|
|
Post by Hoosier X on Apr 14, 2022 11:56:41 GMT -5
I loved the stories when Lex saved the planet which was them renamed for him... Lexor. He had a love for the ages with Ardora (nee Tharla), with whom he has a son and got to be a superhero there (Defender). Superman was seen as a villain on Lexor, which orbited a red sun. Luthor seems a changed man there, developing loyalty and feelings of sympathy for the Lexorians, who essentially worship him. Classic Weisinger Silver Age what-iffing that wove its way through quite a few stories thay added even more layers to the already complicated Superman-Luthor relationship. These are the first two installments:  b  The story in #164 is another Lex story that I like a lot, but I’ve only read it a couple of times. The public library in Chino has the Superman vs. Luthor TPB and it’s reprinted there. I checked it out of the library five or six years ago. And a year later I was hanging around downtown Chino because my car was being fixed and I had lunch and then decided to go to the library just to sit there and read that story. I recently ordered my own copy of #164 just to have it! |
|
|
|
Post by Hoosier X on Apr 14, 2022 19:30:48 GMT -5
I’m not overly fond of the Silver Age/Bronze Age idea that Superboy and Lex Luthor knew each other back in Smallville.
It is what it is, and I guess it was canon for 25 years.
It’s been a very long time since I read the story from Adventure Comics #271 where Lex is experimenting and there’s an explosion or a fire and his project is ruined and he loses his hair. And he blames Superboy.
I read it in the oversized Limited Collector’s Edition that also reprinted the Joker origin with the Red Hood (Detective #168) and the origins of Captain Cold and Dr Sivana.
I don’t remember caring much about the Smallville connection back then. But lately, I read the re-tellings in Superman #292 and The Last Son of Krypton (the novel) and I’ve been thinking about it more.
And ... no. Just no.
I don’t like tying too many characters to origin stories or “early days.” It’s too contrived. And it frequently contradicts already established histories that are more interesting.
Batman’s origin has become a horror show of contrivances. The Joker killed the Waynes? Come on. Jim Gordon was the patrolman on duty in Crime Alley that night? Joe Chill was hired by Lew Moxon to assassinate the Waynes and make it look like a mere burglary? It’s a massive conspiracy involving the Court if Owls? No. Wait. Martha was insane and the plot to keep it quiet got out of hand and the Waynes had to be killed?
None of this adds a thing to Batman’s origin.
I call it the Muppet Babies syndrome.
I’m willing to accept a little bit of this kind of thing if it’s not too contrived and if it adds something to the story.
But, wow, the whole Superboy/Clark Kent/Lex Luther thing makes no sense. Lex is simultaneously more psychotic if he hates Superman because he’s gone bald and also an idiot because he can’t figure out that Clark is Superman.
I can’t make it work. Nothing can make it work.
And trying to flesh it out (like Maggin in Last Son of Krypton) just makes it even more non-sensical.
|
|
|
|
Post by chadwilliam on Apr 14, 2022 20:04:55 GMT -5
Favorite Luthor stories in chronological order:
Superman #4 - Untitled, reprinted in Superman: From the 30s to the 80s. Luthor's second appearance where he challenges Superman to match his strength against his brain. It doesn't go well for Luthor, but it is gripping while it lasts.
Action Comics #47/Superman #17 "Powerstone!"/"When Titans Clash!" The Powerstone Saga as already mentioned. Luthor goes toe to toe with Superman and even survives the electric chair.
Superman #88 "The Terrible Trio!" Luthor, Toyman, and The Prankster team-up to see which one can kill Superman and earn the title of his greatest foe. Much as I like The Prankster and Toyman, they're not in Luthor's league as is evidenced by how close he gets to winning this little contest.
World's Finest Comics #88 "Superman's and Batman's Greatest Foes!" Luthor and Joker go into business together and it's all legal... for a time.
