Just a quick one today: I know Lex Luthor is traditionally a redhead, right? But I got a He-Man figure at a yard sale with a removable hairpiece, and it fit on Lex, after wedging it into the armor. And it reminded me of the old, old, pre-Crisis, pre-any sort of reboot or recon or reason, when Lex Luthor became earth's most heinous villain and tried to kill Superman for several decades, all because his hair fell out. (Which, I suppose was a retcon as well, since I think he was merely another mad scientist type in his first appearances. Shut up.)
I kind of like how the pendulum swings with Luthor: from trying to kill Superman in a relatively rational, civilized manner; to trying to kill Superman as a gibbering, criminally-insane psychotic. We've seen Luthor a few times lately so crazy as to make the Joker seem functional. How will Luthor be in Action Comics? Probably reasonably crazy, than less reasonably so.
I'm pretty sure that pre-Crisis, Lex's motivation was not losing his hair, but that Superboy destroyed a valuable experiment of his.
ReplyDeleteI think you are right! And it could just be I think it's funnier for baldness to be Luthor's only motivation...But usually, and I wanna say this was in Legion maybe? In flashbacks, Lex seemed more pissed about the hair than anything. Probably because that was faster than going into Lex creating life in the lab that one time.
ReplyDeleteThen, I figure Lex tried to kill Superboy a few times because of the baldness, then a couple more times because he was pissed Superboy didn't die the last time Lex tried to kill him, until eventually he's trying to kill Superman because that's what he does. That progression probably works for most villains, really...