to anyone.

I will agree that turning Superman into a tyrant is stupid but Superman DOES NOT turn into a tyrant without Lois Lane. We've already seen otherwise. Lois died in Kingdom Come and Superman didn't go insane. It doesn't inherently lead to him being a tyrant or some evil ruler. I understand why people like the idea of the god-like being dating the moral trope. It's cute. But the argument that "it's charming tho". Doesn't really change the fact that it doesn't sell. I mean they tried to give Lois a solo series once and it completely and utterly flopped. Because the reality that most people don't want to contend with is that she's just the girl who hopped on Superman's d*ck. Thats her only claim to fame. Yes I think you can make Lois interesting with better writers. But the argument is that: despite that she will not be as interesting as Diana. In the DC Universe: Trying to give Lois something to do almost feels like finding something for a kid to do to keep them distracted while all the grown ups are handling the real problems. It's like during the recent crisis films they included Lois for no real reason but needed to find something for her to do so they decided to have her record the whole incident like a Journalist. Which didn't even matter in the end. Sure they found something for her to do to keep her busy but in the end it's still objectively less important than the actual heroes dealing with the multiverse collapsing and basically amounted to nothing. Meanwhile Diana actually did something relevant by saving all of reality. And Lois didn't even need to be there. That pretty much sums up what Lois is in the DC Universe in general at this point.

I would have to disagree on is which relationship should be in main continuity. If you had Superman & Wonder Woman in the main continuity I genuinely believe that would be enough to make a much more interesting DC Universe. I wasn't a fan of the way they did it in the New 52 but I think if you used SM & WW as their real actual selves it would have been infinitely better. Not an alternate version.

the main problem of the marriage is that you have to age the characters. what ever they do, this stupid idea of her getting super power and becoming "superwoman" is a no no. I hope we get an else world tale by Loeb in the vain of spider-man blue where clark reminisces about the old farm days with Lana, who is diagnosed with Cancer. Amid his sadness , Lois pops in randomly and shares a pint of ice cream with him making him realize that he does have his rock that gives him solace all along.

Am I the only one in the comments who loves Clark and Lois together?? Superman’s whole thing is about compassion, kindness, and family. By creating a family with Lois, he is allowed to express that part of himself most completely. I know that Superman would probably do well with another partner or even as a playboy for a while- but I also know that character is not “Superman.” That down-to-earth relationship with a plucky, headstrong character like Lois is exactly why we love Superman so much. He’s all-powerful, yet he chooses someone like her to balance him out, someone that very well could (and sometimes wanted to) expose his identity to the world. What is Superman without Lois Lane? Hey, if they want to do Superman without Lois in the Absolute universe, go right ahead; appease both sides. I’ll just be loving my family of kindness over here in the main one.😊

7 really the same Lois Lane who was so emotionally fragile she saw the rest of us as threat to her yo are making our case for us

100% Yes. Lois is not that great. In fact if I were to be a little mean she's honestly kinda trash. Lois fans seem to be under the impression that Lois is this great character but I don't see it. She's just a rude abrasive reporter. Whats so compelling about that? Can anyone even actually name Lois Lane's top 5 greatest moments of all time? What exactly does she even do that you couldn't do with any other woman? You talk about it from Superman's perspective of "just having his girl" but the way you describe it it's a role that could really be filled by any woman. Doesn't have to be Lois. Why couldn't it be Lana or Diana, or Lori the Mermaid? People saying it's not superman if it's not Lois just sounds like old heads who are stuck on old ideas and refuse to change. That mentality is exactly why Superman has been stagnant.

5 he is already part of humanity he grew up as human before he learned of his Kryptonian heritage so no LL doesn't ground him

The Silver Age portraying Lois as a sociopath didn't help her image. Then again, Superman wasn't exactly a nice guy in those comics either.

3 not at all lois lane is important but Lois will grow old and die clark will live beyond her death lois should with someone who can much her life span and that's not clark it's unfair to her imagime if you were in her place watching your self geting old while your spouse doesn't

6 you are joking clark is a better reporter than Lois his brain is a super computer hello

10 wow it astounds me that people still haven't realised that DC is suckering them for the last 68 years Superman's most important relationship is with his buddy Batman same thing with Batman it's Gotham his family which he coparents with Alfred being the Granfather and Clark being the second father for half the Batfamily the third most important is the Joker THIS IS AN ACTUALL LINE FROM N52 BATMAN/SUPERMAN #18 (you tried to trick me tempt me but i know who the real target should be the one you confide in the most the one who understands you the best the one you will miss more than any other when he dies and the bad guy shoots Batman) Batman is above both Wonder woman and Lois Lane they only giving you relationships with women so DC can take your money more lines this time from pre N52 ( LOOK SUPERMAN AND BATMAN ARE THE LINCHPIN TO EVERYTHING NO MATTER WHAT TIME OR UNIVERSE SOME VERSION OF YOU TWO EXISTS AND WHEN THAT BALANCE IS UPSET OR UPROOTED CALL IT A CATACLYSM OR AN APOCALYPSE OR CRISIS SO ALL THIS WAS A TEST A CHANCE FOR YOU TO GET READY AND FOR YOU TO REALISE HOW IMPORTANT YOU ARE TO EACH OTHER) this from 2006 the first time that DC merged them together the second time was 2 years ago I'm really sorry but Lois or Diana and Selina can never be as important Because DC doesnt see them as important they just exist to make you part with your money

1 let me stop you right there he is a normal man he just have powers and stop call him Superman his name is clark kent Superman is the mask

2 he is not an an alien he just have alien dna he as human as they come

9 yes because romance had its day platonic relationship are on the rise and quite frankly are superior to the romanantic/sexual ones

4 i'am sorry but pre crisis lois lane is very repulsive she said she wanted to trick Superman to honest mariage as long as i live i will never forget that line NEVER

8 if someone removed your wife from your life nothing fundamentally will change 8'5 no she really isn't his world he has his parents and his friends to keep him grounded just fine