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Readers of all ages and even more so for those entirely unaware with Lois and DC's eighty-plus-year history will find this wonderful and humorous book—the character-acting and brilliant, cheery colors are definite highlights—perfect. Lois's appeal has always come from her confidence and will as much as from her elegant bull-headedness. This reinvented Lois Lane has all those elements in spades; Girl Taking Over's modifications to her character and background simply increase the attraction. Children will feel seen—especially females, and even more especially Asian American girls—thanks to this Graphic Novel. Does anything more superheroic exist than that?
Discover Girl Taking Over: A Lois Lane Story right now from DC Comics!
Imagining Lois as an Asian American adolescent juggling a variety of "real world" issues—conniving bosses, turbulent friendships, and, of course, racism—this Graphic Novel makes even more Lois Lane history. Sarah Kuhn, Arielle Jovellanos, Olivia Pecini, and Melanie Ujimori's Lois Lane Story follows a pre-college Lois as she faces what's intended to be a thrilling summer in National City, where she'll start her journalism career as an intern at CatCo. Her roommate is an ex-friend she cannot fathom reconciling with, and her internship goes bad after Cat Grant is sacked by a brilliantly evil (if a touch flat) corporate-looking white man whose sole "journalistic" goals are generating money. Lois's perfectly planned summer immediately falls apart. < Add to that Lois is on the verge of a collapse under the weight of being a young Asian American woman attempting to establish her value.
The delight and bravery driving this DC Comics graphic novel is how Lois negotiates the piling chaos that is her life—and even comes to welcome the mess as a sign she's really living and not merely following a set "life plan." Though there is not a single costume or cape seen, Girl Taking Over is far from a conventional superhero story; instead, Lois demonstrates herself to be a more significant kind of hero by tenaciously overcoming unforeseen adversity and embracing a difficult road, one that renders her emotionally and professionally exposed. The especially poignant core of this book, something fans have never seen before—a real feat for a character as old as Lois Lane—is her relationship to her mother and her childhood as a constantly bullied Asian American girl. This will make her a role model for a new generation and demographic of readers.
Readers will most likely be aware with the overall profile of Lois Lane's persona; she is of the oldest characters in DC's past lineup of superheroes after first launching alongside Superman in Action Comics #1. That makes Lois personally a historic symbol and a role model for women and girls all around. Although Lois Lane is Superman's wife, her job as an award-winning journalist makes her a hero in her own right. Given DC's creative line of Young Adult graphic books, it seems sense the character is the next-to-star in a book of her own.
Related: Superman's Lois Lane Is Getting the Promotion She Has Always Deserved