Lana Lang

Silver Age

Young Lana

Golden Age/Earth-Two

Earth 2 Insect Queen

Originally Lana Lang was never introduced in the Golden Age of Comics, and actually made her first appearance in the Silver Age. However, when DC introduced the multi-versewith Earth-Two being where the Golden Age heroes reside, she was finally introduced on Earth-Two (this makes it her first “Golden Age appearance”). On Earth-Two Lana joins the Daily Star as a T.V. critic. She meets Clark “again” and explains that her family moved out of Smallville when she was young, explaining why she was never introduced in the Golden Age.

Lana would become the Insect Queen like the Earth-One Lana. Lana received her powers from a mystic amulet that her archaeologist father gave her. The amulet was activated when the sound of Superman flying at super-speed went by it. The amulet was activated and it caused Lana to become ego and take up the name Insect Queen. She would battle Superman but would soon be under the control of Ultra-Humanite. Eventually Superman would find a cure for the mind control and Lana would be set free. Lana would occasionally aid Superman on his adventures.

Modern Age

After Crisis on Infinite Earths, Lana’s origin was retconned along with Superman’s origin. Lana became the childhood friend of Clark and began to fall in love with him. After they graduated from High School, Clark took Lana on a walk at night to tell her something. At first Lana thought he was going to propose to her, but Clark was actually revealing his superpowers to Lana. He then tells her that he has to leave Smallville and use his gifts to help the world. He kissed her goodbye and tells her she’s like a sister to him. Lana was left heartbroken, but she would eventually tell Clark about how he hurt her years later. When Superman makes his first appearance, Lana was able to figure out the identity of Superman easily. She would begin being at the same place and the same time Superman was saving people, and it caught the eye of Lex Luthor. He kidnaps Lana and tortures her in order to find out the identity of Superman, however Lana was able to keep it from Luthor until Superman came to save her. Lana did not pursue a career in journalism and did not compete for his love against Lois.

Lana would later marry Clark’s best friend Pete Ross and the two lived in Smallville. The couple would have a baby son that they named Clark. Lana would later become the First Lady of the United States when Pete became president after Luthor’s removal. Pete and Lana would separate for a while and Lana would begin trying to gain Clark’s love again. Eventually Lana would reconcile with Pete after the two were rescued by Superman. They would eventually divorce and Pete would gain custody of their son.

Lana later becomes the CEO of LexCorp after Lex is once again forced into hiding. With the company's value plummeting, she is forced to sell kryptonite weapons to the government to keep it alive. When Superman confronts her about this, she refuses to hand over the weapons and kyptonite, citing her responsabillity to the employes of LexCorp. With Superman moving against her, she detonates several kryptonite dirty bombs placed around the planet (possibly a remnant of Lex's time) making it inhabitable to kryptonians. This is soon removed by Toyman and his nanites. Superman meets with Lana again, with Lana telling him she was left with no choice. Superman responds by telling her the reason he is with Lois instead of her: because Lois would never have pushed the button. After Superman flies off, someone is shown watching Lana crying on a screen, saying to her "you did perfect".

Lana later attempts to use the LexCorps resources to help Superman in the battle against Atlas, triggering a dormant program in the company's mainframe, a hologram of luthor telling her that her act has violated her employment contract, resulting in her immediate termination.

Lana later meets and takes it upon herself to reach out to Supergirl. She offers her advice and friendship. Around the same time, Perry White has been actively pursuing Lana to take over the Business section of The Daily Planet, a position which Lana was afraid to accept, following her bad experience with Lexcorp. Eventually, Lana and Supergirl decide together that Lana will accept the position, and that Supergirl will take on the secret identity of Linda Lang, niece of Lana Lang. Lana now lives in Metropolis with Supergirl, and is working as the editor of the Business section of The Daily Planet.

She briefly returns to Smallville to attend Jonathan Kent's funeral. However, unable to muster enough resolve to patch up things with Clark, Lana leaves before giving him her condolences.

