10 Most Inappropriate Superman Storylines
3. Lois Lane “Turns Black”
Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane #106 comes dangerously close to being racially offensive by having Lois Lane be “turned” into an African American woman for 24 hours simply to get a potential Pulitzer Prize-winning story.
Lois was assigned to write a non-specified story in Little Africa, Metropolis’ black community. She went to the area and is shunned and ignored by all except a man at a meeting who called her “whitey” and blamed her for all their neighborhood’s problems. Unable to think of any other way to connect with these people, Lois asked Superman to use a Kryptonian device to make her a black person for 24 hours. Thus changed, she was accepted, helped people, and was hit on by the man who yelled at her. He was shot breaking up a drug deal and Lois gave him a transfusion, and the man happily accepted her help with a smile.
The idea that Lois could begin to understand the black experience in a day simply by looking like a black person is probably the most insulting idea of this issue. The creators also fell into the “angry black man” trope and the trope that what one black person experiences is the same for all black people. The creators tried so hard, but they fell so short.