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This is crucial to determining whether Lois was a step up after the Panther Girl, or the Panther Girl was a step down from Lois.
It kinda depends on which end is up. If I'm not mistaken, it's television in those days that was regarded as a 'step down', especially kiddy television, as contemporary reviews of the first season of ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN were quick to point out. If anything, the move from a feature film (SUPERMAN AND THE MOLE MEN) to a television show could be looked at as a step down. Which means that heading back to the four walls of theatrical release for PANTHER GIRL could be seen as a step back up!

The really interesting case study for me is her PANTHER co-star Clayton Moore. He went from being the masked hero of young and old alike to the un-masked, fedora wearing thug nemesis of guys like Rocket Man at the same time! He just switched back and forth between the two. As you never saw his face unmasked on TV, I wonder how many of the kids realized that it was the same guy?