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If there’s one person who knows what makes a good Lois Lane, it’s Margot Kidder.

While she might not have been the first woman to portray the love of Superman’s life onscreen — that would be Noel Neill, who portrayed the character in 1948’s movie serial, Superman, although Rolly Bester was the first actor to ever play the character in the 1940 radio show The Adventures of Superman — Kidder is arguably the archetypal live-action Lois thanks to her appearances in the 1970s and ‘80s Superman movies. Funny, sexy, and wonderfully relentless, Kidder’s performance personifies the character’s defining traits so easily that it’s as if she had a hand in creating the character in the first place.

All of which must have made her criticism of the Lois Lane that appeared in 2013’s Man of Steel and 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice all the more painful.

“They took one of the best American actresses’ around, Amy Adams, and didn’t give her anything to do! I mean, how stupid is that?” the late actress said in a 2016 interview. “They made her what used to be the girlfriend, which kind of ended in the 60s with women’s rights.”

Let’s bypass the (not incorrect, let’s be honest) criticism of the Zack Snyder-directed movies and focus on what Kidder’s real point is: even though Lois Lane is obviously going to be a supporting player in any film that centers around Superman, she should never be a character whose only purpose is to hang around and react to whatever Superman is doing. In her own mind, Lois is the star of her own movie, and doing things on her own that the Man of Steel may or may not be involved in — and any movie or TV show that doesn’t treat her as at least an equal to Superman in any given situation is missing the entire point of the character.

She’s far more that Superman’s girlfriend (or wife, which has been the comic book status quo for the most part since the mid-1990s). If you don’t believe us, surely you can take it from Margot Kidder.

James Gunn's Superman is flying into theaters soon enough, and Popverse has all you need to prepare. Refreshing your cinematic memory with our Superman movie watch order, learn what we know about the upcoming Superman movie, Superman's S-Shield through the ages, and read about what DC is doing ahead of their flagship hero's triumphant return.