Howdy!
I know I’ve said this before, but it really is time for me to get back to updating this blog on regular basis. So, today, for no particular reason (wink wink), I’ve chosen to review this specific comic book, which collects several stories from the year 2000, when DC Comics had Lex Luthor get elected President of the United States.
Yeah, that’s right. DC had an evil billionaire with no political experience getting elected President. That’s the kind of implausible storyline that could only happen in comic books, am I right?!?
This collection is divided into several chapters, covering stories from The Campaign, The Election Night, and The Inauguration. Then it includes Lex Luthor: The Unauthorized Biography, originally published in 1989 and which I’ve reviewed before. Now I’ll go through each story.
THE WHY
Written by Greg Rucka and drawn by Matthew Clark.
This is a six-page story about the day Lex decided to run for President and why. The why was, not surprisingly, that he was jealous of Superman’s popularity. What’s clever about this story is that it’s almost completely silent. There are no word balloons, thought balloons, or captions except in the last two panels. Yet, no other words are needed.
ADVERSARIES
Written by J.M. DeMatteis and drawn by Mike Miller
This story shows Lex’s press conference where he announced his candidacy. Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen are in attendance, both of whom don’t want to believe that someone like Lex could actually get elected but are disturbed when they see the crowd’s enthusiastic reaction. Then Lex gets abducted by a supervillain who wants to use him as bait to draw out Superman. Superman does show up and rescue Lex, to Lex’s chagrin. But even though this was a full-length story, this comic only includes those first five pages, I guess because that’s all that deals with Lex’s storyline, so the rest of it, with Superman fighting the villain, isn’t relevant.
THE MOST SUITABLE PERSON
Written by Greg Rucka and drawn by Dale Eaglesham
In this 16-page story, Lex attempts to recruit Talia Al Ghul to run his company LexCorp for him while he’s running for President (even Lex Luthor understood the potential conflict of interest). At this point in her life, Talia is estranged from her father, Ras Al Ghul, for some reason and is therefore hiding in Hong Kong under an assumed name. But of course, Lex had the resources to track her down, and we see him go to great lengths to convince her to accept his offer (which she does, but I won’t spoil how).
I have to say, I never quite understood the logic of him choosing her, just from a storyline standpoint, as she’s not connected to the Superman comics. One thing that always bugged me about this story is that Talia is using the last game, “Head.” In the comic, it has her saying, “I use Head. Pronounced the British way, Heed.”
Read that out loud. How does that make sense as written dialog? Did she deliberately mispronounce her last name just to tell him how it should correctly be pronounced? Nobody talks like that. That would be like the famous singer Sade saying, “My name is Sadie, pronounced Shar-Day.” It would have made more to have her say Head and then have an asterisk next to it with a little caption box at the bottom of the page announcing how it should be pronounced. I would have expected an experienced writer like Rucka to understand that or for whoever edited this comic to catch it before publication.
THE GREAT DEBATE
Written by Peter David and drawn by Stuart Immonen.
This is a 4-page short story in which Lex has a nightmare (spoiler alert, I guess) where he is participating in a Presidential debate that goes hilariously wrong. Peter David was always great at writing humor, and this is no exception.
THE AMERICAN DREAM/WHERE MONSTERS LURK
Written by Jeph Loeb and drawn by Ed McGuinness
These stories were originally published in two issues. In part one, Lex announces that he’s chosen Pete Ross, Superman’s childhood best friend who, in this continuity, had been a former congressman and senator, as his running mate. This naturally disturbs Superman, Lois, and Perry White, who all try to make sense of this. But it ends at a campaign party where Aquaman appears and kidnaps Lex, saying that Lex is being charged with crimes against Atlantis.
In the second part, Superman attempts to stop Aquaman but is stopped by Aqualad, who unleashes a flood on the city of Metropolis. So most of the story is Superman, with the unwanted aid of the teenage superheroes of Young Justice, trying to stop the flood (which is, of course, packed with sharks and then a giant green sea monster). Then Superman gets down to Atlantis to rescue Lex, who has already managed to turn this situation around. And it ends with an assassination attempt against Lex’s life, which is heavily implied that he set up.
That’s right, they wrote a story about an evil billionaire staging a fake assassination attempt against himself to gain public sympathy to help his presidential campaign. What kind of crazy comic book writing is that?!?
