Theo made me write this post

Now, I’m a Marvel man.  I mean, it’s just not a real debatable topic, in my mind.  DC has a couple of the most recognized names in comics, but then fact of the matter is that Batman and Superman are the only big league heavy hitters in DC’s pop culture arsenal.  Marvel has Wolverine, the X-Man, Captain America, Hulk, Spiderman, Iron Man, and the list goes on from there.

 

Now, I want that cleared up, because despite my firm position on the side of Marvel, this post is all about Lex Luthor.  See, I got drunk and went on a rant about him a couple nights ago, and Adam and Theo wrested from me a drunken oath to transpose that rant for all to see.  I tried to explain to them that all the points of this drivel were blatantly obvious and that it contained no special insight, but they insisted.  So, here we go.

 

Luthor was the superhero, not Superman.  Sure, Superman fought the bad guys, saved the damsels, and got all the love and respect.  And yes, he was the one spouting rhetoric of fighting for truth, justice, the American Way, and all that happy crappy.  And perhaps most damning of all, he was the one with the youthful good looks and the lush head of hair.

 

But Superman was the alien.  He was the interloper.  And what happened when he came to our world?  We became complacent.  Why would anyone bother even trying to be the best at anything anymore, when you know that you’ll never be as fast or as strong as Superman.  He could even think faster than anyone on the planet (I believe they called this superpower “high-speed calculations”).  And people became complacent, such to the point that the Guardians of the Universe actually had to pull him aside and tell him to tone it down.  Those guys never step in.

 

And then here was Luthor, the one man on Earth that dared to challenge this God who had descended from heaven to keep everyone in line.  One man that dared to say “you know what, I think I can take him.”  And what does he get?  We label him “villain.”

 

To really understand this, you have to understand where Luthor’s coming from.  This guy was born in a slum.  He was abused as a child, and his parents didn’t care about him at all.  From day one, Lex had nothing.  Now, some people in that situation just give up.  Some resort to selling their bodies on the streets so they can afford a new Linkin Park CD to lock themselves in their rooms with every day.  What does Luthor do?  He takes out a life insurance policy on his abusive parents and sabotages their breaks.  Boom, he’s got money to pay for MIT.  Since his parents weren’t going to help him grow up willingly, he found a way to use their existence to his benefit anyway.

 

He graduates from MIT (just like Gordon Freeman!) and founds Lexcorp, and he works their night and day.  His one goal is to reach the pinnacle of what a human being can aspire to.  He was never, ever satisfied.  He never, ever felt that he had “accomplished enough for one lifetime.”  Luthor devoted himself to his goal in a way almost no human being ever can.  He doesn’t take vacations, he doesn’t take weekends.  If he eats, sleeps, exercises, or relaxes, he is only doing so because it will make his body and mind function better and therefore allows him to be more productive during every other hour of the day.  He pours a superhuman amount of effort into making himself an accomplished man, and everything he accomplishes he works for and earns.  He never had a single thing handed to him, and more than a few things that most people take for granted are thinks that he had to fight for.  To get his parents to pay for his college education, he literally had to kill them.  He never hesitated to step on toes or slit throats to get his way.  After all, it’s a dog eat dog world- the person who has the strength to take something gets it.  If somebody else wasn’t strong or smart enough to outmaneuver Lex, then he deserves what he can take from them.  It’s not like people weren’t constantly trying to do the same to him.  He won out because he was smarter, faster, and more dedicated to his own personal victory than anyone who ever tried to stop him or got in his way.  Despite his amoral disposition, Lex Luthor is a shining example of the dominating power of the human spirit.

 

And all this hard work ultimately starts paying off.  His multinational empire is one of the largest in the world.  He turns the beat up city he grew up in into a sprawling Metropolis, where more than half of the citizens work for him, “whether they know it or not.”  It gets to the point that even when multiple super heroes know that he’s breaking the law, they hold their tongues because for Luthor to go to jail would mean his company would fail, which could literally cause a financial meltdown that would certainly destroy Metropolis and probably leave painful echoes throughout the US economy.  And whether you agree with his methods or not, he earned every bit of what he has.  Lex Luthor has worked harder for every dollar he’s earned than most Americans do in a lifetime.

 

And then here comes this Superman asshole.  Superman decides to oppose Lex Luthor not because Lex has attacked him, and not because Superman wants anything Lex has.  He simply judges Lex Luthor to be the sort of person that doesn’t deserve his freedom.  That’s it.  Superman, as if he was god himself, has hovered above Luthor’s great empire and simply proclaimed it to be unclean.  And what’s more, Superman has all this power, all this fame and respect.  And he didn’t have to do a damn thing to get any of it.  Luthor’s power and fame were the result of his blood, sweat, and tears.  A lifetime of dedication towards a single, ostensibly unattainable goal.  And now this child, appears from out of nowhere, and has simply been imbued with the power to challenge Luthor.  Luthor now faces the prospect of everything he’s worked for burning to the ground; and beyond the threat of losing everything, he doesn’t even get the satisfaction of losing it all to a legitimate rival.  What right does Superman have to undo this man’s entire life?  What has Superman sacrificed to earn his authority?  What is wrong with the world Luthor could dedicate his entire life to his work, and then see it all undone by someone who was simply handed his power with no strings attached?

 

Superman was born to parents that loved him.  To a father who worked tirelessly and suffered ridicule from his fellow scientists to provide his child with a way off his dying world.  Then, when those two loving parents were taken from him, the world quickly replaced them with another set of equally doting parents in the form of the Kents.  After enjoying a laid-back, idyllic small-town childhood, Superman comes of age and finds out that he’s the fastest, strongest man on the planet, and he’s freaking bulletproof.

 

And even then, when he finds himself standing toe to invincible toe with God himself, and is told to yield, Lex Luthor dares to tell God “no.”  Over my dead body will you take what I’ve worked for.  You weren’t there to save my ass when Dad was beating the shit out of me every night.  You didn’t cough up any of the money to get me through MIT.  But now that I’ve found my own way to rise above all those challenges, now you want to send me back down there?  Now you want to judge me?  Now you’re going to tell me that all that hard work and sacrifice meant nothing?  Now you want me to just… give it all back.  No.  Fuck you.  Eat some kryptonite, bitch.

 

He’s evil, he’s arrogant, and he’ll cut your throat if it suits him, but he knows more about fighting for every inch than anybody else he’s ever met.  He’s risen up through challenges that would crush most people.  And when all that is threatened by a power so great he cannot even comprehend it, he is a man who dares to defy even God.