Lex Luthor
Lois Lane
Lana Lang
It cant all be coincidences! :eek:
Oh, you’re barely scratching the surface of the Superman/DC “LL” obsession. The comics themselves often devoted space to showing all the "LL"s in their univrerse.
But I don’t think you can blame it all on Siegel and Scguster – I suspect it’s mostly the fault of the later writers, who noticed a trend beginning and kept it up. “Luthor” was just a single-name character at first, IIRC. And Lana was added long afterwards.
Let’s not forget Lori Lamaris, Lenora Lemaris, Linda Lee Danvers…
Superman’s mom Lara-El.
Whose maiden name was Lara Lor-Van.
In the Smallville universe Lex’s dad is Lionel Luther.
Lightning Lad was prominently featured in what I believe was the first Superman (actually Superboy) story to point out the “LL” thing on-panel. (Superboy # 86, if my geek-memory is correct)
When the Legion first appeared in Adventure #247, the character was called “Lightning Boy.” He later became Lightning Lad, and they added his twin sister Lightning/Light Lass and their evil older brother Lightning Lord.
In the Smallville Universe, Supergirl is passed off as the daughter of Jonathan Kent’s brother, and is called Kara Kent. Missed it by one letter.
Jerry Seigel (sometimes with Joe Schuster, sometimes not) is responsible for a lot of them -
Lois, Luthor*, Lori Lemaris, Lena Luthor, Lyla Lerrol, and Luma Lynai, that I’m sure of.
Others, though, came from later writers.
Otto Binger gave us Linda Lee (Danvers was a later addition after ‘Linda’ was adopted) and Lucy Lane.
Lana Lang was Bill Finger.
Modern installments of the joke include Lionel Luthor (created for Smallville), Letitia Lerner (created by Kyle Baker), Carolyn Llewellyn (check the last name - created by Kurt Buseik), and Linda Lang (a secret identity briefly used by Supergirl - ‘created’ by Sterling Gates).
- Although, as mentioned, Luthor wasn’t originally named Lex, so I’m not sure if the first name was Seigel’s doing or not.
Was it an obsession with “LL” in particular, or a general comic book tradition of using alliterative names?
In the early Sixties, Marvel comics used a host of alliterative names (Peter Parker, Bruce Banner, Reed Richards, Scott Summers, J. Jonah Jameson, et al.). I’ve heard that was, in part, because Stan Lee and Co. were juggling a large number of titles, and alliteration made it easier to remember character names,
The Superman and Superboy comics are actually fairly low on alliteration, aside from the LLs.
In fact, Clark Kent is the only non-LL alliteration I can think of among the main characters, until Chris Kent (Clark and Lois’s adopted son, AKA Lor-Zod, currently lost in the Phantom Zone).
Jimmy Olsen, Pete Ross, Perry White, George Taylor (the editor of the Star, the paper Clark and Lois originally worked at), Jon Kent, Martha Kent, Mary Kent (the original name of Clark’s adoptive mother), the Ultra-Humanite (Superman’s nemesis before Luthor)…Krypto… No alliteration among them.
The name “Lois Lane” was inspired by Lola Lane, an actress who played investigative reporter Torchy Blane in a movie that came out the same year Lois made her debut; and Lois Amster, Jerry Siegel’s high-school crush. (Cite: I read it on the Internet somewhere.) There was also Margo Lane from the radio version of “The Shadow.”
“Lori Lemaris”, the name of Superman’s one-time mermaid girlfriend, looks like it’s derived from Lorelei + maris: siren of the sea.
According to TV producer Kenneth Johnson, that’s why he renamed Bruce Banner to David Banner in the Incredible Hulk TV series. He wanted the show to seem less like a comic book, so he wanted to get away from the alliterative names commonly used by Marvel and named him David Bruce Banner (as seen on the tombstone).
As to why he didn’t go with Robert Bruce Banner, the character’s real name in the comics, Johnson also says David Banner was named partly in honor of his son. Also, Robert Banner might have led into the inevitable “Bob Banner”.
Li lnever lnoticed lany lobsession lwith lthat lparticular lletter. Lwhy ldo lyou lthink lso?
There was, however, Kal-El, Dev-Em, and the Animated Supergirl’s mom, Kala In-Ze.
So does that mean your real name is Ittle Nemo?