A few weeks ago, I reviewed Action Comics #510, covering a story where Lex Luthor apparently turns over a new leaf, becoming a force for good because he has found love. The story started there, with Lex finding Angela Blake, saving her from a lethal DXS disease, and falling so in love that he turns away from evil.
Action Comics #512 completes the three parter (sorry, I can't find my #511!) and it is, perhaps, one of the craziest Lex stories I have read. Settle in for some Lex playing the long game, Lex altering his own mind, and Lex regretting it all in the end. But also get ready to read Lex at his most evil, his most brutal.
And when you deal with all that Lex, get ready to see an appropriately angry Superman.
Kudos to Cary Bates for this one. I'd say that three part stories were relatively rare back in 1980. But I think that second part (alas not reviewed here yet) was a keep part to get us to this issue. That middle chapter adds time to this story, makes Lex's long con feel long, and adds some potential legitimacy to Lex's turn to goodness.
It all starts with this killer cover by Ross Andru and Dick Giordano. Superman kissing Lex's bride in front of him, and clearly on the wedding day is a throwback to the classic covers with our hero acting mean to his friends. The red aura is a nice clue to what happens in the story. And lastly, the addition of the toppling wedding cake is pure gold. Inside art is by the classic team of Curt Swan and Frank Chiaramonte.
Settle in. This one is a doozy.
'Luthor's Day of Reckoning' starts on a high note. Luthor has proven that he has turned over a new leaf.
He has helped Superman defeat Terra Man.
He even has allowed Superman to do deep physiologic and psychological testing to prove that he is not hiding any true ill will.
With all that proof, Superman is willing to congratulate his new friend and ally. Even the President believes it, granting Lex a complete Presidential pardon.
Look at Superman and Lex, arm raised in triumph, broad smiles. It is an eye-catching splash page.
Luthor becoming a good guy actually triggers the underworld who want to kill him out of spite. One day while on a romantic boat trip with Angela, the mob fires on Luthor. Thankfully Superman is there to save them.
And good timing! Lex has proposed to Angela and wants Superman to be his best man. I guess he has no other friends. Plus, I don't think Brainiac would give a good best man speech. But Lois as the 'maid of honor'? Doesn't Angela have anyone?
The ceremony goes off well. But then ... the reception.
When Superman leans in to give Angela a kiss, the two disappear in a dazzling pink explosion. (Call back to that aura on the cover!)
So far so good ... but get ready. Because the wheels are about to come off the wagon.
As soon as Superman disappears, two of the guests rip off their skin, revealing themselves as Luthor's robot aides. They whisk him off to his Nefarium, a sort of evil Batcave. (Good word play by Bates.)
There they plug him into a machine to restore memories that Lex himself stripped from his own mind.
Lex needed a patsy, a woman with no family or friends. He found it in Angela Blake.
So he cloned her, and rapidly aged her like he had done before (a nod to Action Comics #500 I think). But this time, he layered a devastating nano-bomb like tech into the clone's cells.
Are you starting to see where this long con is going?
Please look at the second panel.
With the deadly clone built, there was no use for the real Angela. So he killed her 'in a painless and humane way'. Still, this is a different layer of evil for Lex. It is one thing to try and kill Superman. It is another for nearby innocents to be in peril from his anti-Superman schemes. But to find, kidnap, and kill an innocent girl?? That is pure evil ... not revenge, not concern for Superman's presence impacting humanity ... pure evil.
You might remember that Angela had the deadly DXS illness. The clone also had it but going into this Luthor knew he could cure that too.
And then, to make it all seem natural and real, Lex had his mind scrubbed of these events. He put in triggers to make him fall in love with Angela and for her to fall in love with him.
Thus, Action Comics #510 unfolds.
All this was a set-up so that when Superman kissed Angela, his biochemistry would ignite the technology in the clone's cells, casting both Angela and Superman to the 'L-zone', an antimatter dimension that is inescapable.
Please understand the long con I just explained.
Lex had to find a lonely girl.
Kidnap the lonely girl.
Clone the lonely girl and lace the clone with evil tech.
Kill the lonely girl.
Remove his memories of the first steps.
Implant suggestions to find and fall in love.
Fall in love and propose to the clone.
