Superwoman Wordmark

It’s logo time again! Last month DC published the Superwoman Special that fills in how Lois Lane got her Super Powers in the latest issues of Superman. I’m enjoying the storyline so far even if I feel like Lois doesn’t need Super Powers to be super. What I really want to talk about is the wordmark they’ve gone with.

Rather than use an old logo they drew a new one. I am fascinated by the choices they made on this. The first thing that stands out to me is that it is not based on the 2023 Superman wordmark. It’s much closer in style to the 1983 version that I love so much. It seems once again that the designers at DC aren’t enamored with this new logo and choose not to use it whenever possible. I’m looking forward to the day when we get our DC Bullet next to the 1983 wordmark on a cover again.

A comparison image of the Superman wordmark from volume 5 issue 28 with the Superwoman special wordmark.

I’ve pared it here with the last use of the 83 version on a cover with colors that match (volume 5 issue 28). Notably they squished the logo so it doesn’t cover Lois and Clark’s faces in the art. I’m not sure if it’s because of it being squished, but the letters don’t line up particularly well. Look closely at the top left of the U and see how it doesn’t align with the depth of the letter. You can see the same issues on the inside of the E and the top of the W. There isn’t that same issue with the U in Superman and the Superman version doesn’t have the color inside the E.

A close up of the Superwoman special wordmark. Circles have been drawn around portions of the U, E, and W.

The letter shapes themselves are squished a bit too which you can see in the P and R when comparing to the Superman version. The word is also longer (obviously) so that compresses the end even more. Less cover space for a longer word! Interestingly, all the textless variant covers leave plenty of room for the full logo on top, it’s just this main cover with the text that doesn’t!

I wonder why they didn’t use or base it on the previous Superwoman wordmark. I loved that version. It was clearly inspired by Superman, but had its own identity and was very modern. Maybe they wanted to keep that version for the Lana Lang iteration of the character.

A comparison image of the Superwoman wordmark from issue 17 with the Superwoman special wordmark.

Either way, it’s fun to dig in to a new Superman related wordmark 88-years after his debut.