I’ve mentioned before how I’ve never really been a big Superman fan. I always found the character both too flat and too powerful to be genuinely interesting (what’s the point of reading about a character who has no real failings as a person and no real weaknesses as a person? Kryptonite notwithstanding, of course). It’s only really been over time that I’ve come to feel a genuine affection for Superman; he’s the kind of character we genuinely need. One who’s steadfast and true, and who always offers comfort and hope, even in the darkest of times. That’s why I feel the character’s at his best in group situations, as he serves as the anchor that the rest of the characters need.
But all this is a side-issue. What I want to discuss is not the hero, but the villain.
There’s a popular theory in comics – and, I believe, in fiction in general – that a hero is defined by his villains. And as high-profile a hero as Superman is, he has a surprisingly shallow pool of adversaries. It’s no doubt a difficult job, creating an antagonist for a character whose entire ethos is being unbeatable. If you were sitting down to do it today, you might look to create an anti-Superman, a character who’s his equal on both intellectual and physical grounds.
But interestingly enough, the most powerful hero in the world finds his greatest enemy in the form of a mere mortal. And it’s this mere mortal who has defined not so much his adversary, as the popular maxim dictates, but our own fears as a society.
Ladies and gentleman, Lex Luthor.
(Bear in mind, I’m writing this on my lunch break, I haven’t read many Superman comics, and I’m generally going off memory, so if my facts are a little fuzzy, you’ll have to forgive me).More than any other villain in comics, and perhaps more than any other character in general, Lex Luthor has served as a barometer for the contemporary cultural climate.
When he first appeared, Lex was the stereotypical mad scientist, the kind of character that there was glut of in the time that we were witnessing the birth of modern warfare, the growth in sophistication of chemical weaponry and, most importantly of all, the development of the nuclear bomb. We knew scientists were behind all these landmarks, and as much as we marvelled at the innovations, we also stood terrified at their inception and the incomprehensible intellects behind them. With his white lab coat and diabolical plans, Luthor was the dark reflection of our newborn paranoia of global annihilation.
Luthor remained the ‘mad scientist’ for the next fifty or so years, but there were many different iterations in that time period. His next development was as a criminal recidivist and repeat escapee, his costume made up of nothing more than prison greys. He was so intent on destroying Superman he didn’t even bother to get changed after his latest prison break. This was during the ‘50s and ‘60s, at a time where conservative politicians were intent on creating an atmosphere of paranoia and fear with the constant reiteration that society was spiralling out of control and that crime was out of control.
In the ‘70s and early ‘80s, Luthor became a lot more tech-focused, eventually ending up in a suit of power armour that allowed him to now be a physical threat to Superman. This occurred at the same time that the computer age started to dawn, where technological innovation was really starting to creep into people’s day-to-day lives, and when the growing power of corporate America was starting to generate increasing degrees of anxiety in the public.
With the 1986 reboot of the Superman character and franchise, this anxiety about big business was seized upon, and Lex Luthor was reinvented as a billionaire business tycoon, with many different corporations specialising in everything from real estate to experimental arms manufacturing. It’s no surprise that this iteration of the character came about at the time that it did, where the stock market was booming and the materialistic ‘80s at their peak. What Michael Douglas captured in Wall Street with his Gordon Gecko character, the Superman writers captured with Luthor. It’s also perhaps this version of the character that the public is most familiar with, thanks to his use in both Lois & Clark and Smallville.
Lex remained the ruthless business mogul for the rest of the ‘90s, until in 2000 when he ran for – and won – the Presidency of the United States of America. This occurred at the same time as the real-life presidential race that saw great controversy between George W. Bush and Al Gore. Does more really need to be said?
Lex held onto his office for a number of years, even leading the world into an intergalactic war. And it’s about this time that I lose track of all the major developments, as he fell from grace and became a fugitive (again), then a mad scientist (again), before regaining his credibility in the eyes of the fictional DC Universe public and going back to big business (again), where he’s recently been experimenting in genetic manipulation. It seems like the writers of Superman have been doing “Luthor: The Greatest Hits” tour … or is it more a reflection that, at this point in history, there’s so much to be afraid of that it feels like all our greatest fears are being realised?
With this poly-thematic Luthor, is our culture so overloaded with fear and anxiety that we no longer have a focal point for it? Or is this merely just an example of a recent trend in comics, where they seem more focused on incorporating old ideas with new in a mix of nostalgia and attempted innovation? Is there even any other place to take the Luthor character, beyond doing the hackneyed thing and having him suddenly swing around to being an out-and-out stereotypical terrorist?
Lex Luthor has been a barometer for Western anxieties for about 70 years now. It’s perhaps this, more than anything, that defines him not only as being Superman’s greatest enemy, but it’s also what makes him such an interesting, and perhaps even culturally important, character.
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