Talk:Lex Luthor

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[edit] Superfriends

how come there is no reference to Luthor's character from Superfriends in the Animated DC Universe section? I don't know anything about it or I would add it, but that version and his Legion of Doom is pretty noteworthy.

[edit] Uncategotized comment

Regarding the 'minor subplots' described under Luthor's 'current' character history: When compared to the lengthy history of this character, who has existed since the 1940s, then such things as 'losing a hand to cancer' are just minor incidents in the character's history. They don't make any permanent changes to the character, and the character of Luthor is essentially the same. After all, Superman has lost his powers and regained them a number of times; he's changed costumes then returned to normal; he split up from Lois, then came back to her. None of these are "permanent" changes to his character, the way his marriage was. In the fictional world of DC comics, things like Luthor's "cloning a new body" are just ongoing subplots and they don't make any major changes to Lex Luthor's character: an evil man who tries to kill Superman again and again. Thus, I feel that they are essentially a waste of space in the Wikipedia description.

It could be argued that this instance of Luthor returning from death is more significant because "Lex Luthor II", in story context, functioned as an essentially new character for the purpose of interaction with other characters. Even when readers were let in on the secret that Lex Luthor II was actually Lex in a cloned body (after being teased with the possibility that Lex II was a genuine heir), most of the principle characters in the Superman supporting cast believed Lex II to be a different character and treated him as such until the truth was revealed to all, and Lex II was one of the supporting characters who rose to greater story prominence in Superman's absence during the "Funeral for a Friend"/"World Without a Superman" stories. Also, this was part of a long chain of significant changes to the post-Crisis Luthor:
  • loss of a hand leading to bodywide cancer
  • apparent death after his criminal activities were revealed
  • secret return as Lex II
  • vegetative state due to clone disease
  • restoration of body and reputation
  • President Lex
  • etc., etc.
And finally, Lex's cancer from Kryptonite is also notable for the change in Kryptonite's effects post-Crisis, whereas pre-Crisis, green K would only effect Kryptonians. This change continues to be referenced today (see a recent Nightwing issue where Nightwing's revelation to the current Ravager that her Kryptonite eye was radioactive and carcinogenic led to Ravager breaking ties with her father, Deathstroke the Terminator), and is significant enough to warrant mention for that reason. -- Pennyforth 00:49, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia has lots of space. :) I can't say much about the relative importance of the two deaths mentioned in the article, but I do know that the loss of his hand is not insignificant; in an episode of Smallville there was recently a pregognitive vision of Lex's future, and one of his hands was covered by a black glove in it. I, myself, knew about the lost hand due to kryptonite even though I don't think I've read an actual Superman comic in a decade or more. I think it's best to leave the information in if it's not actively incorrect or misleading. Bryan Derksen
The more detail the better. My 2 cents. --KQ

More emphasis on the historical aspect of the character than merely the current incarnation seen in today's comics is good, since it is still a relatively recent "retcon". kaijan

Alot of people don't know this, but the post-Crisis Luthor was one of the inspirations for the Cigarette Smoking Man from The X-Files. The XF producers have stated (in TVGUIDE, among other publications) that the CSM biography ep (Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man) was inspired by the graphic novel "Lex Luthor: The Unauthorized Biography." So I'm thinking someone should work that info in somewhere, as a previous stater said, there is a lot of space. Simon Beavis

............................................................................... "In the 1990s television series Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Luthor was shown as an evil businessman for the first time in other media"

Wrong. The late 1980's Superman cartoon (considered by some as among the best pre-BTAS adaptations) featured the white collar crime version of Luthor before that show came out.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0213370/

Michael Bell voiced Luthor.

[edit] Should we divide "modern luthor"?

It seems there are various subplots that need to be split such as the brain transplant and President Lex. I also think that Bryne's orgin should no longer be in this category after the Birthright retcon.

