Therefore, by the time a book gets launched, the story gets hijacked for the big universe-wide crossover. And, by the time the story gets back under its feet, it is time for the JLA crossover.

I think that MM would work better as a series of limited series that don't have to crossover because the entire story, in character, happens between the crossover stories.

Kinda like how the various Venom limited series didn't have to participate in the Spider-Man crossovers. And, the three Robin mini-series didn't have to participate in the Batman crossovers.

Theno

It would be nice if he could go away for a while and pop back up when Superman least expects it.

I dunno man, shit like that breaks the internet in half.

Seriously, though, I'm not saying there's no room for good stories with a businessman Luthor...there have been plenty of good ones, and there will be plenty more, I'm sure.

But, Dan, a crazy person is one-note? Do you know many crazy people? You're pretty crazy yourself, am I right? Do you consider yourself one-note? Why do you do the things you do? Because "you're crazy?" Is anything that simple? Luthor was never super-crazy anyway. A scientist can have as many motivations and as much complexity as a businessman.

But all that said, I would like a Luthor who could do it all. I agree with people who say they like where Luthor is at conceptually right now. He hasn't been in too many great comics (has he?), but I like him as a dethroned underdog. It would be nice if he could go away for a while and pop back up when Superman least expects it.

People who hate science are stupid. You guys are stupid.

Purely as a concept, though…really…take out the Luthor part (IE, the “bald guy who hates Superman” part) and what’s more interesting? A mad scientist or a corrupt businessman? Don’t be daft.

Don't worry, I would never crib your style.

Corrupt businessman is more interesting, without a doubt. Lots of room for complexity and multiple interpretations. Mad scientist is one-note. Why does he do the things he does? Because he's craaaazyyyy and eeeeeevillllll.

BOOOOOOOORING.

Pre-Crisis Luthor had to have “imaginary stories” for that.

I take it the Superman Showcase books aren't at the Lexxor stories yet? Basically, it was a storytelling device to do EXACTLY what you describe in your above post.

But that’s the genius of post-Crisis Luthor. He’s a corrupt businessman who is also a mad scientist. And which is more interesting–a mad scientist, or a mad scientist who also happens to be a brilliant corporate raider?

Except that the idea that he's both is fairly recent; the Byrne/Wolfman version tended to emphasize Luthor's wealth and connections, and left the mad science to underlings and hirelings. Byrne ended up creating Thaddeus Killgrave, a sort of Sivana-lite, almost as compensation. More to the point, Lex doesn't really make power plays in his corporate phase; he succumbs to paranoia and envy, manipulates people for the simpyl pleasure of it, and redresses disproportionately small grudges, but he does remarkably little to gain, say, direct political power or even more wealth.

You really do have to hang in until the mid-1990s "Fall of Luthor" material before you get back uber-genius Lex, who tosses off theorems and devises brilliant technology on the fly. Once he'd been restored (and, I'll note, rejuvenated and slimmed down from the staunchly middle-aged, portly version we'd had for most of the post-Crisis era), only then was he both mad scientist and robber baron. And it's really only after this cycle plays out once or twice that Luthor actually becomes interested in being more than a tycoon reveling in his given sphere of wealth and influence while worrying about threats from within it.

Though, in fairness, I suspect what most people really have nostalgia for is Elliot S! Maggin's Bronze Age Luthor, a man of tragic qualities and sharply-defined megalomania. (And Maggin, of course, rather liked the idea of a semi- or genuinely legitemate Luthor, with his "Thunder Corporation" in Miracle Monday and glimpses of alternate futures wherein Luthor had gone straight and made billions with his genius.)

I like the idea of a Luthor who makes climbs back into legitemacy, but falls into public disdain as well; I just tend to like him in the "fallen" part of the cycle, because it's there that he has more solid reasons for his villainous ploys and his paranoid resentments. The corporate fat cat Luthor is less about his ambitions to greater power than about his security in his extant power and petty jealousy of Superman. Once Superman's knocked him down in terms of worldly status, his jealousy and paranoia are no longer sheer pettiness.

He's from Mars, and he's a green-skinned, 50s B-movie alien. The former is risible by current mainstream scientific -- even pop-scientific -- standards, and the latter codes as sheer kitsch. So we get writers retconning in the idea that the Martian race is long dead, or migrated away at some point, and that J'onn was teleported through time as well as space; you get J'onn's xenomorphic and xenocultural side being pushed to the point that his humaoid appearance has to be rationalized away; eventually, you'll get some take on the character in which he's somehow "not really from Mars" or somesuch.