Superboy #85 "The Impossible Mission!" Hiding out in the late 19th century, Luthor is surprised to discover Superboy visiting the same period. Luckily he's prepared with a piece of red kryptonite which will paralyze the boy of steel until he can make his escape. Unluckily, when he hears a commotion outside his hotel window he discovers that Superboy's visit had nothing whatsoever to do with him. The date is April 15, 1865 and Luthor's just prevented the hero from saving the life of Abraham Lincoln. Luthor's horror at this discovery is a macabrely humanizing moment for the villain.
Adventure Comics #272 "How Luthor Met Superboy!" Kind of silly that DC felt that Luthor's baldness had to be given an origin and one which tied in with Superman at that - it would be like giving The Penguin an origin in which we learned that a young Bruce Wayne made him fat - but this is nevertheless a great story and hey, it's where Luthor is finally given a first name!
Superman #149 "The Death of Superman!" Only Lex Luthor would cure cancer as a mere stepping stone to killing Superman and for one issue, he actually does it.
Superman #164 "The Showdown Between Luthor and Superman!" My favorite comic of all time. Seeing Luthor in front of a cheering crowd as he strangles the life from Superman only to throw the match to finally do something noble and decent for once is one of the most powerful moments in comics.
Superman #167 "The Team of Luthor and Brainiac!" Everything from how the comic explains why Brainiac isn't smart enough to escape the prison Superman's built for him but Luthor is (Luthor endangers Brainiac's life thus setting in motion a failsafe which sets him free since, as Brainiac wouldn't understand, Superman would never let another person die) to Luthor planting a device in Brainiac's head which will destroy him if attempts to betray Luthor to the scene depicted on the cover of a tiny caged Superman being gloated over by Luthor and Brainiac makes me love this one.
Superman Annual #9 "Villain! Villain! Who's Got the Villain?" Luthor uses Red K to disguise Superman as Luthor's twin brother thus pinning all of his crimes on his arch enemy as he goes on to earn public acclaim. Thankfully, Superman's got Batman on his side. A hardly known gem penned by Eliot Maggin and penciled by Alex Toth.
Superman #416 "The Einstein Connection/The Ghost of Superman Future!" In 1986, Luthor saves a boy's life while visiting the landmarks of his hero, Albert Einstein's life explaining that he can't mar such a man's name with the death of an innocent child. 100 years in the future, an elderly Superman makes a rare visit to Earth to send the very message his 1986 self saw so that Luthor will find himself on his eventual road to redemption.
|
|
|
|
Post by Hoosier X on Apr 14, 2022 20:17:13 GMT -5
I’m sure we’ll be seeing the story where the Penguin hates Bruce Wayne because he thinks he made him fat in the next movie reboot! The first step in his revenge was ... making Martha Wayne go mad, and then he hired Joe Chill (or the Joker? Or Carmine Falcone?) to kill the Waynes!
