Post by K-Box on Nov 3, 2010 16:04:37 GMT -8
... And for the first time, I find myself believing that Lex Luthor is the TRUE hero in Superman's story. Comics Alliance did a spoilerrific roundtable review of Action Comics #894, which should help you get up to speed.
The thing that struck me the most about this story was that, for all of Luthor's ruthlessness and manipulativeness, every argument he made (minus the ones that applied to trying to kill Superman, obviously) was 100-percent morally correct.
As much as I love Neil Gaiman's Death, I've been waiting for YEARS for someone to shout down her cutesy sanguine insistence that the ways in which everything has worked out are all ultimately for the best and not worth worrying our little human heads about, and the awesome thing about Luthor in this issue is that he even does it for the same reasons that I want to - because "higher powers" are inherently in the wrong purely by virtue of BEING "higher powers."
I'd skimmed through some of Paul Cornell's work on this title before, but goddamn, THIS is the Luthor I've been waiting for - the one who engages in villainy because, no matter how flawed his character might be, his point of view is actually RIGHT.
You want insanely badass defiance in the face of an unfathomably superior existential authority? When Death tries to pull the Kübler-Ross model on him, Luthor grabs her angrily by the shoulders and yells, "I DON'T DO 'ACCEPTANCE'!" Momentarily startled by this outburst, Death puts Luthor in a "time out" to ask him his thoughts on the afterlife, and about whether he believes that "you'll go where you're meant to go."
What follows is an exercise in sheer theological asskicking, delivered by Luthor as the voice of The Adversary:
Lex Luthor, this is the scene that made you MY hero.
The thing that struck me the most about this story was that, for all of Luthor's ruthlessness and manipulativeness, every argument he made (minus the ones that applied to trying to kill Superman, obviously) was 100-percent morally correct.
As much as I love Neil Gaiman's Death, I've been waiting for YEARS for someone to shout down her cutesy sanguine insistence that the ways in which everything has worked out are all ultimately for the best and not worth worrying our little human heads about, and the awesome thing about Luthor in this issue is that he even does it for the same reasons that I want to - because "higher powers" are inherently in the wrong purely by virtue of BEING "higher powers."
I'd skimmed through some of Paul Cornell's work on this title before, but goddamn, THIS is the Luthor I've been waiting for - the one who engages in villainy because, no matter how flawed his character might be, his point of view is actually RIGHT.
You want insanely badass defiance in the face of an unfathomably superior existential authority? When Death tries to pull the Kübler-Ross model on him, Luthor grabs her angrily by the shoulders and yells, "I DON'T DO 'ACCEPTANCE'!" Momentarily startled by this outburst, Death puts Luthor in a "time out" to ask him his thoughts on the afterlife, and about whether he believes that "you'll go where you're meant to go."
What follows is an exercise in sheer theological asskicking, delivered by Luthor as the voice of The Adversary:
Lex Luthor, this is the scene that made you MY hero.
