In the 1950s, DC Comics pioneered what it called "Imaginary Stories." These are stories that are not part of the overall general DC Comics continuity. Therefore, whatever the writers want to have happen can happen. As you might imagine, then, in the long-running Superman spinoff series, Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane, the imaginary stories that they figured that kids wanted to read were stories where Lois and Superman finally end up together, get married and have kids. However, over the years, it has not just been Lois Lane who has had kids with Superman. He's had kids with loads of women in different comics.
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In this list, we will take a look at the women that Superman has "knocked up" over the years. Do note, though, that some of these stories are more "real" than others as a couple of them involve outright tricks that would suggest that the women in question weren't technically knocked up. Either way, these were the times that Superman was somebody's baby-daddy!
15 LOIS LANE
As the star of Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane, the person that we have seen Superman have kids with the most in various imaginary stories has clearly been Lois Lane. This even included the famous "final" imaginary story that Alan Moore wrote, "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" which showed Lois and a powerless Superman living a secret life with their child.
In the 1990s, Superman and Lois Lane got married and their marriage lasted until the New 52 rebooted continuity in 2011. However, in DC Convergence, it showed that the Pre-New 52 Clark and Lois were still out there and Lois was pregnant! She had her child, Jonathan, and they ultimately came to the main DC Universe following DC Rebirth, where Clark became Superman again (merging with the since-deceased New 52 version of Superman). Jon appears in his own series, Super Sons, with Batman's son, Damian Wayne.
14 WONDER WOMAN
During the New 52, not only was Superman and Lois Lane's marriage erased, but they weren't even a couple anymore! Instead, Superman ended up with his Justice League teammate, Wonder Woman, and the two even shared their own comic book series for a couple of years. This goes along with a trend that began after Crisis on Infinite Earths to show Superman and Wonder Woman more and more as a romantic coupling in different universes.
Frank Miller famously had Superman and Wonder Woman practically tear Earth apart while having sex in The Dark Knight Strikes Again and their daughter caused all sorts of problems in The Dark Knight III: The Master Race. At the end of Kingdom Come, Superman and Wonder Woman began to pursue a relationship and Batman guessed that Wonder Woman was pregnant. She gave birth to their son in the follow-up event, The Kingdom.
13 SUPERGIRL (MATRIX)
After Crisis on Infinite Earths, Superman was now the only survivor of Krypton, so there was no Supergirl. Eventually, a Supergirl was introduced when a shapeshifting artificial creature from another dimension ended up on Earth after its world was decimated by some evil Kryptonians from that reality. Dubbed "Matrix," the creature eventually took on the form of Supergirl.
Years later, the alien merged with a young woman named Linda Danvers to create a new Supergirl. Over time, this Supergirl ended up on an alternate Earth where she met Superman, who was not related to her at all, so it was fine for them to get together (as noted in our list of superheroes who slept with versions of themselves). They married and had a daughter, but Linda eventually had to return to her reality and leave her husband and child behind.
12 MUCH OF EARTH'S POPULATION
In JLA: Created Equal (by Fabian Nicieza and Kevin Maguire), Earth is ravaged by a cosmic storm that ended up also somehow bringing with it a plague that wiped out all of the men on Earth, except Superman (who was presumably immune to its effects) and Lex Luthor (who had that snazzy armor to protect him). Superman and Wonder Woman had a son (appropriately named Adam) but they also used Superman's DNA to impregnate a bunch of women.
Sadly, Superman then feared that he was actually a carrier of the plague, so he left Earth and in the ensuing years, Luthor slowly turned Superman's own children against the world. A whole bunch of creepy bald kids threatening the new world. Luckily, Superman returned and risked bringing the disease with him. He stopped Luthor and ended up raising more clones created by Luthor.
11 SUPERGIRL
As we noted recently, there was a surprisingly little amount of backlash in the DC Universe during the Silver Age to the idea of Superman and Supergirl getting together. Despite being cousins and Supergirl being a teenager, the stories often presented such a union as no big deal.