|
|
|
|
Post by Prince Hal on Apr 14, 2022 21:42:06 GMT -5
Re: Luthor's baldness as motive for his hatred of Superman, I refer you to a Silver Age expert, our own Commander Benson , who does all the heavy lifting here. I hope he won't mind my quoting this post I found here: www.tapatalk.com/groups/marvelmasterworksfansite/which-superman-do-you-like-the-best-t29020-s140.htmlThe Commander goes into much much more detailed an examination of the Superman-Luthor relationship in a six-part series on the Captain Comics site. Here's a link to Part One: captaincomics.ning.com/forum/topics/deck-log-entry-166-you-be-the-jury-luthor-v-superboy-part-one( Commander Benson , I hope you don't mind my quoting you and linking to your fine work.) "I have read "How Luthor Met Superboy". from Adventure Comics # 271 (Apr., 1960), many times. It, in fact, is the critical story that decries the common misconception. I wrote about it in one of my Deck Log columns several years ago: 'Lex Luthor hates Superboy/man because he caused Luthor to lose his hair.' This is often touted by fans of the post-Crisis Superman mythos as to why the current Luthor’s opposition to Superman makes more sense. The loss of his hair, while certainly traumatic, doesn’t balance with the intensity and duration of the Silver-Age Luthor’s hatred for Kal-El of Krypton. And that makes the pre-Crisis Luthor seem ridiculously puerile. It does, but only to those who never read the story that first told how it all began, “How Luthor Met Superboy”, from Adventure Comics # 271 (Apr., 1960). Lex Luthor had been an on-going presence in the Superman stories for decades, but this was the first tale to link the two characters in their boyhood. As “How Luthor Met Superboy” describes, the young Luthor had been a great admirer of the Boy of Steel, and shortly after the Luthor family moved to Smallville, fate provided Lex with the opportunity to save his hero’s life from the deadly effects of a kryptonite meteor. Learning of Lex’s ambition to become a great scientist, Superboy constructs for him a modern experimental laboratory. This leads to a friendship between the two lads. (Occasionally, there would be a Silver-Age Superboy story set during this period, when the readers got to witness that friendship for themselves.) After “weeks of feverish experimentation”, young Luthor accomplishes a scientific wonder---the creation of artificial life. It’s only a crude protoplasmic creature in a vessel, but it lives. With the rest of his afternoon free, and feeling grateful to Superboy for having provided him with his new lab, Lex invents an antidote for kryptonite poisoning. In his excitement over his second accomplishment, Luthor accidentally overturns a chemical flask, which starts a fire in his lab. Flying by on patrol, Superboy spots the flames, and sends a blast of his super-breath through the window to extinguish the blaze. When the Boy of Steel checks on Luthor, he finds out that he has screwed up big time. His gust of super-breath knocked over a bottle of acid, spilling the contents over Lex’s green-k antidote, creating a cloud of caustic fumes. The corrosive cloud destroys the crude protoplasmic being, along with all of Luthor’s notes pertaining to its creation. And, yes, its caused Lex’s hair to fall out. This is the birth of Luthor’s intense hatred of Superboy. But as the story clearly depicts, his rage is primarily over the loss of his artificially created life-form, along with the notations without which, he cannot duplicate the experiment. The loss of his hair is almost incidental. Superboy, Luthor insists, used his super-breath to deliberately overturn the acid to destroy the protoplasm. As the first creator of artificial life, Luthor certainly would have received the acclaim of the world, and blind with rage, Lex believes the Boy of Steel was jealous that his fame would be eclipsed by Luthor’s. So it was the destruction of his artificial-life experiment that ignited Luthor’s hatred of the Caped Kryptonian, not the loss of his hair. DC bears some of the blame for the misconception, however, Most Silver-Age stories featuring Luthor included a one-panel flashback of the scene showing Luthor’s hair falling out, or some other one-line reference to it. The business about the destruction of the protoplasm was omitted. This was laziness or sloppy short-hand on the part of Superman writers, however, and not intended to be some sort of revision to the original tale. For the same events from "How Luthor Met Superboy" were iterated---right down to the emphasis on Superboy's destruction of the artificial-life protoplasm---in "The Luthor Nobody Knows", from Superman # 292 (Oct., 1975). When the whole incident is examined, the pre-Crisis Luthor’s