Lori Lemaris

Superman through the years has had relationships with the women who have all had the initials L.L. Lana Lang was his main squeeze when he was growing up in Smallville. Lois Lane is his former girlfriend and now wife in Metropolis. But in college there was another woman, Lori Lemaris.

Clark Kent met Lemaris during their studies in college and even through she was wheelchair-bound, they formed a tight bond that eventually turned to love. Clark never took into account that his old girlfriend had a ring that turned her into a human sized insect and therefore he might want to check this girl out a little bit. And he was not at all puzzled by the giant treasure chest in her apartment that opened and closed at regular intervals, that she had an aversion to the combination of french fries, coleslaw, and tartar sauce, or that she kissed funny with her mouth all puckered up. Eventually, however, Clark discovered that Lori was a mermaid, dooming the relationship to never getting beyond second base.

Lori was from one of the undersea cities that survived the sinking of Atlantis. After Tritonis sunk, the inhabitants were given a serum that allowed them to breathe under water. A number of questions and observations arise from this fact. First, did the scientists already have this formula in the works or did they begin after the city was three miles under the ocean? Also, we have to assume that sea water was one of the main ingredients for the formula, as it would have introduced itself in to process rather thoroughly.

Due to the pressing need for the new serum, proper clinical tests were not followed, what with the entire population of Tritonis holding their breath and treading water. The serum was administered and though it allowed them the ability to breath, it had one minor side effect in that it turned the lower half of the entire population into fish, giving them the look of the legendary mermaid. Oddly enough, this situation also corresponds to the rise in civil lawyers in Tritonis, the closing of the Atlantis Drug Company, and the filing of the single largest class action suit in history.

Though Clark still loved her, despite their incompatability, Lori realized that they could never have a lasting relationship and returned to the sea. Years later after Clark had become Superman, the two met again to talk and Lori was critically injured by a crazed old sea man who was obsessed with mermaids, rather like Eugene Levi's character in Splash only darker. Superman rushed her to Tritonis, because they could best help her and her HMO would not authorize treatment in Metropolis. There she was treated and eventually recovered. Unfortunately, Lori fell in love with her doctor, a healer named Ronal who loved her in return, though he may only have wanted to spawn her brains out.

Lori Lemaris was killed during the Crisis on Infinite Earths as she and others defended Tritonis from the shadow demons of the Anti-Monitor.