That's not a storytelling engine issue, precisely, but it does seem to end up impacting the way his more recent storytelling engines have been built.

Purely as a concept, though…really…take out the Luthor part (IE, the “bald guy who hates Superman” part) and what’s more interesting? A mad scientist or a corrupt businessman? Don’t be daft.

But that's the genius of post-Crisis Luthor. He's a corrupt businessman who is also a mad scientist. And which is more interesting--a mad scientist, or a mad scientist who also happens to be a brilliant corporate raider?

Plus, it gives the writer a chance to give Luthor successes. Villains who always lose eventually lose their ability to be threatening, which is always bad for them as characters. But they can't "win" in the sense of killing the hero or achieving world domination. So the best solution, as exemplified by villains like Doom and post-Crisis Luthor, is make them already-powerful people who want more. So they lose a lot, but even when Luthor loses, he slinks back to his billion-dollar mansion and sleeps with his three trophy girlfriends while drinking $900 champagne. And when he loses LexCorp (like he did in the 90s), he gets to have a storyline where he "wins", getting back his company and showing everyone he's a force to be reckoned with. Which makes him seem like a more credible threat. Pre-Crisis Luthor had to have "imaginary stories" for that.

(Although he was pretty impressively evil in those. I mean, anyone who cures cancer just to trick Superman into thinking he's reformed, well...that's pretty danged evil.)

I think Luthor as *EX* Corporate Villain works really well, though. And not coincidentally, done first on the animated Lex, who’s finally and very satisfyingly brought down by Superman and the Justice League. Add a few cups of crazy, and he’s on that criminal mad science road again, but it actually has more freshness to it now.

Agreed, I really like where Lex is at right now. Which is not to say, once the freshness of it eventually wears off, he won't be trading his battle armor back in for his power suit.

You lose all credibility when you say “suave, corporate Luthor” is more interesting than the Silver Age version.

Except for the fact that he's right, as pretty much every version of Superman bears out. Even in the comics, he goes through periods of not being a businessman before eventually returning to...being a businessman.

The later day concept of the "trilogy" has sapped a number of the B level heroes of the oomf that they got post-Crisis. Black Canary went from being a JLA founder to just some chick who hung around and banged Green Arrow. J'onn has gone from being the most powerful of the heroes, to being the guy cowering when someone lights a cigerette.

The first, and I don't mean to bash anyone's favorite character, is that some characters aren't meant to carry a book. How many times has DC tried to launch a MM comic, or Aquaman, or Hawkman, or Spectre with the same inevitable result? There are more ways to keep a character in the comic-reading public's consciousness than going the monthly title route; of course, some titles don't deserve to be monthly, but would be served as a bi-monthly, and I'm not just talking about chronically late books. Anyway, I think frequent cancellations of a character's book eventually begin to hurt the next attempt as people think, "Why bother? It'll be cancelled in a year."

Second, and this is something that Dan Didio--who I think is dangerously close to becoming the most reviled person in the Internet comic-book community--understands, "exciting," "new" takes on a character all too often stray from the basic concept until the character in print resembles the original in name only. We all appreciate the value of recognizable trademarks, but there comes a time when the character presented under the familiar name so little meets the expectations the name conjures up, that it is almost a case of bait and switch. When this happens, most of the time, the comic is cancelled because buyers stop buying.

This is different from replacing an earlier character with a newer version with the same name. I think in that case, people are willing to give the comic more of a chance. If a writer has an idea that requires screwing with MM's, for example, basic character, then don't use MM, but create a new character with those attributes. If you don't want to give your idea to DC, then self-publish it, but don't warp a character needlessly into something that is not going to last. Yes, I'm looking at you, Winick.

One thing I discovered, too, reading some old Superman Adventures comics with my nephew, is that Corporate Luthor as an all-ages storytelling engine is... awkward, at best. Try explaining sometime why Superman doesn't put Luthor in jail at the end of a typical story to a five-year-old....

I think Luthor as *EX* Corporate Villain works really well, though. And not coincidentally, done first on the animated Lex, who's finally and very satisfyingly brought down by Superman and the Justice League. Add a few cups of crazy, and he's on that criminal mad science road again, but it actually has more freshness to it now.