Spoilers "Superman & Lois": The Fourth and Final Season

[Christopher]

I never watched Smallville, but I heard Rosenbaum's has been the closest to the comic book version of Luthor.

Hmm, I wouldn't say that, since he was a young Lex who hadn't yet turned to villainy, at least for the majority of the show. If anything, many of the comics Luthor's traits were given to Lex's father Lionel in Smallville.

Rosenbaum's Luthor was an interesting and effective character, but he was his own entity, a complex young man with both good and malicious impulses competing within him, pulled between Clark's positive influence and Lionel's negative influence.

That, and Clancy Brown's animated version.

Yeah, he was pretty close to the post-Crisis business-magnate version of Luthor, though over time he acquired attributes of the pre-Crisis Luthor's scientific genius, and by Justice League he'd started wearing a battle suit like pre-Crisis Lex.

However, I loved Jon Cryer's Luthor in Supergirl. Just great.

My two favorite live-action Luthors are Jon Cryer's and Sherman Howard's in the syndicated Superboy. Howard was brought aboard in season 2 to replace season 1's ill-conceived college-student version of Lex played by Scott Wells, the only Lex more annoying than Eisenberg. (Lex got plastic surgery to impersonate a much older man and steal his business, but this was later ignored when the series started visiting alternate universes and every other Lex across the multiverse was played by Howard.) In season 2, Howard was basically doing a Hackman impression, but in the much better-written seasons 3 & 4, he came into his own as a terrifically malevolent version of the character. "Mine Games," a bottle episode written by Howard where Lex and Superboy were trapped together and had an intense verbal clash for most of the half-hour, was one of the best Luthor stories ever written for the screen.

And yeah, I really like Michael Cudlitz's Luthor too. There guy is a cold monster out for revenge. I think there's room to re-interpret Luthor, just like there have been different takes on Batman.

As I said before, reinterpretation per se is never wrong to try, but each reinterpretation needs to be judged on its own individual merits. The specific and the general are two different questions entirely.

Personally, I find revenge a boring and cliched motivation. Yes, the Silver/Bronze Age Lex wanted revenge on Superman for destroying his creation and his hair follicles (when, as Superboy, he saved Lex from a fire Lex started through his recklessness), but there was more to it than that; his ego also demanded that he prove himself better than Superman, and the idea eventually emerged that he thought it was unhealthy for humanity to depend on an alien savior and was fighting Superman for what he saw as the greater good. S&L's Luthor is motivated only by punishing Lois and Clark for separating him from his daughter -- which gave his motives a bit of nuance, but now that he's written off his daughter for failing to get on board with his vengeance, the nuance is out the window. His story is just so small.

 

[Santa Kang]

No. I never watched Smallville, but I heard Rosenbaum's has been the closest to the comic book version of Luthor

Depends on which comics you've read. Lex and Clark both growing up together is a comic book thing. But that Lex was a genius/juvenile delinquent in and out of reform school. Basically the same character he was as an adult at the time. Businessman Luthor is of course from the Byrne run. And seems to have stuck for decades, with overt criminal Lex popping up from time to time.

 

[Ovation]

Just had to take a quick minute to comment on this episode because of the shout out to my neighbourhood (that bridge and skyline are decidedly a parallel universe version of Montreal but still appreciated—seems the best bagels are in Montreal in every universe ). Been enjoying this season (just not as much as last season), even though Welliver would have been better (couldn’t resist @The Realist). Au revoir et à la prochaine.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

But heck, I liked Gene Hackman's funny take take on Luthor too. He was funny but he was also deadly.

Bumbling and "deadly" did not mix and fell on its face, like so much about the Salkind movies. The Luthor of 1970s DC comics was often poorly written (arguably one of the worst of any A-list villain in comics of the period), but there was the occasional spark--none adapted into the film, instead choosing the bumbling, loud comedy relief routine.

Spacey had the goods and played Luthor meaner and colder.