While attending a student journalism award ceremony with Jimmy Olsen and Cat Grant, Lana suddenly collapses, with blood pouring out her nose. She later receives a call from her doctor telling her that he has "bad news" for her.

Appearances In Other Media

Lana Lang was a main character in Superboy, played by Stacy Haiduk. She was played by Anette O'Toole in Superman III, and by Emily Proctor in Lois & Clark. She has also appeared in several Superman and Superboy animated cartoons.

Season 1: In the series Lana Lang begins as being the high-school crush of Clark Kent during his freshman year. Clark can't get within a few feet of her without falling. This is because she wears a necklace bearing a piece of the meteor that killed her parents so many years ago. Her boyfriend is Whitney Fordman, the football player who is jealous of Clark. Near the end of freshman year she temporarily gains the power to see through the eyes of a killer from meteor rocks. She is also one of the victims Clark most often saved, along with Chloe Sullivan and Lex Luthor. In the Season Finale she is swept up by a twister and Clark abandons Chloe at the prom, running into the tornado to save Lana.

Season 2: The season starts out with Lana's rescue at the hands of Clark and it is often hinted at that she may have witnessed him using his powers but has never been explicitly stated. This season begins to focus even more on Lana now that Whitney (only to die) has left Smallville and her real relationship with Clark begins. In this season she meets her biological father, Henry Small, and begins to form a relationship with him as well. However, this comes comes crashing down when his wife Jennifer Small threatens a divorce if he keeps taking interest in his daughter. Also, to add more change to her life, Aunt Nell moves away from Smallville and so Lana moves in with Chloe and her father. Once again Lana is one of those Clark saves most often, along with Lex.

Season 3: Lana temporarily fades out of importance for this season, while even though her relationship with Clark remains important, they are pulled apart by his secretive lifestyle. Thought at points she gets really close to learning Clark's secret such as when Clark is shot with Kryptonite bullets yet he comes out unscathed. But he shows her that it is simply because he was wearing a lead breastplate. In this season they are numerous attempts on her life, one of them by Adam Knight, whom she had fallen in love with. Near the end of the season Lana is kidnapped by a meteor-freak clone of her former childhood friend, Emily Dinsmore. Emily has become a psychotic murderer with super speed abilities and she keeps Lana locked away in a transparent chamber. However, in the end Lana gets free and at the end of the season leaves Smallville for Paris, bid farewell by Lex...because Clark came too late. In this season Lana kills someone, one of Morgan Edge's henchmen. She also becomes the person whom Clark saves most often.

Season 4: This season brings Lana more into a story that is "seemingly" independent of Clark Kent. Her story begins in Paris where she is with her new love interest, Jason Teague. There, strange things begin to happen when she becomes unconscious by the tomb of Countess Margaret Isobel Thoreaux only to wake up in her bed, with a strange symbol tattooed on her back. These events cause her to flee Paris and she returns to Smallville, closely followed by her lover, Jason. Their relationship becomes very secretive as Jason gets a job at Lana's school and their romance could get him fired. And eventually it does when a jealous Lex reveals it to the board of the school. Yet this becomes the least of Lana's problem when Countess Isobel (a witch from the 17th century and an ancestor to Lana) possesses the young Miss Lang in her effort to gain the Stones of Power. After this ordeal is over, Lana goes through dreams of her witch ancestor's past where she sees a woman who resembles Jason's mother...who she meets after the dream. Amidst all this Lana is also "reunited" with Alicia Baker who is allegedly trying to kill her and Jason. But this is proved false as it is in fact a meteor freak who sees Lana's premarital sex (that she tries to have but never does) as a reason for her to be killed. Isobel later emerges, yet again, when Lana is being tortured in China and there - through a series of events - Isobel loses one of the Stones of Power, only for Lana to recover it (keeping it for herself). And for a moment in this season, Lana seems to have found happiness with Clark when the two of them become the parents of Evan. In this season, Lana is quite a bit less the one always saved by Clark...and her own murderous begins to emerge.