Lois Lane used to have her own comic, now she doesn't and the world is poorer because of it. But more on that later. First let's look at "The Snow-Woman Wept!"
The splash page is great. We have Lois as a snow-woman melting in front of Superman's eyes why he is distracted by a harlequin.
At the Daily Planet, Perry White tells Lois to cover Superman being crowned king of the Winter Carnival at her alma mater, Raleigh College. Clark on the other hand despite already working for GBS is given the plum assignment of covering Operation Neptune a new project by Raleigh's Nobel Prize winner Prof. Bridnell. Lois is understandably upset.
Clark and Lois arrive at the Raleigh College where Lois goes off to cover the Winter Carnival where she meets super snow sculptor Norman Brooks. I note that Clark admits that Lois would never reveal his secret identity, so it seems you're wasting a lot of time and energy hiding it Clark.
Brooks decides to make a snow sculpture of Lois. Meanwhile Bridnell shows clark his newest invention. A gun that makes anyone into Aquaman. You see Earth has become so polluted that man needs to return to the sea, because the oceans aren't polluted at all. Are you sure you won the Nobel Prize? Also has anyone checked with Aquaman to see what he thinks about this idea?
But the gun is not ready for use yet. So Clark is hurried away. Unfortunately Bridnell one of his assistants turns on him and with a mighty karate chop...
Meanwhile, Lois being Lois decides to forget about the Winter Carnival and see what she can dig up on Operation Neptune. Just in time to hear the bad guys plan.
The bad guys, being dirty commies, have decided to use Operation Neptune to create super-frogmen who will sabotage our nuclear subs and destroy us in quick shock and awe operation.
But the bad guys find Lois and shoot her in the face with the gun which just as Bridnell warned wasn't ready for human use. It turns Lois into a snow-woman.
Uh-oh the bad guys in disguised as carnival goes shoot Supes with the Operation Neptune gun which starts to turn him to snow. Because he's no longer invulnerable... And now for an interlude. During the Silver Age, Superman's powers had grown to such an incredible degree that he was juggling planets. It made it difficult to write for the guy. So Denny O'Neil, Curt Swan, and editor Julie Schwartz came up with a plan to reduce Superman's power level. It started with a nuclear explosion, as a result of which all Kryptonite (which by this time it seemed every crook had) on earth was turned to iron and a sand doppelganger of Superman was created. While sand-superman was running around Superman's powers were periodically failing. Eventually, there was a conflict between the two but eventually sand-superman returned to his own dimension taking a big chunk of Superman's powers with him.
Supes uses his heat vision to melt himself? This really doesn't make much sense but hey...
Deciding turnabout is fair play Supes freezes the bad guys and defrosts Lois.
Back up story Rose and the Thorn.
For those of you who don't remember Rose and the Thorn was one of those mental illness derived heroes. Sweet Rose during the day becomes the Thorn at night so that she can track down her father's killers.
Thorn makes quick work of the bad guys.
Meanwhile during the day Rose continues her work as the best secretary at the funeral home, and her boss asks her out. As you're lawyer, I would advise against that you're setting yourself for a sexual harassment lawsuit.
Night comes and Rose once again assumes the role of Thorn only this time a crook gets the drop on her, but not for long.
But despite her quest for revenge, Thorn is a good guy. And good guys don't kill the baddies. Right Supermen. Right Zack Snyder? Thorn drags the crook out of the water who now has a Wookie life debt to her.
And it's a good thing too, because someone starts shooting at them and they have to retreat but Thorn knows just where to go.
Bonus
Big changes for Superman in 1971.
Ok this wasn't the best issue of Lois Lane, but neither was it the worst. So why does Lois Lane and by extension Jimmy Olsen deserve their own series again? Because it's a great vehicle for storytelling. Imagine a world where gods walk the Earth. In that world what do ordinary folks do? Well they engage in petty behavior, fight for attention, and seek to have adventures on their own. And that's the stuff that makes for great stories.
Sure the Lois Lane comic probably produced more crazy stories than any other comic in history but that's ok because we remember those crazy stories long after boring stories are forgotten. Finally, people love Lois Lane. And why wouldn't DC want to produce a book about a character people love. DC are you listening?
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