Spacey purposely channeled Hackman's voice, but like his predecessor, was a blowhard with such a ridiculous plan that he never presented as a legitimate threat to the lead character.

 

[The Realist]

Nah.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

The opposite of your post.

 

[Sketcher]

Maybe because I grew up with Lex's like John Shea, Michael Rosenbaum, and Clancy Brown, but I can't get behind the wackier Lex's like Hackman or Cryer. Cudlitz isn't my favorite Lex, but I still prefer his darker approach to the character.

 

[The Realist]

I'm pretty (f)Lexible. I've enjoyed every live-action iteration of the character to one degree or other, with the partial exceptions of Scott James Wells (preeeetty bad, but the Superboy series was my exact flavor of cheese, and so I can't help feeling some affection for him) and Titus Welliver (not actually bad in any way, just underutilized and underwhelming).

 

[Christopher]

Maybe because I grew up with Lex's like John Shea, Michael Rosenbaum, and Clancy Brown, but I can't get behind the wackier Lex's like Hackman or Cryer.

I don't see Cryer's Lex as any "wackier" than Shea's. Lois & Clark was a pretty light, campy show. And while Arrowverse Lex had a snarky delivery, he was a very genuine threat, and probably the most authentically written Lex we've ever gotten in live action.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Maybe because I grew up with Lex's like John Shea, Michael Rosenbaum, and Clancy Brown, but I can't get behind the wackier Lex's like Hackman or Cryer.

Cudlitz isn't my favorite Lex, but I still prefer his darker approach to the character.

Cudlitz's Luthor is one of the two directions a modern day Luthor would go if one wanted to play him in a way that reads as realistic. He's older and has obviously been hardened by prison, so he's not going to be some wacky or sniveling type. Cryer had his moments (usually when he was completely vindictive to all around him), but the overall presentation was never truly threatening beyond some cartoony plots.

Hackman: one of the greatest actors of the past 50+ years, but his Luthor was not among his great work. The Donner Luthor was a buffoon no one would ever support or follow. Part of being a great villain is the character's ability to have an appeal that makes others want to risk their own security, freedom or lives to benefit from the power the villain has / seeks / needs. The Donner Luthor was a stereotype of a stereotypical blowhard with a ridiculous "master" plan, no one--for any reason--would risk their freedom to support. Poor execution and there was no point to the clownish character.

 

[JD]

I think recent events have proven that almost that entire last paragraph isn't actually true.

 

[Christopher]

I think recent events have proven that almost that entire last paragraph isn't actually true.

I agree, but he's not entirely wrong. Part of why Hackman's Lex didn't work for me was that he was apparently incapable of building a larger criminal organization than one idiot and one moll. He didn't even have a squad of henchmen like most Batman '66 villains. Ross Webster in Superman III was a more convincing archvillain because he actually had a whole organization at his beck and call. Hackman's Luthor didn't have enough subordinate villains to qualify as an archvillain. He was just an arch villain.

 

[The Realist]

As always, TREK_GOD_1 prizes "realism" (whatever that may mean in stories about a super-strong flying laser-eyed space alien) much more highly than I do. Which is his right, and each to their own preferences. But for my part, I see no reason why we can't be fanciful within what is inherently a fanciful genre, and have a little fun with heroes and villains alike.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

As always, TREK_GOD_1 prizes "realism" (whatever that may mean in stories about a super-strong flying laser-eyed space alien) much more highly than I do.

...and in a show with a super-strong, flying laser-eyed space alien, Lois' cancer story was hard realism not fantasy. That's what made the story so powerful (the series' best arc), because it is relatable to viewers. The same applies to villains.

 

[Sketcher]

The show, despite being about a flying alien and his family, tends to keep things in a serious and grounded tone. The only time I felt they went too far in the other direction is when a literal cube-shaped Earth 2 appeared. But it at least was minor.

The series practically demands a more serious and dark take on Luthor. Could Cryer have matched that tone... maybe? Was biker Luthor on my bingo card of approaches to the role...no? But it's new and different, and I appreciate that.