It’s an action-packed story, and I love the artist, but this still bugged me as it seemed like Aquaman and Aqualad were written so out of character. Even if he thought he was justified, how could he just kidnap an American citizen, one running for President at that, and just get away with it? Surely the whole United Nations would turn against Atlantis for that? Even the Justice League would kick him out. And that’s not even getting into him flooding Metropolis. Combined, he’d be seen as a worldwide terrorist. But it’s all just blown over and forgotten about.
TALES FROM THE BIZZARO WORLD
Written by Jeph Loeb and drawn by Ed McGuinness
This is a 2-page story in which Batman appears in Lois and Clark’s apartment to discuss how to stop Lex Luthor from getting elected. Batman is willing to find any means to derail the campaign, but Superman wants “to put some faith in the American people to do the right thing.” Other than making Superman out to be hopelessly naive, I don’t know the point of this.
Then there’s a 3-page story, or rather just a sequence of pages, that first shows Superman and Martian Manhunter watching the voting results come in on election night, in what I presume is the Justice League HQ, although it could also be the Fortess of Solitude. Then it switches to the Daily Planet newsroom, where Clark, Lois, Jimmy and Perry are discussing the election. There are no credits on these pages, but it looks like the art might be by Humberto Ramos.
LEX LUTHOR: TRIUMPH OVER TRAGEDY
Written by Jeph Loeb and drawn by Tony Harris
This 10-page story takes place on election night after Lex has been declared the winner. Cat Grant, reporting the news on WGBS, aires a mini biographical video that she’s put together, celebrating Lex Luthor’s life and legacy. This goes back to Lex’s ancestors who helped settle Metropolis when it was found, through Lex’s childhood and his life up to this point. It’s not bad.
WHERE WERE YOU?
Written by Jeph Loeb and drawn by Doug Mahnke
This 5-page story shows the Daily Planet newsroom reacting when Lex is declared the next President and Perry assigning Lois, Clark, and Jimmy to various stories to cover it.
ONE OR THE OTHER
Written by Greg Rucka and drawn by Dwayne Turner
This 10-page story takes place on election night, after Lex had been declared the winner. He’s alone in his office in the LexCorp tower, revising his victory speech, when Batman sneaks in and confronts him. Batman knows that Lex has a Kryptonite ring in his possession and demands that he hand it over. But Lex won’t be intimidated, boasting that as the President, he’s more powerful than Batman will ever be, and warns that if Batman doesn’t leave, he’ll direct the full power of the Federal government, including all of the intelligence agencies and spy satellites, into learning all of Batman’s secrets and destroying him. This is probably my favorite story in this issue, as it shows how badass Lex Luthor is, causing even the mighty Batman to back down. And Lex clearly enjoys every minute of it.
HE’S HEARD THE NEWS
Written and drawn by Cam Smith
This is a 3-page story that’s said to take place 4 minutes after Lex was declared the winner of the election, where we see Superman out in space angrily smashing a bunch of asteroids. There’s not much point to this story.
LANA’S STORY
Written by Jeph Loeb and drawn by Todd Nauck
This story takes place two nights after the election. Superman flies to Pete and Lana Lang’s home (they’re married) late at night while Pete and their infant son Clark are asleep to have a private conversation with Lana about why she didn’t try to stop Pete from agreeing to be Lex’s running mate. Unlike Pete, she knows exactly how evil Lex is, as he once had her kidnapped and tortured to try to get secrets about Superman out of her. I won’t spoil her answer; you should read it for yourself, but it’s a very chilling side of Lana Lang that you don’t usually see. It’s only 3 pages, but this is my 2nd favorite story in this issue.
SOUL OF THE CITY!
Written by J.M. DeMatteis and drawn by Mike Miller
Like Adversaries, this is from a full-issue story, but it only shows the first 4 pages. Superman angrily flies to the LexCorp tower, where Lex is attending a rally in celebration of his victory, and he begrudgingly publicly congratulates him. Kudos to Mike Miller, the splash page of Lex and Superman shaking hands, just for the way he draws the subtle looks on each man’s face. You can tell what they’re each thinking and feeling on the inside.
METROPOLIS IS BURNING
Written by Mark Schultz and drawn by Paco Medina and Dough Mahnke
This is three pages (from a full-length story), where Metropolis is throwing a ticker tape parade for Lex Luthor, where we see that there are still some citizens who don’t support him, and Lex publicly announces Talia as the new CEO of LexCorp.
HELP!
