This is Wedding Bells Are Ringin', a month-long examination of notable comic book weddings, since this is June, after all, and that's a time for weddings. I let you all vote and you voted for this feature to spotlight real AND fake weddings. I've decided, then, to only go with weddings that actually ended with marriages, whether dreams or not (in other words, everything but called off weddings).

We had some formatting delays over the last week, so I'm still catching up on the last few entries from my June spotlight features, including these wedding spotlights. Today, in the final wedding spotlight (for now, I will do more on a less regular basis in the future), I look at how two of the oldest superhero comic book characters tied the knot in a fortieth anniversary celebration!

When Gardner Fox introduced the concept of Earth-2 in 1961's Flash #123, there was one major hitch in the concept. The whole idea behind it was to suggest that the Golden Age superheroes that DC had introduced in the 1940s before their books went out of print were living on a separate world from their new, Silver Age counterparts who used the same names but were very different characters. It was a very clever way to work in the original Flash, Jay Garrick, and the original Green Lantern, Alan Scott, into stories featuring Barry Allen and Hal Jordan. However, the major hitch is that DC had five major superheroes whose stories never stopped after the Golden Age (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow and Aquaman), and so there was no real need for their to be two different versions of those heroes. The problem, of course, is that once you establish the concept of an Earth-2, though, how do you not include Earth-2 versions of those other heroes? Eventually, it was confirmed that there was, in fact, an Earth-2 Batman and Superman. That reveal was fairly anti-climactic and for the next decade or so, there was still little done with the Earth-2 versions of the World's Finest Duo.

As the 1970s came to a close, though, that was no longer the case, as both major heroes were suddenly given a notable plotline. For Batman, it was his death in a Justice Society storyline following the introduction of his daughter, Helena Wayne, as the new superhero known as the Huntress (Earth-2 Batman married Earth-2 Catwoman). For Superman, it was the wedding of the century in 1978's Action Comics #484, celebrating the 40th anniversary of Superman's debut in Action Comics #1. The cover is a gorgeous Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez piece featuring a riff on the Action Comics #1 cover (where Superman lifts a car), as now Superman is lifting a car with "Just Married" danging from it as he and a married Lois Lane fly into the sky. The story, "Superman Takes a Wife!" was by Cary Bates, Curt Swan and Joe Giella.

Superman and Lois Lane getting married had a long tradition in DC comics up until this point, but the hook was always that it turned out to be an imaginary story or it was reversed somehow (in one notable instance, it was a Superman lookalike marrying a Lois Lane lookalike).

Now that he had access to Earth-2, however, longtime Action Comics writer Cary Bates was able to make a move that would shock the audience - having Superman and Lois Lane get married for REAL!

After first establishing that this story is taking place on an alternate Earth, we meet a brand-new villain that is tormenting Superman. Dubbed Colonel Future, the character was based on the famous comic book and pulp fiction writer, Edmond Hamilton, who had recently passed away. Hamilton was a brilliant and inventive writer and his most famous pulp character was named Captain Future. This new villain is even named Edmond. Presumably, Action Comics editor Julius Schwartz played a role in the Hamilton-inspired character.

In any event, Colonel Future hires the old Justice Society villain, the Wizard, and has him use his powers to finally get rid of Superman to clear things for the good Colonel. The Wizard agreed and since Superman is vulnerable to magic, the spell got rid of Superman. Wizard, though, didn't know that Superman had a secret identity, Clark Kent, so when the Wizard got rid of Superman, the Man of Steel just remained as Clark Kent full-time, with Clark no longer remembering his alter ego.

The thing is, with Clark Kent now not knowing that he was "just" the secret identity for Superman, Clark began to act a whole lot more aggressively.

As it turns out, Clark's natural personality is to be a hero (duh) and when he wasn't intentionally making himself seem mild-mannered, Clark began to kick butt and take names and he began to really impress Lois Lane. Without Superman holding him back, Clark was free to woo Lois and with Superman missing, there was no real reason for Lois to not marry Clark, so the two are finally wed.

The funny thing is, though, that Colonel Future thought that getting rid of Superman would make things easy for him, but it turned out that Clark Kent, crusading journalist, was just as much of a problem for him as Superman was. After Kent foiled a number of his villainous plots, Future ordered the assassination of Clark. He is attacked during his honeymoon with Lois, but the attacks shockingly don't hurt him.

A curious Lois does an experiment and she discovers that, shockingly enough, now that she finally gave up trying to prove that Clark Kent was Superman (she seriously tried it again earlier in the issue), she now learns that she was correct all along! But she knows and Clark doesn't!

Lois seeks out the Wizard and cuts a deal with him to reverse his earlier spell. The Wizard was more than happy to help, as his Superman erasure spell was actually sort of ruined his villainy career, as no one believed that he pulled it off and instead credited other villains. He was so depressed that he no longer even did magic.

Lois gave him a pep talk and he very publicly used his powers to bring Superman back. Now that Clark was Superman, Lois was certain that he would force a marriage annulment, but Superman surprised her by letting her know that he not only wanted to remain married, but that he wanted to take her to the Fortress of Solitude to marry her in a Kryptonian ceremony, as well.

The characters then went into their own regular back-up feature, eventually ending up as one of the features in Superman Family. Years later, Earth-2 Superman and Lois would be two of the few characters to survive Crisis on Infinite Earths while remembering the Multiverse (at least until Infinite Crisis, where they both died).

If any one has suggestions for a future wedding spotlight, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com. I'm done for the month, but I will do more of these in the future outside of just this month-long bit.