In "When We First Met", we spotlight the various characters, phrases, objects or events that eventually became notable parts of comic lore, like the first time someone said, "Avengers Assemble!" or the first appearance of Batman's giant penny or the first appearance of Alfred Pennyworth or the first time Spider-Man's face was shown half-Spidey/half-Peter. Stuff like that.
Today, based on a question from reader Dewey B. (that has been asked by a few other readers since then), we look into when Lois Lane first had violet or purple eyes in the comics.
When Lois Lane debuted in Action Comics #1, eye color really wasn't something that most comic book artists were concerning themselves with and Joe Shuster certainly wasn't even drawing enough detail in Lois' eyes that you would be able to tell one way or the other (not to mention that comic book coloring was a whole different animal back then and there would be no way for Shuster to even CONTROL the color of Lois' eyes, since he would be disconnected from the actual coloring process).
However, over the years, Lois Lane slowly came down with some solidly blue eyes, like this awesome Superman #297 story drawn by the iconic Curt Swan in which Lois begins to fall in love with Clark Kent during a period where Clark has been split from his Superman persona...
When Superman was rebooted by John Byrne, he kept Lois' blue eyes...
You can plainly see them on the classic Action Comics #662 cover where she discovers Superman's secret identity...
And there she is, with blue eyes, in the final issue of Dan Jurgens' original Superman run in Superman #150...
However, in the meantime, the Superman Animated Series debuted and the Lois Lane on that show had violet/purple eyes..
Jeph Loeb's run debuted the next issue and he had Mike McKone open up the run until Ed McGuinness became available. It appears that Lois is POSSIBLY drawn with violet eyes in that issue...
But by the time Ed McGuinness takes over as the artist later in the run, her violet eyes are obvious...
And Lois has had violet/purple eyes ever since!
Thanks for the suggestion, Dewey (and all the other people)!
If anyone else has a comic book first that they would like to know, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!
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