Luthor's past and other scans from Superman: Birthright

[thelazyreader]

One of the most praised elements of Superman: Birthright was the great backstory it provided for Lex Luthor and his relationship with Clark. Posting that, among other scans:




-First, a badass Superman moment requested by thatnickguy,




-Clark's interview with Lex Luthor,




(Luthor is understandably upset about Clark's expose of him on the helicopter incident. He also seems to have completely forgotten Smallville.)

-Luthor making a shocking revelation regarding Superman,




-Clark arguing with Perry over publicising Superman's alien origins.


(As a result of the article people start fearing Superman)

-Clark's social life(or lack thereof). Acting dull and mild-mannered can have its downsides...




-To add to public hysteria, Luthor setting Superman up to be the bad guy by blowing up a bridge,



-And finally, Clark and Pa Kent remembering young Luthor and how he turned out the way he did,







-Lex's failed experiment, the moment when everything went wrong for him,



(Yup, that's Kryptonite. Lex misinterprets the horrified look on Clark's face as him shunning Lex just like everyone else.)


(He briefly succeeds in opening a window into what looks like Krypton, but then the machine explodes.)



And in retrospect,

Comments

[proteus_lives]

I like it.

Darker and Supes seems to be on more of an edge.

[starwolf_oakley]

JMS had a similar "I don't trust that weird alien" montage in EARTH ONE, although Luthor had nothing to do with it.

[big_daddy_d]

One of my fav Superman stories and I stick to my thought that this should be used as source material for a post Smallville Superman movie or mini series if they ever go there.

[silverzeo]

I do want to see more Lex being a distant friend of Clark Kent while being a direct enemy of Superman, helping the Kent Farm with a corp loophole. I mean, something little like Twoface and Batman, Harvey wouldn't hurt his friend Bruce, but will do anything to kill Batman... come to think of it, how is Mr. Dent after hearing that his best friend backs his worst enemy?

[icon_uk]

come to think of it, how is Mr. Dent after hearing that his best friend backs his worst enemy?

He's probably find it quite apt. (Good question though)

[arbre_rieur]

That's brilliant.

[icon_uk]

Hmmm, you'd have thought a newspaper reporter could have made something of "Millionaire Lex Luthor denies his past in the heartland of the good old US of A" if they were in a slightly vindictive mood.

[thelazyreader]

It's mentioned when Clark's talking to the Kents about Lex that all official records of Lex's prescence in Smallville have been mysteriously destroyed or altered.

[icon_uk]

See, that just seems silly. If Luthor really was vindicitive against the town, he could DESTROY the place in his own unique style; ensure that no supermarket buys from the farms, that the freeway misses Smallville completely, that funding to the school is halved, that sort of a thing.

As it is, he may not remotely LIKE his experiences there, but to destroy a piece of useful PR, the aforementioned potential "Growing up in the American heartland, God bless Mom's apple pie" schtick seems.. pointlessly short sighted. Removing the official evidence and simply denying to people who knew him also seems very... amateur night for LEx Luthor.

[leoboiko]

> he could DESTROY the place

You know that if Lex tries to do anything that big Superman will intervene.

[janegray]

Not if Lex does it legally. Icon's suggestions could easily be done without breaking the law.

[icon_uk]

Which is why I stressed area's where Lex excels (Commerce, urban planning and the like) and Superman is relatively powerless.

[leoboiko]

I think we are talking about different things. You are thinking logically, and I am thinking comic-book logic. Luthor’s schemes WILL be prevented by Superman, no matter how well they exploit his weakness, no matter how well he plans and hides them, because this is a law of physics in the universe they live in. I mean come on, we’re talking Coyote and Roadrunner here. Unless they happen to be in a “Smallville destroyed!” super crossover arc or something. (Please don’t say this idea aloud if there are DC employees nearby.)

[icon_uk]

Luthor’s schemes WILL be prevented by Superman, no matter how well they exploit his weakness

Not true even in comic-logic terms; Lex remained a successful, powerful, ruthless businessman even with Superman on the scene and there was pretty much nothing Superman could do.. Superman bemoaned the fact many times that because of his own moral nature he requires PROOF for Luthor criminal endeavours to be prevented (and these ideas doesn't even requiredcriminal endeavours).

If what you say is true, Lex would never have become President.

Essentially Lex has to succeed sometimes or his powerbase would not be remotely dangerous enough to pose a threat to Superman.

[leoboiko]

“Threat” being the keyword there. Like the Coyote, he has to remain forever a threat, but the threat can never be completely successful (that’s why I say in the original post he can’t do anything “big”, any real change). He can become President, but not actually win over Superman. Even if he manages to kill Superman (like in that famous series I’m not naming to avoid spoilers), he still ends up losing. Destroying Smallville goes way beyond the range of change he’s allowed to cause, except for exceptions like shock-value megaevents.