Similarly, in Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #55 (by Otto Binder and Kurt Schaffenberger), when Lois finds out that Superman is secretly married to Supergirl with two kids, she's more mad that they kept it a secret! As it turned out, though, Red Krytonite had just driven Supergirl temporarily insane and in her temporary insanity, she wanted to hurt Lois by tricking her into thinking she had lost Superman. The babies were robots and Supergirl super-hypnotized Superman into temporarily playing along. We don't think we want to know what else Supergirl hypnotized him into doing while she was crazy...
10 LASIL
This one stands out because not only is it not part of an imaginary story, it's not even part of an alternate universe! This just flat out happened! In Action Comics #370 (by Cary Bates, Curt Swan and Jack Abel), Superman started having dreams of what seemed to be a past life. He tested the rocket ship he came to Earth in and, to his amazement, learned it was roughly a hundred years older than it should be!
As it turned out, Superman ended up in a portal as a baby and landed on a planet where he gave off a special radiation that caused the people to evolve very quickly. He married and had a kid, but eventually the world fell apart and when he was an old man, his son de-aged him and sent him back through the portal, where only seconds had passed in our dimension.
9 LANA LANG
Lois Lane's most common rival for Superman's affection was Lana Lang, who had been introduced as Superboy's love interest back when Clark Kent was a teenager (essentially, she was a teenage version of Lois Lane, always trying to prove that Clark is really Superboy). She grew up and moved to Metropolis where she and Lois found themselves frequently competing over Superman's hand in marriage.
In a few imaginary stories, Lana actually ended up with Superman, like Superman's Girl Friend #46 (by Jerry Siegel, the master of the Imaginary Story, and Kurt Schaffenberger), where Lois ended up marrying a reformed Lex Luthor, leaving Superman to marry Lana on the rebound and give her superpowers and have a daughter, Joan, with her. Joan is a hero while sadly, Lois' son with Luthor turns out to be a criminal.
8 A MYSTERY WOMAN
Lois Lane is one of the top investigative reporters in the world. While that makes her really good at her job, it also ends up sort of feeding into her obsession with both Superman's secret identity and whether he will marry her. This is because she actually can do something about her situation where other people would have no avenues. She is constantly encountering scientists with inventions that she can use to find Superman's identity or running into magical objects that can aid her quest.
In Superman #131 (by Robert Bernstein and Kurt Schaffenberger), Lois stumbled on to a magical cottage that showed her the future. In the future, Superman has married a woman and had two children with her. However, throughout the vision, the woman's face keeps getting obscured! The vision ends before Lois can learn if the woman is her or not.
7 ANOTHER MYSTERY WOMAN
In Superman #166 (by Edmond Hamilton, Curt Swan and George Klein), Superman has twins with a mystery woman in a classic imaginary story that finds out what happens when only one of Superman's twin children is born with superpowers! Baby Jor-El has powers like his father, but baby Kal-El is powerless like his mysterious human mother.
Kal-El grows up with a serious inferiority complex over being powerless, even though Jor-El does everything he can to help his brother. Things got worse when they went into the Bottled City of Kandor (and thus both were powerless) and Jor-El still ended up being more of a hero than his brother! Finally, though, when Kal-El's lack of kryptonite vulnerability allows him to save his father and brother, everything is fine with the family.
6 YET ANOTHER MYSTERY WOMAN (JEEZ)
In the history of the DC Universe, people often talk about Earth-1 and Earth-2, but one of the lesser known Earths (because it did not technically exist) is Earth-Haney. Writer Bob Haney just did whatever he wanted in his stories and really didn't seem to care whether his stories followed continuity or not.