intense hatred is much more understandable, and frankly, more plausible than the post-Crisis Luthor’s antagonism toward the Man of Steel. After the Crisis, Luthor was remoulded into the standard “evil millionaire businessman”; he hates Superman out of jealousy and there is some psycho-babble about the Man of Steel being “the one thing he cannot control.” On the other hand, the Silver-Age Luthor’s hatred was spurred on by feelings of resentment, victimisation, and betrayal---far stronger motives, if you ask me. Add to that the fact that the Silver-Age Luthor has some justification for his bitterness. Yes, he’s wrong about Superboy doing it deliberately, but there’s no getting around that the Boy of Steel was careless in precipitously sending a super-blast of wind into a laboratory filled with potentially dangerous chemicals." |
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Apr 14, 2022 22:12:02 GMT -5
Re: Luthor's baldness as motive for his hatred of Superman, I refer you to a Silver Age expert, our own Commander Benson , who does all the heavy lifting here. I hope he won't mind my quoting this post I found here: www.tapatalk.com/groups/marvelmasterworksfansite/which-superman-do-you-like-the-best-t29020-s140.htmlThe Commander goes into much much more detailed an examination of the Superman-Luthor relationship in a six-part series on the Captain Comics site. Here's a link to Part One: captaincomics.ning.com/forum/topics/deck-log-entry-166-you-be-the-jury-luthor-v-superboy-part-one( Commander Benson , I hope you don't mind my quoting you and linking to your fine work.) "I have read "How Luthor Met Superboy". from Adventure Comics # 271 (Apr., 1960), many times. It, in fact, is the critical story that decries the common misconception. I wrote about it in one of my Deck Log columns several years ago: 'Lex Luthor hates Superboy/man because he caused Luthor to lose his hair.' This is often touted by fans of the post-Crisis Superman mythos as to why the current Luthor’s opposition to Superman makes more sense. The loss of his hair, while certainly traumatic, doesn’t balance with the intensity and duration of the Silver-Age Luthor’s hatred for Kal-El of Krypton. And that makes the pre-Crisis Luthor seem ridiculously puerile. It does, but only to those who never read the story that first told how it all began, “How Luthor Met Superboy”, from Adventure Comics # 271 (Apr., 1960). Lex Luthor had been an on-going presence in the Superman stories for decades, but this was the first tale to link the two characters in their boyhood. As “How Luthor Met Superboy” describes, the young Luthor had been a great admirer of the Boy of Steel, and shortly after the Luthor family moved to Smallville, fate provided Lex with the opportunity to save his hero’s life from the deadly effects of a kryptonite meteor. Learning of Lex’s ambition to become a great scientist, Superboy constructs for him a modern experimental laboratory. This leads to a friendship between the two lads. (Occasionally, there would be a Silver-Age Superboy story set during this period, when the readers got to witness that friendship for themselves.) After “weeks of feverish experimentation”, young Luthor accomplishes a scientific wonder---the creation of artificial life. It’s only a crude protoplasmic creature in a vessel, but it lives. With the rest of his afternoon free, and feeling grateful to Superboy for having provided him with his new lab, Lex invents an antidote for kryptonite poisoning. In his excitement over his second accomplishment, Luthor accidentally overturns a chemical flask, which starts a fire in his lab. Flying by on patrol, Superboy spots the flames, and sends a blast of his super-breath through the window to extinguish the blaze. When the Boy of Steel checks on Luthor, he finds out that he has screwed up big time. His gust of super-breath knocked over a bottle of acid, spilling the contents over Lex’s green-k antidote, creating a cloud of caustic fumes. The corrosive cloud destroys the crude protoplasmic being, along with all of Luthor’s notes pertaining to its creation. And, yes, its caused Lex’s hair to fall out. This is the birth of Luthor’s intense hatred of Superboy. But as the story clearly depicts, his rage is primarily over the loss of his artificially created life-form, along with the notations without which, he cannot duplicate the experiment. The loss of his hair is almost incidental. Superboy, Luthor insists, used his super-breath to deliberately overturn the acid to destroy the protoplasm. As the first creator of artificial life, Luthor certainly would have received the acclaim of the world, and blind with rage, Lex believes the Boy of Steel was jealous that his fame would be eclipsed