I suggest holding off on dividing the "Modern Luthor" section until we know more about the changes coming out of Infinite Crisis. Right now we've got two Luthors running around in the DCU, one of whom is acting like the Byrne/Wolfman Luthor (but is apparently not native to the the current mainline universe), and one who is acting like the Earth-1 Luthor (complete with battlesuit), but who apparently is the Luthor from the main universe. It seems likely that there will be a new status quo after Infinite Crisis is over, which may also clarify the various changes Luthor's undergone since Crisis on Infinite Earths. Once that's been revealed, we can straighten out the tangled history in this article. Sound good? —Josiah Rowe 18:45, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

This page reconciles Birthright and Lex Luthor: Man of Steel with the rest of Modern Luthor's history.[1] —Simon Beavis 11 December 2005

[edit] Modern Luthor

Should this be changed? "By the late 1990s he had become a power-broker in the mold of the Cigarette Smoking Man, although this was not what Byrne or Wolfman had intended." I don't know anything about X-Files, so how should I know what this means? Shouldn't it be more descriptive instead of making the reader do more research on the subject? AriGold 21:05, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

The post-Crisis Lex IS that type of character, so there SHOULD be a Cigarette Smoking Man reference Note my earlier comment about Lex Luthor: The Unauthorized Biography inspiring the Cigarette Smoking Man biography episode. Simon Beavis 8 December 2005

Ari's point is that he didn't know anything about CSM, so the comparison wasn't helpful or meaningful to him. I've tried to flesh it out a bit. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 16:19, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Exactly, Josiah. My point wasn't that the description wasn't accurate, it's that it is not helpful to anyone who doesn't know anything about the X-Files, which is a lot of people. It seems like a very useless comparison to me, for that very reason. I think it should be removed. AriGold 14:36, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
CSM is every bit of a pop culture icon as Darth Vader or Mr. Spock. Blue Öyster Cult call their keyboardist "the Cigarette Smoking Man of the band". It IS a viable comparison, if it works for BOC, then it works for this page. It was on there for months with nobody else having a problem with it. And in any case, the entire modern Luthor section needs to be changed, to better fit with the biographical data provided in DC's Secret Files website. Simon Beavis 17:58, 13 December 2005
If a majority of the people in the world know who the CSM is in 2025 (approximately 30 years after he first became known), then I might concede that he is "every bit of a pop culture icon as Darth Vader or Mr. Spock". Those two characters are a little out of CSM's league, imho. If I was to ask most people in their 20-30s who CSM was, they'd probably know. If I went to the 40-50 year olds, it's less likely but some would certainly still know. If I start asking grandparents, I think I'd get a lot of blank stares. But everyone knows who Darth Vader is (the character named the third greatest villian in movie history by the AFI behind only Hannibal Lector and Norman Bates). Anyway, this is not an attack on the popularity on CSM or Xfiles, which I am guessing you are a big fan of. My point is that when you draw a comparison between Luthor and someone/something, it should be something much more universal than a character on a cult tv show. It may have been on there for months, but that doesn't make it appropriate. New users join wikipedia every day with different insight and many articles don't get read for a long time. I agree that it needs to be changed like you said. AriGold 14:58, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Blue-eyed Luthor/Green-eyed Luthor

Upon closer inspection, the Luthor seen in Birthright and Lex Luthor: Man of Steel has blue eyes. Simon Beavis 10 December 2005

[edit] Alexander Luthor's motives

I've edited the sentences about Alex Luthor, Jr. attempting to bring back Earth-Three and/or the multiverse, because his exact purpose isn't clear yet. It clearly has something to do with undoing the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths, but he could be trying to bring back the entire multiverse or any one of its constituent Earths, or even restarting the Earth again on lines of his own choosing. We'll know more when future issues come out. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:34, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I changed the listing in Afiliations from "Secret Society" to "None" as it turns out it was not "our" Luthor who was in it. Also i think the purpose of the machine shown at the end of Infinite Crisis # 3 is to (Cue dramatic music,) RESURECT THE ANTI-MONITOR!!! Seriously, i do. Alex Luthor is just telling Earth Two Superman what he wants to hear. Alex might also have had a hand in orchestrating the actions of Maxwell Lord, but that's for another time.

Alexander's goal is to find the perfect Earth. Chris Griswold 01:38, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lena Luthor

The info box says Lena (the current, infant daughter version) is "deceased". Is this right? Daibhid C 13:52, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I was wonder about that, too. Seems odd and i couldn't find anything mentioning her death in the article. Ace Class Shadow 02:37, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed this:

Interestingly enough, Luthor is depicted in [the animated Supermn series of the 1990s and 2000s] as vaguely African-American, when his character had been unmistakenly Caucasian in all previous incarnations.

