Scans_Daily

The Lex^2 thing's a little dumb, but yeah, that was a fun little switch-up.

My personal assumption is that somehow Alexandria Luthor will end up dead, likely due to her own hubris. Lex will blame Superman establishing a very personal war between them.

I can see that happening--but I can also see the reverse happening, which I think would almost be even more interesting.

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"I can see that happening--but I can also see the reverse happening, which I think would almost be even more interesting."

Would she turn bald also? Sorry, but you hit one of my kinks square in the, pardon the pun, head.

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pyrrhocorax

Yes please! Of the two of them, she seems the most "Lex"-ish by far.

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nate_abril96

This is why I want to pick up Superman: Earth One Vol. 2 for Christmas, because of fun little twists like this, but at the same time, I'm not a fan of those awkward sexual situations that Clark faces later in the novel. I don't know if it's worth the money, or a waste. Also, what are the odds of Lex Luthor marrying someone by the name of "Alexandria". Good to see that even on Earth-One, Lex still retains his ego. Finally, Lex^2, cheesy, but I like the ring to it. I hope that they keep both Lexes together for a long time,

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aulayan

...Once again I prefer the Lex written in the Luthor: Man Of Steel first issue. That Lex was interesting

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icon_uk

I liked him too. (and there's a bit of it here)

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magus_69

This is a legitimately interesting development, and I am curious to see where JMS takes it. I hope that he doesn't go for the obvious route, ie. Alexandra being fridged to make Lex go evil.

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jlbarnett

you know what, I'm sick of stories where the government tries to come up with ways to kill Superman, just in case.

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jmacq1

It's definitely overdone, but it's also very realistic. We know from decades of comicbook status quo that Superman is incorruptible and even when forced to act against his will will ultimately not do nearly as much damage as he COULD do.

But the folks in-universe don't know that...particularly early in his career.

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filthysize

The reasoning on JLU was incredibly realistic. Superman: TAS ended with Superman being mind controlled and nearly scorching the Earth. What kind of government wouldn't immediately draft plans to neutralize him?

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That works both ways though, doesn't it? The military troops in possession of this failsafe are as likely to get mindcontrolled. Though nowadays they usually don't need to be.

Comic military would need a very good PR department to get rid of the reputation they've earned along the way.

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filthysize

Right, but the whole thing is about contingency. If a weapon gets under a villain's control, then you have superheroes to stop them, so it's only fair for there to be a stop measure from the other side. That's how arms races start.

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Well, you still have superheroes to stop a rogue superhero if they aren't all taken over. I'm kinda burned out on the whole 'anti-superhero arms race' scenario, to tell the truth. Some positive stories would be nice.

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donnblake

They're not just as likely to get mindcontroller, though, since A) they're probably not as public as the superhero, and B) quite often these plans involve considerable numbers of people, who would have to act in coordination, all of whom would have to be controlled, as opposed to a single individual.

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From what I've seen the more secret an organization is the more likely it is that it's going to be infiltrated by a villain. Heck, wasn't the NU52's super secret holding facility for mystic paraphernalia just penetrated twice in short amount of time?

And the chain of command kinda works against the military here. The person wouldn't have to take command of everyone (and usually there's a difference between being able to control regular people and being able to control Superman, though dunno about that in the new continuity, so I'd presume that someone able to do the latter would be able to do a greater amount of former), just the head honcho of the facility.

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donnblake

But that argument works for any chain of command- it's the equivalent of saying that the military (police, FBI, whatever) simply shouldn't exist because it could be subverted to do evil things. I think the solution to that is to try and counter the potential subversion, not to pack up and go home.

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I wasn't saying that. Just that it would be as likely that a superweapon these people would come up with could be usurped, through mindcontrol or whatever, than Superman could. Wouldn't it be better for everyone involved if rather than creating a weapon they'd try to invent some kind of 'tinfoil hat' for Supes that'd block those attempts?

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bewareofgeek

Let's count the number of secret government organizations, in comics, that are not secretly evil, corrupted by rogue elements, or taken over by a supervillain.

First, of course, we have to FIND one...

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Comic military would need a very good PR department to get rid of the reputation they've earned along the way.

Without getting too political, militaries do terrible, horrific things every day, yet they seem to be fine, PR-wise.