One of the most famous examples of this was when he introduced the original Super Sons in World's Finest Comics #215. Superman Jr. and Batman Jr. had mysterious mothers, but otherwise, they were young adults who wanted to rebel against their parents while still fighting crime when they had the chance. They talked in all the then-current slang terms and Haney would insist in their appearances that they were real and not "imaginary stories." However, later on, Denny O'Neill revealed that they were a computer simulation gone wrong.
5 LYLA LERROL
When he returned to the Superman titles in the late 1950s, Jerry Siegel began to write some of the best work he had ever done as a comic book writer. One of these stories is the acclaimed "Superman's Return to Krypton," where Superman travels back in time and space and ends up on Krypton soon before it is destroyed. Superman befriends his own father, Jor-El and romances Lyla Lerrol, the most famous actress on Krypton. Superman is taken away, though, before Krypton explodes.
Years later, in the classic "For The Man Who Has Everything" by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons in Superman Annual #11, Superman is subjected to the Black Mercy, a plant that gives people their greatest desire (while they waste away in their fantasy). In Superman's imaginary life within the Black Mercy, he's married to Lyla and has two children with her.
4 KRYSALLA
In Action Comics #410 (by Cary Bates, Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson), Superman is a widower with a young son. As time goes by, we see the past and learn that Clark Kent fell in love with a woman named Krysalla. She then revealed that she was a witch. He revealed that he was Superman. They worried if their child would be okay, but modern science couldn't tell them.
As it turned out, when their son was born, he also came complete with an other-dimensional twin who would take control of his body and commit heinous crimes. For years, Superman had no idea that the world's biggest mass murdering terrorist was his own son! However, he eventually found out the truth and found a way to "kill" the other side of his son.
3 BEAUTIFUL DREAMER
John Byrne took the idea of "imaginary stories" to a whole new level with his 1999 Superman and Batman: Generations miniseries, which took the approach of "What if Superman and Batman actually debuted in 1938 and 1939, respectively, and then aged naturally?" The initial miniseries was a huge success, so Byrne followed it up with an expanded volume 2.
Finally, he did Superman and Batman: Generations III, a 12-book series that went all the way from the 20th century to the 30th century! Along the way, Superman (who is basically immortal) ended up marrying Beautiful Dreamer, one of the Forever People of the New Gods. They had two kids, Lar-El and Vara. Superman was torn from them and was unable to see them for centuries and when he finally tracked them down, Darkseid did, as well, and killed Superman's family in front of him!
2 LARISSA LENOX
As you may or may not know, one of Superman's oddest foes is the other-dimensional imp known as Mister Mxyzptlk, who shows up every 90 days and does all sorts of crazy things until Superman can trick him into saying his name backwards, at which point he has to go back home and not return for another 90 days. In general, Mxyzptlk's tricks are more annoying than anything else.
One of his most twisted, though, occurred in Superman #218 (by Leo Dordman, Curt Swan and Jack Abel), when Mxyzptlk tricked Superman into believing that he had a wife and a young son that had been erased from his memory somehow (cleverly, Mxyzptlk had the wife, Larissa Lenox, suggest that Mxyzptlk had been the one who erased Superman's memory). When Superman figured out the truth and Larissa faded from existence, she disturbingly expressed her love as she melted away.
1 MOOKI
One of the defining attributes of most DC Silver Age characters is a willingness to quickly believe the worst about the people closest to you, typically on rather flimsy evidence. However, Lois Lane had a bit more evidence to go on with Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #30 (by Jerry Siegel and Kurt Schaffenberger). Lois was interviewing a scientist with a powerful telescope that could see distant planets and allow you to listen to them!
Lois stumbled across a planet where Superman was living with a mermaid alien and their son. Lois assumed Superman was still hung up on his old mermaid girlfriend, Lori Lemaris. As it turned out, though, this was not Superman, but one of Superman's Superman robots who had been damaged and fixed by a mermaid before she died. He built a robot out of her in her honor and they built a robot baby.
Do you think Superman should have an actual kid? Or do you think it should stick to just alternate reality Supermen?