Luthor For President

[Cypher Rage]

During the entire Cadmus arc the writers were making it look like Luthor was reformed and a new man running for presidency. It turned out in the end that Luthor really was some type of Brainiac Hybrid thing.

During this period, from The Return to the early stages of Clash, did you get fooled into thinking Luthor was good?

 

[Wonderwall]

Hell no, Luthor good wouldn't happen, but it is always cool to do the "Is he really good" storyline, especially when the character is as interesting as Lex Luthor.

 

[Mr. Mxyzptlk]

I never believed he's reformed, but there are definitely times that shows a spark of goodness and I believed it was genuine.

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

i never believed he had reformed at all, so even though it was a fun storyline that i enjoyed watching unfold...

lets just say, i wasn't at all surprised when he and Miss Waller exchanged triumphant looks while sipping champagne together.

 

[JAG]

Uh....no. The words "Luthor" and "Good" can exist in the same sentence only if said sentence is something like "Luthor is a good liar," or if we are discussing alternate universes.

 

[The Weed Of Cri]

Back in the days of Superman: The Animated Series, Luthor shows occasional flashes of an Ayn Rand-style enlightened self-interest that would cause to act on a good cause because the alternative would create problems for him. For example, he would help protect Metropolis from and alien invasion because he considered it "his" city and didn't want to see it damaged. (David Xanatos of Gargoyles had a lot of this same veiwpoint, although it seemed Xanatos' moral compass wasn't quite so jittery).

By Justice League, Luthor had lost most of that ability to weigh the repercussions of his actions against the potential harm he was doing and was just consumed with self-interest. It's what convinced me that Brainiac was never actually speaking to Luthor in the last season of JLU, and that Luthor had gone off the deep end by then. The shock of revivng Darkseid seemed to have snapped him back a little, but by the end of "Destroyer", I confess I couldn't fathom what was going on in Luthor's head by that point.

 

[GregX]

Luthor's too one dimensional to ever display any genuinely positive changes.

 

[TheGrayGhost]

Yes and no.

Once the Cadmus arc revealed itself as a major story-arc in The Doomsday Sanction and The Clash, I knew that the writers had intended for us to acknowledge this ambiguity, that Superman and Lex Luthor had, in a sense, reversed roles (not too much unlike the role reversal in Over The Edge). So I let myself toil in this ambiguity to immerse myself in the story. I remember in Question Authority, I think, Lois Lane compared what Superman said to what Lex Luthor might have said.

But to actually fall prey to the clever writing and suspect Superman (which, if I remember correctly, many of the posters on this forum did resent the direction of Superman's character), is to have the same misguided view of Amanda Wahler and Cadmus. I have nothing to do tonight, so let me muse a bit...

"I'm not the man who killed President Luthor. Right now, I wish to heaven that I were, but I'm not!"

Wahler feared that the nature of power undermines the harmony of justice, the idea that to have absolute power (not too much unlike the Justice League or the Justice Lords) leads to the decay of justice. And she's right to be concered, to a point (to be explained later.) There's a need for checks and balances, and Wahler believed Cadmus fulfilled this need (even though, ironically, the organization iself was corrupt, bypassing Congress, accepting illegal aid from Lex Luthor, and unethically provoking the Justice League.) In this sense, Green Arrow's character in this arc is similar to Amanda Wahler's, realizing the need for limits on power ("It's too much power for anyone to have."). Batman, too: "Who guards the guardians?"

But, as Superman affirms in the above (way above ) quotation, we control our own destiny, and although we may falter and be tempted, we have choice. Amanda Wahler, by the end of the arc in Epilogue, came to see this, telling a matured Terry McGuinnis: "We are who choose to be."

I was very pleased how the creative team handled the end of the arc, unlike a certain poster who constantly feels the need to remind of his disapproval of it.

 

[DisneyBoy]

I was never fooled. I knew they were just building up to a climax. I just thought that the climax included a good resolution on the character development Luthor had been getting.

He finds out he has cancer, loses control of his life and his company, and finally goes to jail. Then he gets the chance to make a deal and free himself, and begins building a good reputation while making sure things are progressing with Cadmus. When Cadmus and the League start to Clash, Luthor makes sure it works to his benefit while running for President.

...to me, the next logical step was to have Luthor get into office (which was always billed as the worst-case scenario) and have to see his plans through and deal with the consequences (like trying to kill Waller). It would have been really interesting...especially in light of the "thug Luthor" who dominated season three.

EDIT: Woah. *ahem* Guess I should have read GreyGhost's post before writing that.

 

[TheGrayGhost]

lol

 

[DisneyBoy]

*Blushes and slowly walks away*

 

[Christopher Glennon]

Once the Cadmus arc revealed itself as a major story-arc in The Doomsday Sanction and The Clash, I knew that the writers had intended for us to acknowledge this ambiguity, that Superman and Lex Luthor had, in a sense, reversed roles (not too much unlike the role reversal in Over The Edge). So I let myself toil in this ambiguity to immerse myself in the story. I remember in Question Authority, I think, Lois Lane compared what Superman said to what Lex Luthor might have said.

But to actually fall prey to the clever writing and suspect Superman (which, if I remember correctly, many of the posters on this forum did resent the direction of Superman's character), is to have the same misguided view of Amanda Wahler and Cadmus. I have nothing to do tonight, so let me muse a bit...

"I'm not the man who killed President Luthor. Right now, I wish to heaven that I were, but I'm not!"

Wahler feared that the nature of power undermines the harmony of justice, the idea that to have absolute power (not too much unlike the Justice League or the Justice Lords) leads to the decay of justice.

If Superman becomes like Luthor, does that mean Luthor becomes like Superman? Evidently not. You don't get Bad Superman and Good Luthor, you get Bad Superman and Dead Luthor.

"A Better World" pretty much proved that Luthor would make an evil president. If anything, that would only change Superman, not Luthor himself. And since there's only room for one man to call the shots, Luthor had to die (similarly, in "Brave New Metropolis", the Superman/Luthor alliance could only last so far before one of them turned on the other, and if it weren't for Lois, it would've been Superman who wound up dead and Luthor as top dog).

I guess what I'm trying to say is no, I didn't think Lex Luthor would turn good. He'd be like he was in BNM or ABW and it would then test Superman's limits of how far he'd go, as we saw in "Divided We Fall".