The Wedding

They finally did it!  The long-awaited wedding of Lois and Clark happens suddenly this month.  After years of build-up, teases, imaginary stories, alternate universes, and clone weddings, the Man of Steel finally married his girlfriend of nearly 60 years, Lois Lane.

In pre-Crisis continuity, the Earth 2 Superman and Lois had been married on the occasion of Superman's 40th anniversary.  Earth 1 Lois and Clark lived happily married ever after in their final story, Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow.  But none of those stories were as important at the time or even in continuity anymore.

The same week that the couple finally tied the knot in the comics, they also exchanged their vows on the television series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, in an episode titled "Swear to God, This Time We're Not Kidding."  Though both stories were totally different, this helped to put the wedding in the public eye so that even people who didn't follow Superman were aware of it.  While Superman's wedding may have had less media coverage than his funeral, it had enough saturation that everyone has since accepted Lois and Clark as a married couple, even beyond a 2011 reboot that tried to annul their union.

Superman #118

After not having been seen in the comics for several months, we get an issue focused on Lois Lane.  Invetigating a heroin cartel in the country of Bhutran, Lois meets a local whose life was changed by an American visitor years ago, who it turns out happened to have been Clark before he became Superman.  He leads her up a mountain to get an interview with the wise man at the top, who it turns out is just a rock formation shaped like a man.  Despite not finding what she was looking for, she has an opportunity to process her feelings for Clark and decides to go back to Metropolis to marry Clark.

Meanwhile, Superman goes to S.T.A.R. Labs for testing because his powers still haven't come back since the sun went out in the Final Night.

Superman: The Wedding Album #1

Lois gets a free ride back to the U.S. on the private plane of the drug lord she's been investigating and successfully fooled into thinking she was going to marry.  She single-handedly defeats him and his henchman, and makes her dramatic return to the Daily Planet in a tattered wedding dress. 

Lois and Clark make up and immediately start planning their big day, including bachelor and bachelorette parties.  Though still powerless and now vulnerable, Clark can't resist changing to Superman occasionally to help people when he can, even if it means being late to his own bachelor party.  Maxima finds him while he's in his costume and throws herself at him one final time, until she realizes he lost his powers and is no longer her suitable mate. 

Bruce Wayne helps the newlyweds secure a new apartment in a building he owns, while as Batman he assembles a league of heroes to watch over Metropolis while Superman is absent for his honeymoon.  Minus Aquaman, these heroes are almost the entire team that would unite in Grant Morrison's legendary JLA the following the month.

This issue also marks the end of Superman's 90's mullet.  Clark surprises Lois at the altar with a haircut, which then matches perfectly the art of Curt Swan, who had just died.

Adventures of Superman #541

Lois and Clark start their honey moon in Hawaii, where Clark suddenly remembers he left Professor Hamilton at the Fortress of Solitude in the arctic!  He makes a quick phone call to check in, but fortunately the professor has been taken care of by the robots and is so absorbed in studying the fortress he doesn't want to leave.

Although Superboy was shown as one of the heroes who guard Metropolis, he's also happens to be in Waikiki fighting a menehune who's trying to stop the construction of the new Lexcorp hotel.

While walking along the Ala Wai canal that night, Clark is suddenly shot and falls into the water, where he's abducted by a speed boat.  The villains don't know it, but they just crossed Mrs. Superman.

Action Comics #728

Clark wakes up to find that the brother of the drug lord Lois took down kidnapped him.  They were aiming for Lois, but they decided they can still use her husband to lure her.

While held in a cell, Clark reflects back on another time when he was forced not to use his powers.  In the flash back, he used a yoga technique that he learned in Bhutran to slow down his heart and make a terrorist think he died of Kryptonite poisoning.

Back in the present, Clark uses the same deception to make his captors think he committed suicide.  He breaks out when they enter the cell to check on him, only to find out that he's held captive in a submarine under the ocean.

Lois only appears on one page, in which the Honolulu police briefly mistake her for a suspect in her husband's disappearance.

Superman: The Man of Steel #63

The drug cartel leaves a trail of clues to lead Lois into a trap on their private island, but she's actually steps ahead of them and arrives before they were expecting her.  Like a guerilla, she sets traps of her own and takes out the drug lord's guards all by herself.  It turns out what the drug lord really wanted all along were the plans to a secret weapon that were hidden in the hilt of a knife that Lois held on to after her prenuptial fight on the plane and inexplicably took along on her honeymoon. 

It's fun to see the tables turn with Lois coming to Clark's rescue.  This also helps put behind them the conflict that had made them break up in the first place, and you get to see them falling more in love from this experience.  Lois frees her husband from the cartel and they catch a ladder from a coast guard helicopter.  They both kiss as it flies off into the sunset.  It's the perfect ending to a far from perfect honeymoon.