(This is exactly the reason I’m a Luthor fan. Superman is as inevitable as death, and still Luthor fights on.)

I’m reminded, on the Marvel side, of Rob Bodi’s Loki series, which deals with this very issue.

[icon_uk]

You're taking "destroying" too literally, Luthor has far more subtle and perfectly allowable methods of doing things like this.

And ruining Smallville would be well within his scope and permitted abilities. The ongoing struggle of a bunch of farmers and a small town wouldn't really matter in the grand scheme of Superman plots.

The resolute struggle of the town to stay afloat, maybe by Superman allowing them to exploit the fact he was raised there (or that Superboy does live there) would be actually be a neat arc. Luthor achieves his goal by crippling the town he despises. Superman can't save the tradtional values, but tries to give them a new source of revenue, which helps his friends but does run the risk of him leaving himself open to the accusation of selling out.

[thelazyreader]

Luthor may not like Smallville, but he's not so petty as to want to destroy them just for shunning him. In this story Smallville is an indication for how Lex views and was viewed by the human race in general. Like he told Clark, 'he'll never fit in here'. He holds the 'backwater hicks' of Smallville in contempt, but he doesn't view them as enemies. He's simply disawowed any association with them in his mind.

[icon_uk]

I'd say Luthor is exactly petty enough to destroy it for shunning him, on an emotional level he's a deeply petty man.

This is the Lex who cured his sister to prove a point to Superboy, then immediately reversed the cure because he wanted to show that he would not be bushwacked into a good deed.

He says he's over it, but the excision of it from his past suggests a deep rooted loathing.

[thelazyreader]

I think the bad memories and feelings from his life there would negate any PR opportunities.

[icon_uk]

So where did Lex say he grew up in his Presidential campaign? Remember the fuss about where Obama was born. A large gap in Lex's teenage years would look very odd.

[thelazyreader]

"So where did Lex say he grew up in his Presidential campaign?"

No idea, but someone like him can think up dozens of similar or better cover stories(and have his cronies set up the evidence). Having a small-town background isn't crucial to win an election, and even if he does it doesn't have to be Smallville.

[blackruzsa]

I really really like this. Seriously. Love it. I don't pick up on Superman stories, but this is just amazing. Gotta pick this up.

[screamsheet.wordpress.com]

So why has this been retconned away again?

[thelazyreader]

The 'official' reason from Johns and DiDiot and so on seems to be that people couldn't decide on what would be the best origin for Supes and that they needed a story which would serve as a DEFINITIVE origin for the next 40 years. Kinda flimsy.

The actual story, I believe, is that Geoff Johns, Silver Age and Donner fanboy that he is, wanted a more Silver-Agey, Donner-film-ish origin, and wanted to be the one who wrote it. So he abused his editorial pull to overwrite a good origin story that didn't need overwriting.

[icon_uk]

To be honest I could say the same about this over-writing "Man of Steel"

[thelazyreader]

Yeah, but there was and still is a lot of fan conflict and criticism over the Man of Steel revisions. And many writers, including Waid and Johns, yearned for Silver Age elements like wimpy Clark to return.

[icon_uk]

After over 20 years I think that any real conflict was long gone, and I don't recall any desperate signs of anyone wanting to get "wimpy Clark" back.

[thelazyreader]

You'd be surprised. A simple google would reveal a lot of these debates over at places like CBR and the DC boards. Byrne these days is heavily criticised. And of course, the powers that be at DC still prefer the old pre-Crisis status quo. The fact that the general audience associates Clark with 'nerdy and wimpy' and all the films portray him that way doesn't help.

[icon_uk]

There is a major difference between messageboard debates and writers "yearning for the Silver Age"

Byrne is heavily criticised these days because of his personality and his recent output has been poor, that has nothing to do with whether something he wrote in about 1985 should still be valid.

And not all portrayals of Clark have him "nerdy and wimpy", Lois and Clark managed to a primetime hit with a rather active Clark.

[thelazyreader]

Messageboard debates involve the fanbase writers want to please. Byrne's Superman does come up for criticism, and sadly a lot of this seems misinformed or prejudiced to me, but there it is.

And despite Lois and Clark, the common public(most of whom don't really know much about superheroes in general) still associates Clark with 'wimpy', and the Donner film as the benchmark for everything Superman.