 

[Christopher]

As always, TREK_GOD_1 prizes "realism" (whatever that may mean in stories about a super-strong flying laser-eyed space alien) much more highly than I do. Which is his right, and each to their own preferences. But for my part, I see no reason why we can't be fanciful within what is inherently a fanciful genre, and have a little fun with heroes and villains alike.

There are different kinds of realism. The realism of the physics and geography of a fictional world is negotiable, but the realism of the characters is another matter. Arguably, the more absurd the world is, the more important it is for the characters to be believable and relatable to anchor the absurdity. If the characters feel real to us, if they react to their world and its events in a way that feels emotionally real, that makes it easier to buy into the fantasy. But if we don't believe in the characters, if we don't find their behavior and reactions convincing enough to invest in them emotionally and empathize with them, then it's hard to buy into a story even if it's set in a perfectly naturalistic world.

My criticism of the Reeve movies' Luthor is not about realism at all. It's about whether the story succeeds at selling its assertions about its characters. If they wanted me to believe that Luthor was the most feared and effective supervillain around, then making him this weird, wig-collecting guy holed up under the subway with an organization consisting exclusively of two dimwits did not succeed at selling that premise. I wouldn't say Ross Webster was a realistic character -- he was basically a Bond villain -- but he was portrayed in a way that made him convincingly effective, because he had more than two people working for him, and though we didn't see most of those people onscreen, they were implicitly quite competent, given the large-scale operations his company managed to pull off.

The series practically demands a more serious and dark take on Luthor.

Granted, but that doesn't mean it had to be this approach, or that this approach is automatically effective just because it's serious and dark. Too many TV writers mistake darkness for quality. Ally Alston was a pretty dark character and there was a lot of dark, grim stuff on Bizarro world, but season 2 was still a mess. There was a lot of dark, serious stuff in season 3, but Bruno Mannheim was still a great character because he wasn't just a caricature of a "serious and dark" villain but had human complexity and nuance and range. Darkness is just a shade. A well-done portrait has multiple contrasting shades. So yes, do a serious Luthor, but that doesn't mean reducing him to a one-note growling rage machine or a generic murderous mobster.

Anyway, I don't believe a Superman show should prioritize darkness. It should prioritize hope and compassion, including compassion for the villains. S&L still does, to an extent; my favorite episode so far was the one where Clark and Lois tried to get through to Lex by healing his rift with his daughter and Lois got Doomsday to remember his humanity (well, Bizarro-Kryptonianity) and leave her family alone. But that's about getting the Kent-Lanes right. It doesn't mean they got Luthor right.

 

[The Realist]

...and in a show with a super-strong, flying laser-eyed space alien, Lois' cancer story was hard realism not fantasy. That's what made the story so powerful (the series' best arc), because it is relatable to viewers. The same applies to villains.

The show, despite being about a flying alien and his family, tends to keep things in a serious and grounded tone. The only time I felt they went too far in the other direction is when a literal cube-shaped Earth 2 appeared. But it at least was minor.

The series practically demands a more serious and dark take on Luthor. Could Cryer have matched that tone... maybe? Was biker Luthor on my bingo card of approaches to the role...no? But it's new and different, and I appreciate that.

Agreed with most of this. But the discussion had ranged far beyond this particular series, to other Superman productions with very different tones and approaches, but where less-serious versions of Luthor were nonetheless being derided. Hence my comment.

 

[Tosk]

I think it's funny how Eisenberg is often excluded in these discussions.

 

[Santa Kang]

I think it's funny how Eisenberg is often excluded in these discussions.

Tech Luthbro is not a favorite.

 

[The Realist]

Minority opinion, but I liked him -- more than most aspects of Snyder's films. He brought an eccentric energy and color to that determinedly dreary and po-faced world. And I also liked the more restrained version he presented in his final scene in both versions of Justice League (Whedon's and Snyder's takes on that scene were more similar than not). I think he could have been an intriguing and formidable adversary had the series continued.