Ross Webster
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Ross Webster is the main villain played by Robert Vaughn in Superman III, written similar in tone to Lex Luthor in the first two Superman movies.
[edit] History
Ross Webster is the head of Webscoe Industries and one of the wealthiest industrialists in the world. An eccentric (his tower had a ski lodge on the roof), he is often prone to quirky comments. Way down in one of his many organizations, an incident involving stolen funds by a computer hacker named Gus Gorman is brought to Webster's attention. Gorman is brought to his office, where Webster quizzes the hacker about his $85,789.90 paycheck and realizes that what he has on his hands is not a criminal, but a genius who can be of great value. Rather than send him to jail, he gives Gorman the option of working for him personally.
With Gorman's assistance, Webster seeks to monopolize the entire coffee industry by destroying Colombia's crops. He sends Gorman to one of Webscoe's subsidiary companies in Smallville, Kansas to create a computer program using the available weather satellite. From this, a massive storm converges over Colombia. But Superman intervenes, however, flying into its midst to undo all the damage the storm caused, upsetting Webster's plans in the process.
Webster's next idea - in order to proceed and to use Gorman's talents - is to get rid of Superman, and the only way to get rid of Superman is to re-create, by computer, Kryptonite. Gorman does this, but instead of killing Superman, the end product made him evil, though nonetheless put him out of the way. In the meantime, Webster executes a new plan to deactivate all of the oil pumps in North America and reroute the oil tankers to the middle of the Atlantic ocean. To do this, he requires Gorman's help, yet again. But Gorman refuses unless Webster builds the hacker a state-of-the-art supercomputer he'd been secretly designing. Webster agrees. However, the Man of Steel comes back to thwart Webster's machinations once more.
At their Grand Canyon hideout, Webster, his sister Vera, and Lorelei Ambrosia, along with Gus Gorman, set out to further his plans for economic control and to lure Superman into a trap. Superman does arrive, and enters a fierce bout with the newly constucted Ultimate Computer's Kryptonite ray and Vera Webster's transformation into a vicious cyborg. Just when Ross Webster seemed about to succeed, Gorman turned on him, helping Superman destroy the computer instead.
Effectively bringing an end to Webster's scheme, Superman never apprehended the defeated mastermind, leaving his whereabouts from that point on unknown.
[edit] Trivia
Published on June 17, 1983, Jane Maslin of the New York Times said: "This wealthy villain, played nattily by Robert Vaughn, is so rich he's never worn the same socks twice. He even has his own rooftop ski slope right in the middle of downtown Metropolis, which makes for one of the film's more inspired sight gags."