by Luthor’s. So it was the destruction of his artificial-life experiment that ignited Luthor’s hatred of the Caped Kryptonian, not the loss of his hair. DC bears some of the blame for the misconception, however, Most Silver-Age stories featuring Luthor included a one-panel flashback of the scene showing Luthor’s hair falling out, or some other one-line reference to it. The business about the destruction of the protoplasm was omitted. This was laziness or sloppy short-hand on the part of Superman writers, however, and not intended to be some sort of revision to the original tale. For the same events from "How Luthor Met Superboy" were iterated---right down to the emphasis on Superboy's destruction of the artificial-life protoplasm---in "The Luthor Nobody Knows", from Superman # 292 (Oct., 1975). When the whole incident is examined, the pre-Crisis Luthor’s intense hatred is much more understandable, and frankly, more plausible than the post-Crisis Luthor’s antagonism toward the Man of Steel. After the Crisis, Luthor was remoulded into the standard “evil millionaire businessman”; he hates Superman out of jealousy and there is some psycho-babble about the Man of Steel being “the one thing he cannot control.” On the other hand, the Silver-Age Luthor’s hatred was spurred on by feelings of resentment, victimisation, and betrayal---far stronger motives, if you ask me. Add to that the fact that the Silver-Age Luthor has some justification for his bitterness. Yes, he’s wrong about Superboy doing it deliberately, but there’s no getting around that the Boy of Steel was careless in precipitously sending a super-blast of wind into a laboratory filled with potentially dangerous chemicals." Which is the same thing I pointed out when talking about Maggin's Last Son of Krypton novel. Maggin fleshes out the relationship a bit more and the day of creation of the protoplasmic lifeform, tying it to Einstein's visit to Smallville, to await the arrival of Kal-El, in his rocket. Maggin used establish stories as background for the two novels he did and expanded a bit on those pieces, as he worked them into his plot. The first novel gets more into the complex relationship/rivalry between Luthor and Superman and goes on to humanize Lex a bit more, compared to how he was often written, even in some of those Silver Age stories. He gets more into the psychology of Luthor. The second novel gets more into Superman's moral structure and devotion to preserving life and having him face real evil. Luthor is the catalyst for unleashing the evil; but, also provides Superman the key for winning the day, somewhat deliberately. Maggin makes Lex a complex figure; the proverbial "hero of his own story," who actually does do some heroic things. His Lex helps; but also takes because he feels himself superior and needs to fund his organization, to realize his ideas. The nature of Superman and Lex Luthor's rivalry better supports their connection, in my mind, than Batman and any of his rogues gallery. Batman's world is a reflection of the corruption and darkness of Gotham which birthed Batman and set him on the path as a crime fighter. Superman is built around helping people in need and came from a small environment, where everyone in town knew one another. So, there is a certain irony that his greatest foe was someone he knew in his hometown, who he had the greatest kinship for, as people who were outsiders within this community: Superboy because of his alien birth and natural abilities and Lex because of his outsider status as a new arrival and his genius, which intimidated people. He came from a larger urban area and felt more sophisticated than people in Smallvillle and his intellect made him feel even more superior. His personality was a byproduct of his father's absence, his upheaval and how people reacted to his intellect. His father traveled in his job and wasn't a strong presence in Lex's life. Lex, looking for attention, got himself into trouble, seeking bad attention where he could not find good. He knew that he was more brilliant than his teachers and they were intimidated by him and treated him with less than respect. That fueled him even more. Clark saw his intellect and was in awe of it. he befriended Lex, because that was who he was, someone who was drawn to others in need and he saw Lex needed someone on his side. Lex also saw that Clark was deliberately hiding the fact that he was ahead of everyone else, always holding back to come in behind Lex or Lana, so that he never stood above anyone. He thought Clark was a sap, because Clark had no ego about it and treated people well, when everyone else seemed to have ulterior motives. Deep down, he knew Clark was genuine. Byrne's idea of Lex being