Portrayal of women in American comics qualities". Most of DC's Silver Age superheroes each had a major female supporting character. These included three career women: journalist Lois Lane, who worked at "The Daily Planet" with Superman's alter ego, Clark Kent; Jean Loring lawyer and girlfriend of Ray Palmer a.k.a. The Atom and aircraft manufacturer executive Carol Ferris, the boss of Green Lantern's alter ego, Hal Jordan. Iris West was the on-again, off-again girlfriend of the Flash's alter ego, Barry Allen. Batman's supporting cast, beginning in the 1950s, occasionally included journalist Vicki Vale and heiress Kathy Kane, whose alter ego was the motorcycle-riding masked crimefighter Batwoman. With
Academy of Comic-Book Fans and Collectors order of business was to administer the Alley Awards, which traced their origin to "a letter to Jerry dated October 25, 1961," by Thomas, in which he suggested to Bails that his fanzine "Alter-Ego" create its own awards to reward fandom's "favorite comic books in a number of categories" in a manner similar to the Oscars. Initially suggested as "The Alter-Ego Award," the resulting idea was soon named "The Alley Award," "named after V. T. Hamlin's Alley Oop" by Thomas "because surely a caveman had to be the earliest superhero chronologically." The first Alley Awards, given for the calendar year