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In fact, there was a little scene in this book where, in some sort of news show debate thing, talking about what Superman being around means, someone suggests that maybe Superman genuinely doesn't have some sort of hidden agenda, and EVERYONE in the group, even the guy who suggests it, laughs it off as a ludicrous idea.

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donnblake

Eh, in the 1930s, the US government put together a plan to invade Canada, just in case. I buy it.

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In their defense, they saw how nice all the Canadians were and thought, "There's no way someone's that pleasant to be around."

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donnblake

The Canadians actually had a counterpart plan, although that one was more, "Invade enough of the US to wreck the infrastructure they'd need to successfully invade us."

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thanekos

I love how high this Lex's hairline is- it's almost inviting you to just take the whole thing off (maybe leave the goatee on), restoring him to his "natural" state of bald.

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victory_or_death

Kneel before Z....er...Lex.

I mean, am I the only one thinking that he looks like Zod?

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bmaryott

She's wearing a Lt.Colonel's rank, not a Majors. It's not supposed to be silver, but bronze for a Major, so it's probably the colorists fault.

FORMER MILITARY CANNOT UNSEE!

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kd_the_movie

AND SHE'S WEARING COVER IN DOORS!!!!

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While it's always good to see a female villain who is smart and cool, this just doesn't work for me.
Lex Luthor shouldn't be motivated by a wife or a government, that stuff would just be an excuse to him. Lex Luthor is motivated by the fact that he used to be the most powerful man in the world until Superman showed up, it's jealousy, not academic interest or the anger we'll probably see if/when his wife dies.
I feel like all of this Superman: Earth One stuff just doesn't get Superman. Honestly if people want a modern retelling of Superman's origin they can just read Grant Morrison's Action Comics, which isn't afraid to be a little larger than life, understands the characters, and doesn't indulge in juvenile plot points about how Superman needs to get laid.

Edited Date: 2012-11-02 06:59 pm (UTC)

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arbre_rieur

So Lex Luthor for the first four decades of his existence was being done wrong?

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Not at all, Lex Luthor was always show as a evil jerk who hated Superman for various, often silly, reasons. That's exactly what he should be, not a dude who thinks Superman seems pretty okay and doesn't really care about him. This guy actually expresses moral doubts, the Lex I've been reading for years doesn't care about that sort of thing at all.

Edited Date: 2012-11-02 08:01 pm (UTC)

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arbre_rieur

For the longest time, his origin was that he was Superman's closest pal until an event drove him to the dark side. How's that all that different from the Lex here, who has not yet experienced his triggering event, whether it's his wife's death or something else.

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He comes off a an okay guy here. To me I think that Lex should be a dick before he ever meets Superman, the incident, be it losing his hair, power, wife, whatever, just brings that dickishness to bear on Superman.
And something about him being equal partners with his wife doesn't fit for me, I feel like Lex is far too much of a conceited bastard to ever be equal partners with anyone, or have a proper romantic relationship. That's a just minor complaint though, it just strikes me as weird.
Of course, I'm only going from the pages we've seen here, so it's possible that Lex will come a lot closer to being how he's usually portrayed in the coming volumes. So far though, his wife looks to be a lot closer to the usual Lex Luthor portrayal than the guy who actually is Lex Luthor.

Also, now that you make me think of it, I'm really dreading them killing off Lex's wife. I mean, Lex is usually his own guy, so she's almost certain to die at some point, but if they use her death as the actual motivator for him hating Superman I'll hate it. Especially since with the way JMS is writing this series I feel like he'd go ahead and make it actually Superman's fault, instead of just something that Lex blames him for.

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nate_abril96

Or Lex Luthor dies, and his wife, Alexandria, becomes bald from the incident that resulted in his death and blames Superman for her husband's death; or they could just stay together as a husband and wife duo, that would be way more interesting.

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See, on one hand, I can see what you're saying--this is definitely a different take on Lex. But...this is an alternate version of the "real" story. I'm cool with this take on Lex being different when we still have our solo magnificent bastard in the current Super-books.

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arbre_rieur

"To me I think that Lex should be a dick before he ever meets Superman, the incident, be it losing his hair, power, wife, whatever, just brings that dickishness to bear on Superman."

Which brings me back to my original point. For four decades, Lex was portrayed as someone who was a decent guy and Superman's chum until the lab accident that cost him his hair. Were the writers doing it wrong all that time?

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