Noel Neill, Lois Lane and George Reeves, Superman

When Noel Neill played Lois Lane in the 1950s television show “The Adventures of Superman,” it was a simpler time. There were no fancy computers and wire systems to pull off the special effects.

When Superman flew, it meant that actor George Reeves would put the iconic costume on over a metal mold of his body. The mold was then attached to a pipe that jutted out from behind the transparency screen, and the cameramen would manipulate the pipe to move Reeves and simulate his flying.

Neill was watching this once when Reeves was dropped many feet to the ground. Lying there, Reeves quipped, “Peter Pan flies and Superman doesn’t.”

Yes, back then, things were simpler.

Years later, Neill was on the set of the 1978’s “Superman,” starring Christopher Reeve, when they were shooting the balcony scene where Superman swoops in and flies into the night sky with Lois Lane (played by Margot Kidder) in his arms.

Neill said they kept messing up the timing because of the intricacies of Reeve’s complicated wire system. She eventually left the set from embarrassment.

She preferred the way Superman used to fly.

“Well, it certainly looked a lot better, and it was a lot less time consuming,” Neill said.

Now 84, Neill will appear this weekend as a featured guest at Planet Comicon in Overland Park, Kan.

In a recent phone interview from her California home, Neill said she loves attending comic conventions because there are so many fans who remember her.

Neil was the first actress to ever portray Lois Lane on film. She was in the first Superman movie serials with Kirk Alyn in 1948 before her run as the archetypal Lois Lane in the long-running television series.

She played the mother of a young Lois Lane on the train in the 1978 “Superman” film, and in the summer of 2006 she will also have a cameo in “Superman Returns,” which takes place following events in the first two Christopher Reeve films.

In the new movie, directed by Bryan Singer, Superman (Brandon Routh) has been missing for six years and Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) has risen to power in Metropolis.

Neill said she hadn’t read the script, only her scene, but she said it was clever and the scene it leads into should be exciting.

She said she will be filming her scene near the end of June or early July.

She sounded uncomfortable discussing another upcoming movie, “Truth, Justice and the America Way.” The biopic will star Ben Affleck as George Reeves and explore the controversy surrounding his controversial 1959 suicide that some have suggested was actually a murder by a jealous husband.

“They’re delving into things that have been lied about and ignored for a long time,” Neill said.

She said she didn’t think there would be anyone playing her, and that the script had been floating around for a few years now.

“(George Reeves) was going to do a lot more directing,” Neill said. “He was going to direct some of the new (episodes) the year we lost him.”

She said she got a call in 1959 and was told there were 26 new scripts coming in from New York for episodes of “The Adventures of Superman.” She said she went down to the set to try on her costume and Reeves was paying gin rummy with the director. She stopped to chat.

Reeves told her he was going to try directing. She remembered him saying, “I’m getting a little old to be running around in my underwear.”

Reeves was dead before any of the new episodes could be filmed. Neill said she still misses him.

“George Reeves will always be Superman, no matter who plays him,” she said.