And while I'm on your side about the Man of Steel, guys like Johns and DiDio aren't, and the unfortunate trend for the past few years has been to ape Donner's approach wherever possible. Kryptonian chandelier crystals, Pa Kent dying of heart attack, all previous Supergirls and Zods getting retconned away in favour of the pre-Crisis ones, Clark going from a Pulitzer-winning jouralist to a wimp all the way back to his origins... sigh.

[icon_uk]

What annoys me is that this isn't novel, it's a mishmash of other, more original ideas, stitched together; Silver Age Clark, movie Krypton, and Luthor closer to Man of Steel than anything.

[greenmask]

A Superman book.. that I want to be reading?

This feels strange but good.

[thelazyreader]

"A Superman book.. that I want to be reading?"

There are more of those than you'd think. They're not as numerous or well-known as big-name Batman stories, but there's a reason Supes has held three or more regular books for decades.

Try Superman For All Seasons, for instance.

[hyperactivator]

It's not really showcased here but I think that one of Lex's main issues is that he is sexist.

He sees women as objects to aquire and men as rivals to defeat. When he meets a submissive man(Clark/Superman) or a dominant woman(Lois) his ego forces him to see them as he thinks they should be rather that what they are.

So in his eyes Superman is just faking his entire personality to control us and Lois just needs him to show her a real man.

Clark is just seen as a failure as a man that couldn't possibly be what a woman wants because he's so passive.

Never mind that Lois is much more agressive in thier interactions. Never mind that Superman's persona is that of a public servant. Superman is a big powerfull man and Lois is a small pretty woman so they must have personalities to match thier outward looks.

[meatwhichdreams]

That's a very intriguing way to look at the three characters that I've never considered. It's a logical and realistic way for sexism to play out in an intelligent character's personality. And it raises some other questions about gender expression in the Superman world...

I wonder how aware Superman's writers have been of this Sexist-Luthor interpretation. I mean, do they actually agree with Luthor - not that Superman is malicious, but that he's faking his "effeminate" traits? Do they consider wimpy-Clark Kent to be the despicable, ineffectual, and above all GIRLY parts of Kal-El (the manly manly parts being Superman), or do they consider them crucial aspects of his personality? Like, is wimpy-Clark Kent supposed to be funny and tragic because Kal-El has to live his life as the opposite of who he "really" is, or is wimpy-Clark Kent a respectable and "real" side of Kal-El too?

And for Lois...when she behaves "aggressively" and "masculine," do her writers want us to read that as an endearing character failing...as her just bein' a bitch? Like OH LOIS CALM DOWN LADY! Or do they want us to see that trait as something to aspire to?

I think one of the reasons I've never connected closely with any of these characters is that these questions are always in flux depending on who's writing them. So that's why I hang out in S_D where the most interesting readings are shared. :D

[hyperactivator]

With Lois and Clark thier personalties make sense given thier upbringing and physical limitations.

Clark was raised in a very calm peacfull enviroment full of things that needed to be cared for and protected. At the same time he must have been constantly aware of his own strength and how breakable the world is. He had to treat everything like fine china and as he got older he overcompensated a bit.As Superman he's more prone to reaction that action.

Lois is an army brat and was raised where agression and competion were encuraged. She had to be loud and persistent to succeed. These arn't usually depicted as negative traits instead as a way of making her stand out in the crowd. Lois demands you notice her. As a woman and as a presence. She also is extreamly indepenent and goes after what he wants. This can apear bitchy but she always puts her money where her mouth is.


But Lex can't see them for anything other that a small woman and a big man.

Because lets face it Lois sees Lex as an enemy to be taken out and Clark sees Lex as a misguided soul. Which one would you focus on?

[jelly_ace]

Gahhh, you're making me miss my copy of Birthright more and more. I sold it to pay for tuition. DX

[domino_blue]

Hardcover or Softcover? Because I got the Hardcover version.

[janegray]

This reminds me of something.

You are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole.

Certainly, many people were dicks to Lex because they were envious and/or afraid of his brilliant mind. The teachers in particular were horrible, there are no excuses for their shitty treatment of a student who ZOMG DARED to know stuff better than they did.

But the Kents were nothing but kind and friendly with him, and he was still extremely rude and condescending to them.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Well, I can take or leave most of the 'trying to frame Superman' stuff - that's pretty par for the course - but I DO like this version of Luthor's origin. It manages to homage the original 'out for revenge because Superboy cost him his hair' origin while at the same time providing a perfectly logical - for a histrionic teen genius with issues - reason for him to become the man he is now.
I'm not wild about how unfriendly Smallville is towards him, though. True, he's not exactly trying hard to make friends, but I've always thought of it as a much friendlier sort of place than that.
And that bit at the top, with Supes firing and then catching the bullet - wow. Just WOW.