Big lips does not equal African-American. Luthor is voiced by a white man. If they really wanted to make him black, they'd have gone all the way. It's someone's opinion that he looks black, being stated as fact. Where have the shows' creators stated that Luthor was black (or even partially so?)--FuriousFreddy 17:30, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

What the creators actually meant for luthor to look greek. the problem is that some people have for some reason felt that this is misinterpted by some people.-user 23

The commentary on the first season DVD said he was based on Tele Savalas. --Talison 05:17, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Juniper Lee

My impression of the Juniper Lee episode was that she just called him "Lex Luthor" as a joke. I believe that was the only time the name was mentioned during the episode, and there was no indication of how she might have learned the man's name.

Ah. That makes sense. Ace Class Shadow 02:33, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox picture

Okay. Now Lexie-boy really looks black! And kind of elfish. Could we maybe just get a simple full body image of him in one of his business suits? The Anti-Gnome 03:29, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

If you mean the gold-colored Luthor picture (which I moved down the page), well, would agree not an ideal shot of Lex... thus, moved the picture I uploaded a few days ago back. I could try scanning in a full-body shot of Lex from somewhere (soon as I find a suitable one)... Anthony Dean 12:18, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Instead of putting up a new picture (didn't find a suitable full-body business-suit image), I switched pictures instead---agree the infobox picture shouldn't be something gold-and-black colored as previously shown. Also feel that there's room on the page for comic cover/panel images from *besides* just one person (almost all the comic panel/cover images are from DrBat, with said images of DrBat's exclusively taken from other web pages and some of them not given proper copyright tagging), especially if they own or have access to a scanner and can scan in comic panels/covers (thus providing some image diversity)... Anthony Dean 00:02, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
What's the point of having the image of him w/the Contessa in the SHB box? And yes, I did upload most of the images; the article had little to no images before I added them. Furthermore, there's nothing wrong with adding images from other sites as long as it's sourced and it's not a copyvio. The VU image is also better for the main SHB pic than one of him with the Contessa, which is better suited for the Love and Marriage section. --DrBat 00:18, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, you did upload most ofthe images, but you also deleted completely from the page the image I put up, instead of just moving mine down the page into the One Year Later-related info or something, and also gave rather dubious reasons given for doing so (think both your images and mine are of OK quality/not overly "sketchy"). For the record, this is something I've also seen you engage in in a few other comic character pages (especially if it's put in the infobox) on Wikipedia. While I still prefer a full-color solo picture of Lex in the infobox (vs. the VU one or even the one w/the Contessa), will leave it alone for now/let others comment... Anthony Dean 00:37, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Sketchy, as in grainy. The image is very grainy. And I did move your image to the OYL section. --DrBat 00:43, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Big white box

Can't we crop out that huge white box in the corner of the pic Exvicious 20:54, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Minor Smallville edits.

I changed Lex being caught up in the explosion that brought Kal-El (Clark) to earth, to focus more on the meteor shower. It's an important distingision. The explosion officially happened on Krpyton (of both the rocket and planet). If he was hit by the ship it would be the "impact", not explosion. However it's very clearly not, as if it was Lionel would easily be able to follow it and find the Kent's truck and the ship but it appears they are no where near the official crash site. Instead in "Smallville" it's a meteor strike that hits, while he's also standing near the current "scarecrow" of the school who comes back during the first season with "powers".--Kinglink 04:32, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notable Relatives

Clarification is needed on what makes a relative "notable." Some anonIP is pointing to a section of a Comics Project talk page where 2 people say notable means that the relative has to have their own article. I'm looking at the parameters set out on that same talk page which says a regular character is notable. At the very least, these three (Elizabeth Perske (wife, divorced), Contessa Erica Alexandra del Portenza (wife, presumed deceased), Perry J. "Jerry" White Jr. (son, deceased)) have been regulars in the DC Universe and I feel should be included even if they don't have their own articles yet. Can we get another opinion? CovenantD 17:37, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

All three of those are notable. Perske was a supporting character to Supergirl. --Chris Griswold 18:54, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Trivia

Luthor was one of only three comic book villains to appear in a serial (the others including the Mask in Spy Smasher and Leska/Laska from Blackhawk#31 in Blackhawk).

Luthor is also one of the few comic book villains to be a title character in a film, since he was the Atom Man in the serial. The others are the Joker in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, and somewhat afield, Golgo 13, Diabolik, and Dracula (in the Japanese cartoon based on Tomb of Dracula).

Luthor, along with the Joker and ironically the now largely forgotten Duke of Deception, was also one of the few villains to appear continously from the 1940's to the 1960's.

