Art by Kurt Schaffenberger. © DC Comics Inc. Posted by the Web-Ed on 01/14/2010
For the fourth entry in our series "The Weirdest Comic-Book Spankings of All Time", we have this example we first mentioned back in Supergirl Spanks Super-Brats several years ago. JimC also suggests that it may have been this spanking, taken from Lois Lane #20 (October 1960) and seen here as retouched by the Spirit, that started the rumor of a Superman spanking Supergirl panel, which we have called "the Holy Grail of comic-book spankings" and which we have never been able to locate, probably because it doesn't exist.
This was an "imaginary story", which as we explained here was a device used by writers and editors to evade the restrictions of an ongoing continuity. These "imaginary stories" appeared throughout the Superman Family titles during the 1960's, being especially common in Lois Lane. Perhaps this was the only way the editor felt he could have Supes marry Lois or Lana or even both (see "The Three Wives of Superman" in Lois Lane #51 and "The Amazing Story of Superman-Red and Superman-Blue" in Superman #162).
Here is the "spanking" in its original, complete context (author's personal collection). Superman, as Clark Kent, has married Lois and they adopt Supergirl in her guise as Linda Lee. In what has to be the most ridiculously-contrived excuse that we can remember to have things go wrong and gratuitously wring undeserved emotion out of the readers, Linda is removed from the Kent household by the orphanage inspector when she sees Lois "spanking" a Linda Lee robot! (Superman and Supergirl frequently used robots during this period to avoid unexplained absences). You see, when the robot developed a "loose bolt", intead of using the finer implements of Kryptonian technology or even reaching for a simple earth-made tool such as a wrench, Lois decided the best way to effect repairs was to whack the robot on the butt with a hairbrush! It's enough to make you wonder if she's related to Wonder Woman somehow.
Maybe that's why Clark is so unsympathetic to the remorseful Lois in the last panel. Ideally, he should have taken the same hairbrush to her and then to Linda for failing to maintain her robot properly! Now that's an imaginary story we would really like to see!
See also Superman robot spanks Lois Lane in this gallery.
From Lois Lane #20, October 1960 (author's collection)
