Saturday, April 01, 2006
Comic Art
I may be about to speak heresy for comic book fans, but there has never been a lamer villain that Lex Luthor. Now, I will grant he has improved in recent years, but he is still pretty lame. The basic idea was a classic brains (Luthor) v brawn (Supes) but it just never worked. In the first place, Supes was always too smart to be cast as a pure brawn kinda guy. This idea works much better when sent up against someone that really is pure brawn like the Hulk. We'll look at his brainy villain later in this series.
Luthor also suffers from not being visually distinctive. At the time he was dreamed up - total baldness was rare and that was his visual distinction, but now, it just makes him Michael Jordan. Besides, originally, his baldness was his whole reason for being evil. The result of an accident in his lab in the presence of then best friend Superboy, he grew to blame the Boy of Steel for his awful condition and had no choice but to turn to evil. Yeah, right.From a purely visual point of view, the version of Lex you see here was far and away the best. I mean finally he looks like something that belongs in a comic book and not on the basketball court. This character still suffered from having a primary motivation being a hatred of the guy in blue tights more than any personal gain, which was huge weakness, but at least he looked good doing it. This look has been adopted by the TV cartoon, even if the character is more modern in nature.
The modern Lex, forged in the fires of the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" in a schemer and manipulator on an amazing level. In this guys case, the battle is cast less as brains v brawn and more as schemer v most straightforward and honest soul on the planet. Much better, but it leaves Superman appearing naive from time to time which makes no sense for the earth's greatest superhero.The reason you see the flag is that Lex has managed to get himself elected President. This has made him more the enemyof the Justice League than Supes individually, his machinations can now be so widespread and byzantine - Smart move.
He has also done a stint as Bats nemesis when Gotham was destroyed by earthquake -- now that was a match up! Wits v wits, manuplation v manipulation. I would love to see a lot more of that particular battle.
But most of all, I'd like to see Lex look the part.
Related Tags: comic, art, comic books, Les Luthor, Superman, Batman, villains