Marry the clone with Superman as best man.
Have Superman kiss the blushing bride.
I mean ... talk about twisted and overly complicated. And horrific. And evil.
But it looks like it worked.
Except it didn't.
Superman comes crashing in.
Superman comes crashing in.
And given that Lex thought he'd be gone, there are no serious defense mechanisms.
I haven't commented a lot on the art. Swan is Swan and impeccable. But I love these first two panels showing Superman's utter disgust with Lex. Luthor could have cured the real Angela. Instead Lex killed her to serve his own plans.
That is one angry Supes, talking about this is everything he despises about Luthor.
The thing that tipped off Superman?
When he did his deep dive into Luthor's mind to prove there were no memories of Lexor or his true wife Ardora.
The absence of these memories clearly is a red flag for Superman.
But why did Lex remove them??
Is it that he might not think he would fall in love with Angela if he remembered he was already married? Is it that he wanted to create that longing of companionship to lead him to Angela and the existence of Ardora would negate that?
Interesting.
So Superman has known for a while what this was all about. Since the beginning of the issue.
Why play along? He had held out hope that the real Angela was still alive. He has now heard the 'grisly' details.
He knew about the L-Zone tech in the Angela clone and whisked himself away in the microsecond the tech took to ignite, sending only the clone to the antimatter dimension.
But Lex's plan worked too well. He actually has fallen in love with Angela Blake. And now, even the perfect clone of her, is forever trapped.
The book ends with Lex sobbing for his own loss.
Now I can talk again about how crazy this plot is. So terrible and complicated.
But instead let's talk about Superman. If he was worried about the real Angela, why didn't he step in earlier? What if those goons killed Lex in the boat and he died with that info? Even the killer kiss moment is scary. What if another partyer had their hand on Angela at the moment of the kiss? Would they be gone too?
I guess Lex wiping his own memories made an early intervention risky as well. If Superman interrogated Lex in that state, the villain might not now.
What an ending though, a devastated Lex now responsible for dooming his own wife to a nether existence in an antimatter world.
Whew! Kudos to Cary Bates for spinning this tale, as crazy complicated and beautifully horrific as a top-notch Bronze Age story should be.
Overall grade: A
Stories like these are why I can never accept Luthor redemption arcs like we've seen recently. Even if it's an attempt to actual make Luthor 'good', stuff like this still needs to be paid for. He's done so many unforgivable acts and has so much blood on his hands that he has to pay for them even if he truly is a good guy now.
ReplyDeleteSteve is right, this Luthor is beyond redemption, and how many times did he play the ‘reformed’ card? There was that Lois story in Superman Family around the time, the Silver Age Death of Superman (an imaginary tale, but…) and probably more. I found this very affecting at the time, it was such a tragedy. Poor Angela.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the look-back, Anj.
Three parters were actually pretty common in Superman comics in the early 80’s, and Cary Bates wrote most of the ones I can remember. I know there was one with the main Phantom Zone villains, one with Brainiac, at least one of the Vartox stories, and at least one more with Luthor.
ReplyDeleteI’m willing to be a bit more forgiving of Luthor here- it was definitely a terrible thing to kill someone just to keep Superman off the trail, but he went out of his way to do it painlessly and humanely when he could have been more callous and brutal about it. He saw her as at least more than just a pawn in his battle against Superman, and that counts for something. Plus, I think pre-Crisis stories about Luthor actually being redeemed in the future involve someone else being responsible for his change.
‘ I’m willing to be a bit more forgiving of Luthor here- it was definitely a terrible thing to kill someone just to keep Superman off the trail, but he went out of his way to do it painlessly and humanely when he could have been more callous and brutal about it.’
ReplyDeleteThat’s the most villainous ‘glass half-full’ statement I’ve ever heard!
Regarding the first two comments, you can make the same case for Magneto, Dr. Doom, Penguin, or dozens of other villains who get a free pass because they've "reformed" or they teamed up with the good guys to stop some bigger threat.
ReplyDeleteI will argue that Magneto is not ever given a consequence free redemption. He went on trial for his misdeeds after changing sides the first time and I can't think of a story since where his bad guy deeds are forgiven and forgotten.
ReplyDelete