Written by Jeph Loeb
This was initially published as a special Holiday issue. It takes place during December when Superman visits the other members of the Justice League to vent about Lex’s election and give them each a Christman Present. Each sequence is drawn by a different artist.
Humberto Ramos draws Superman talking with Plastic Man and Martian Manhunter in the JLA HQ. He gives the former a box of rubberbands and the latter a box of his favorite cookies.
Rob Liefeld draws Superman swimming underwater with Aquaman, where he gives him a snow globe of Metropolis.
Mike Wieringo draws Superman in orbit with Green Lanter Kyle Raynor, where he gives him a can of jewelry polish.
Arthur Adams draws Superman racing The Flash Wally West around the world, and gives him tube socks.,
Ian Churchill draws Superman and Wonder Woman in Antarctica, where they’re sparring while wrestling (she pins him 2 out of 3 times). He gives her a little gold necklace with a pendant of Thor’s hammer Mjolnir.
Joe Madureira draws Superman and Batman in Gotham City, in the most tense sequence of this story. Both men are pissed off, and Batman even gets a dig in at Superman for Superman’s previous statement about having faith in the American people. After vowing to keep an eye on Lex and take him down the minute they’re legally able to, Superman leaves Batman with a new magnifying glass.
Ed McGuinness draws the finale page, where Superman and Lois is head to take a little Christmas vacation in the (red) sunny Bottle City of Kandor.
Great story. Even the contrasting art styles worked.
WORLD WITHOUT SUPERMAN
Written by Mark Schultz and drawn by Duncan Rouleau
Here’s a full-length story where a time traveler visits Superman and take him 15 years into the future, where Luthor served two terms as President and then resumed his position at LexCorp, where his new gained influence helped make it the most powerful corporation on the planet, with him as the defacto ruler of the world. Superman himself left the planet a year earlier, and most of the major superheroes perished in a great war that Lex staged. Only Lois, Perry, and Jimmy continue to secretly work to expose Lex’s crimes to the world, and we see them fail miserably. And then an even greater threat than Lex is revealed. The time traveler reveals this to him to give him the emotional strength to never give up, as he did in this timeline, so he can prevent this nightmarish future, which will affect not only Earth but the entire universe, from coming to pass.
This is a good story, which will later tie into a company-wide crossover called OUR WORLDS AT WAR, which DC published a year later.
SAINTS
Written by Mark Schultz and drawn by Doug Mahnke
This full-length story is about a radical environmentalist group that intends to disrupt Lex’s inauguration ceremony in Washington D.C. Superman, with help from John Henry Irons and Star-Spangled Kid (later Stargirl) and Stripe, must stop the group’s plans, which includes a deadly secret weapon. It’s a decent story, but it doesn’t feel particularly impactful to the President Lex storyline.
ROCKET’S RED GLARE
Written by Karl Kesel and drawn by Paul Pelletier.
In this 3-page story, Lex finally has his most recent wife, Contessa Erica Del Potenza, who had been in hiding ever since he’d previously tried to have her killed, tracked down and executed. Another good story showing how evil Lex is.
POWER COUPLE
Written by Phil Jimenez and drawn by Yvul Guichet
This short (4-pages) story has the wicked sorceress Circe come to the White House to offer herself as Lex’s new wife so they could rule the nation together. Lex brutally rejects her proposal, and this is a prelude to a storyline in the Wonder Woman series where Circe intends to get her revenge on Lex and basically all men in the world.
HE’S COMING MR. LEW-THOR!
Written by Mike Wieringo and drawn by Marlo Alquiza
This two-page story introduced Mac, Lex’s new personal assistant. He’s presented as a bit of a bumbling oaf, ala Otis in the first two Christopher Reeve Superman films, and Lex’s bodyguard, Mercy, is baffled as to why Lex would hire someone like him for such an important position.
Spoiler Alert: It would be revealed much later that Mac is actually The Martian Manhunter in disguise, sent by the Justice League to spy on Lex while in the White House. Lex knew this all along but pretended to be unaware just to show the JLA that he had nothing to hide.
Then we have some pages that are meant to be Lex’s personal files on Talia, Pete Ross, and other members of his cabinet and a gallery of the covers of the various comic books from which the reprinted stories in this volume are taken.
Altogether this collection is a good introduction to this drastic shift in DC’s status quo. I definitely recommend it. And, again, thank Rao that nothing like this would ever happen in real life.
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