Penny Barnes is a character in the series.
She was an attractive secretary who was in love with Superman and at first thought Jimmy Olsen was him because of a 97% match.
History[]
Penny's past is never mentioned except that she studied languages as a student and at some point got hired by Garret Grady to work for him as a secretary.
When Superman arrived in Metropolis, she fell in love with him. Her work cubicle was strewn with pictures, newspaper articles, stickers and merchandise. Because of this, Penny never had a proper social life, even though she was asked out several times.
Penny deduced that Superman had a secret identity and using criminology on her computer, she constructed a psychological of Superman and combined it with her theory of a secret identity.
He co-worker Doris thought that Penny was living in a fantasy and an attractive girl like her should go and meet a real man. But Penny was determined not to give up as she was certain that underneath all of Superman's spandex was the heart of a real man.
Season 4[]
After two years and several thousand bytes of information on Diticom's state of the art computer, she found a match of a Daily Planet worker named Jimmy Olsen who came up as 97%.
She phoned the Daily Planet immediately and using the identity of Penny Barnabedian, a university student specializing in journalism, she asked Jimmy to meet her at the Roma cafe for lunch so she could interview him.
After interviewing Jimmy who answered all her questions on a list she was ticking off about what she knew about Superman, a car crash occurred. Jimmy left to call 911 and Penny watched as Superman came down from the sky and took the injured passenger to the hospital.
Jimmy suddenly appeared again and apologized for leaving. As Jimmy wasn't there when Superman arrived, Penny excitingly believed her theory to be true of Jimmy being Superman and gave him a huge passionate kiss, much to his surprise, she then gave Jimmy her number to contact her, saying that she would love to see him in his blue suit again.
Her and Jimmy's next date was at a steak house where she impressed Jimmy (who had literally bought a blue suit) and the waiter by ordering food in French. Jimmy confessed that his job of being Daily Planet editor that he had said to her before wasn't his real job. Penny then confessed that she hadn't been completely honest with him either and took him back to the building where she worked.
They walked into Grady's office which was sound proofed. Penny confessed who she really was and that she knew that Jimmy was Superman, but would keep his secret safe. Jimmy tried to tell her at first that she had made a mistake, but when she began kissing him tenderly, he went weak at the knees and they spent an evening of intimacy together. However they were being watched by Grady's henchman Peters who deduced that Penny was Superman's girlfriend and told Grady saying that they could to use this to their advantage of using Penny as insurance to get the Man of Steel to help him install a deadly pulse converter to a satellite that would create a weapon known as "the Annihilator". However Grady told him that they would not do this unless absolutely necessary.
Later that evening she called for help to see Superman again. When the Man of Steel arrived, she embraced and kissed him tenderly once again. Superman however seemed confused by her advances and left. Peters who was lurking in the shadows had seen everything and was now extremely convinced that Penny was Superman's girlfriend.
She and Jimmy then dated again at a Chinese restaurant with Jimmy still continuing the charade of being Superman. They then meet Jimmy's co-workers Lois Lane and her husband Clark Kent (who was in fact the real Superman) who were investigating strange goings on at where Penny worked. She then amazed them all by ordering her food in Chinese, making Jimmy seem to love her even more.
However when she told them about how she met Jimmy Lois was convinced there was something fishy about her, especially since she was the same woman who put the moves on her husband the night before. She whispered her suspicions under the table to Clark (who used his super hearing) while pretending to drop her chopsticks. Clark then went under the table after her, telling Lois not jump to conclusions. Penny was amazed by their strange behavior, but told Jimmy that his friends were lovely. Clark then leaves to put money in the parking meter, while in reality he was going to save someone.
Penny's pager than went off and she had to return to the office. There she met Grady and Peters who wanted her to contact Superman to help them with a favor. She refused and tried to run away but Peters caught her, along with Lois who had followed her.
Penny then called Jimmy saying that if Superman didn't meet Grady on the roof of his building to help install his pulse converter, she and Lois would die, but she only managed to get through to his answering machine.
Peters then Penny and Lois up and locked them in Grady's office, even sound proofing it to prevent them from calling for help. Penny was upset and blamed herself for allowing this chaos to happen, but Lois assured her that it wasn't her fault. Together they manage to get themselves up and make their way to the remote that would turn the sound in the office back on, but Peters had switched the remotes and they kept pressing wrong buttons that activated everything else, including nearly vaporizing them with a laser from a mini satellite. Lois then asked Penny what number she used to contact Superman.
After a while, they managed to untie themselves but they were still locked in. Jimmy who had realized where Penny was held, had set off to find her and asked the real Superman for help. Penny saw Jimmy through the window and declared to Lois that they were saved. Lois looked too and was astonished when Penny told her that Jimmy was Superman. Jimmy found them and shut off the power to let the sound in again.
Meanwhile Superman confronted Grady and with his super hearing, he knew that Penny and Lois were safe. He managed to shut down Grady's annihilator and then captured the evil businessman.
Back in the building, Jimmy tried to bravely fight Peters who was guarding Penny and Lois, but was flung around like a rag doll. Peters than aimed to shoot Jimmy, but Lois managed to blow open the office with the mini satellite laser which knocks Peters off balance. Superman then arrived and caught a dazed Peters who was trying to escape.
Penny embraced Superman for saving her, but was surprised to see Jimmy in the same room. Jimmy hung his head in shame and apologized to Penny for lying to her. At first Penny was hurt by what he had done, but suddenly remembered that Peters had been armed and Jimmy had risked his own life to come to her rescue. She then kissed him affectionately as a sign that she forgave him. They then continued to date after this, while Grady and Peters were taken to the authorities.