Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane #81

Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane #81 (On Sale: December 21, 1967) features a great Neal Adams cover. The second issue I bought and I was hooked I tell you, hooked!

"No Witnesses in Outer Space" by is by Leo Dorfman and Kurt Schaffenberger. Continuing from last issue, Lois has moved to Coral City and started a new life. Superman misses her and decides to go back in time to repair their relationship. He plans to arrive at the birthday party he missed, but circumstances cause him to be delayed again. After concluding once again that the past can't be changed, Superman returns to the present.

Lois, in her new job as a nurse, assists Dr. Culver with an experimental gas test performed on death row convicts. Some of the convicts break loose and take Lois as a hostage. Superman arrives to stop them, but Lois is exposed to the gas. The gas gives Lois limited E.S.P. and allows her to read Superman's mind. She finds out that he does love her, but his excuse that she would be a target if they married is a real fear he has.

Lois realizes that she can't marry Rand Kirby as she had planned, but also can't bear to hurt him. When her E.S.P. gives her a vision of the future in which Superman is trapped by Kryptonite in space, she sees Rand rescue him. However, her vision shows Rand dies in the process.

Lois stows away on Rand's rocket and saves Superman herself. When the Man of Steel is free of the Kryptonite, he snaps Lois's lifeline in space.

The back-up story is "How Lois Lane Got Her Job" reprinted from Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane #17 and is by Otto Binder and Kurt Schaffenberger. During a celebration of her anniversary at the Daily Planet Lois tells Clark Kent how she got her job by getting three scoops without any help from Superman. Lois relates how she caught a safe company employee who was selling safe combinations, how she got a picture of a reclusive Rajah who was really a jewel thief, and how she beat a deadline by sending her story on an archeological find in a bottle to reach the Planet. Clark recalls the events surrounding each story and realizes that Superman’s actions nearby inadvertently helped Lois get each of the scoops, but Clark decides to keep the knowledge to himself.

Edited by Mort Weisinger.