Enda80 23:15, 25 May 2006 (UTC)Enda80

[edit] 52

Can someone add some info from 52 (ie, him using Alex's body to clear himself of his crimes?) --DrBat 00:42, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Done. I kept is short so there's room for more as it unfolds. CovenantD 01:16, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page Format needed

Overall this is a great article, but something happened during the formating and it needs repaired. I don't know enough about wiki-formating, but someone that does really needs to fix this page Tovias 19:53, 10 July 2006 (UTC)Tovias

[edit] GA status

Im sorry, but this article simply doesn't meet the criteria for a GA right now; no references are listed at the bottom, and I think I only saw one or two hyperlinks, which I doubt cover the entire article. Yes, the pictures are nice, and sure, most of the information sounds plausible, but that just isn't enough im afraid. Furthermore, I recognize that Luthor certainly deserves a thorough explanation, but not this thorough, surely there must be some paragraphs of detail which can be shortened and information maybe referenced from the Crisis on Infinite Earths article, you could probably get away with heavily shortening the smallville section, and really, im sure there's more that could be done, but it might take me hours to figure it all out :/. I'll give you this, the page history does appear to be heavy in vandalism, it's possible that anons have been adding in all this extraneous information over some period of time. Maybe try to look up a revision that's not so....detailed? Homestarmy 05:46, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Luthor is still just like Hackman and Stuff

i'm going to change some stuff. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.167.58.37 (talk • contribs) at 19:25, July 21, 2006 (UTC)

No offense, but I'd rather you not. ACS (Wikipedian); Talk to the Ace. See what I've edited. 23:17, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Avatar?

He's been added to the category. Avatar of what? Is the editor referring to Smallville, and Zod? ~ZytheTalk to me! 15:19, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Move Smallville section?

Not to butt in, but if length is a problem, has anyone thought of moving the section on Smallville Lex to a seperate artice? It would be much less clunky. I'd do it myself, but I figured I'd discuss it first. ---User:Johnnyfog

I think both the DCAU and the Smallville sections would make excellent articles on their own. In bot contexts Luthor is one of the most developed characters and could easyly take more paragraphs to cover. Go for it!--The Judge 11:33, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I have finished a beta page of sorts and moved it all. Hopefully it will evolve into a better article, but for now I must admit the change feels awkward! ---User:Johnnyfog Sept 10 2006

I've place a merge to merge it back in. It's lengthy because there is a lot of fanboy information in there, and a lot of "in-universe" writing, that shouldn't be there. There are ways to write about a fictional character. This was an issue on the Brainiac page, where the James Marsters version had a larger section than some of the comic book versions, which is odd since they've been around for longer than this version. Batman doesn't have multiple character pages, and he's appeared in various mediums. There's a main article, and then a page of "Batman in other media", but not separate pages for each different incarnation. Bignole 02:36, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
The Lex Smallville article i modeled after the Buffy character pages. I don't agree that there is any fanboy information in it, and the article is not even that long. You might as well call for the deletion of the Smallville article, since it won't fit in this one. You should leave it alone and forget about it. Johnnyfog 06:37, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Are you kidding? Read it again, please. The entire article is written in a pure "in-universe" format. There is almost (and I didn't read everything word for word) no "out-of-universe" information. The articles goes into personality qualites, as if the author knew him personally. That's fanboy speculation. There's no source backing it up, it's being based on an interpretation of what the author saw for themself. Bignole 11:54, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Double-L Characters

I just went to the Lex Luthor page, and it lists most of the double-L (LL) characters. ie: Lona Lang, Lois Lane, etc.. It's not really Superman comics, but in the Smallville show Lex's dad is called Lionel Luthor; I thought he could be added here (with a note that stating 'all though it is not Superman comics, Lex's father on Smallville is named Lionel, and also fits in this category'), but don't feel confident enough to change this myself. jimmyThePipe 5:25, 6 October 2006

[edit] Superfriends Luthor

Luthor was the head of the legion of doom on Super Friends right? Shouldn't that be included in an entry? User:Johnnyfog

[edit] Superboy

Someone feel free to correct me, but Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman never informed Luthor of Superboy's death, nor did he go berzerk. In JLA #0, while viewing multiple "possible timelines" (apparently), there is a scene with Luthor screaming at them about his son, if I recall correctly, but that is not in continuity and is merely a possible future. I haven't removed it from the article because I guess it's possible it happened in some issue I missed yet, but if someone knows for sure either way, that'd be good. User:KyleLitke

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