presented the information that Superman and Clark Kent are one and refusing to believe it, stemming from his arrogance that someone with power would never hide as someone powerless doesn't work, for me. However, when you couch it in Maggin's depiction, Lex doesn't see that Clark is Superboy/Man could be Lex refusing to acknowledge it and thereby having to re-assess his anger at Superman. he won't tell Superman that he killed his "child," because he would try to atone and Lex would have to forgive him. If he acknowledges that Clark is Superman, then he has to accept that he truly is a good person who only gave him friendship and respect and forgive him. By subconsciously ignoring the plain evidence of a connection between the two, he can keep the thing that has motivated his whole adult life. |
|
|
|
Post by chadwilliam on Apr 15, 2022 12:45:21 GMT -5
Hoosier wrote: "I mean, yeah, the Daily Planet, a building with a globe on the roof, is a recognizable landmark of the city. Everybody who matters (to me) in Metropolis works there. But one workplace is not a very strong element to try to imagine a city around."Since we're discussing Lex Luthor, now seems like a goodtime to add this place to see to any trip to Metropolis: Luthor's Lair ![]()  ![]() Luthor's hideout/base of operations whenever he was on the loose is even more impressive inside  Maggin later revealed that Luthor also had many secret identities explaining that this is partly why he never took much of an interest in deducing Superman's - he simply assumed that, like himself, Superman had multiple civilian identities scattered across the world and uncovering one would simply result in Superman retreating to another. Though we know that wasn't the case, it was a clever idea and solved one of Luthor's problems - what to do with all of his gadgets and inventions when he's locked up in prison. To that end, Luthor created the persona of a renowned and reclusive abstract artist who would leave his artwork in the hands of a museum for short periods. As it transpired, said artwork was actually his inventions which he would then steal back whenever he was free again. Interestingly, Luthor's Lair was introduced in Action Comics #277 in a story penned by Bill Finger. I suppose it makes sense that such a cool hideout would have been created by the same author who gave us the Bat-Cave.
|
|
|
|
Post by Farrar on Apr 15, 2022 13:01:08 GMT -5
chadwilliam : Thanks for including Hoosier's blurb about the Daily Planet building (Hoosier X wrote: "I mean, yeah, the Daily Planet, a building with a globe on the roof, is a recognizable landmark of the city...); perhaps this is already well known, but it reminded me that the Planet building was likely inspired by the 1930 NY Daily News building's globe in the lobby:  The News moved out/sold the building in 1995 but the globe still remains in the building's lobby. I've seen it many times; quite an impressive sight.
|
|
|
|
Post by MDG on Apr 15, 2022 13:10:18 GMT -5
chadwilliam : Thanks for including Hoosier's blurb about the Daily Planet building (Hoosier X wrote: "I mean, yeah, the Daily Planet, a building with a globe on the roof, is a recognizable landmark of the city...); perhaps this is already well known, but it reminded me that the Planet building was likely inspired by the 1930 NY Daily News building's globe in the lobby: The News moved out/sold the building in 1995 but the globe still remains in the building's lobby. I've seen it many times; quite an impressive sight. Clark and Lois walk by it in the movie... |
|
|
|
Post by Farrar on Apr 15, 2022 13:13:59 GMT -5
^^^
Embarrassed to say I've never seen the Superman movie(s).
Or any superhero movies, actually (except for the Adam West Batman movie, on TV).
|
|
|
|
Post by Hoosier X on Apr 15, 2022 23:04:00 GMT -5
Superman #164 was in the mail today!
I’m going to read it before I go to bed.
|
|
|
|
Post by Hoosier X on Apr 16, 2022 9:14:56 GMT -5
Lexor should advertise itself as “The Most Co-Dependent Planet in the Galaxy!”
Or
“Stockholm Syndrome Planet!”
|
|
|
|
Post by Hoosier X on Apr 16, 2022 9:17:32 GMT -5
I found a beat-up copy of the first Villain issue of Limited Collector’s Edition on eBay. That’s the one with the Luthor origin from Adventure #271. So I should have that in about a week.
|
|
|
|
Post by Hoosier X on Apr 16, 2022 11:16:56 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Apr 16, 2022 11:22:21 GMT -5
That Secret Origins of Super-Villains also includes the origin of Terra-Man. It's not necessarily a great story, but the Neal Adams art looks fantastic and it's a pretty nutty idea. Also has excellent stories about Sivana's "origin" and that of Captain Cold, complete with Carmine Infantino in his glory.
|
|
