History EarlyInstallmentWeirdness / Superman

* Superman was originally a FlyingBrick who couldn't fly, only jump (hence, "able to leap tall buildings {{in a single bound}}") and run (hence, "faster than a speeding bullet"). Thanks to SerialEscalation[[note]] and [[Creator/MaxAndDaveFleischer Fleischer Studios]], as it was easier and cheaper to [[WesternAnimation/SupermanTheatricalCartoons animate a man in flight]] than a man continually jumping[[/note]], though, he could already fly higher and faster than most airplanes well before America got into World War II. His invulnerability level changed too, since his first origin story said that only "an exploding shell" could hurt him, while these eventually became ineffective as well, necessitating the invention of {{kryptonite|Factor}}. He also lacked many of his current powers, sported a different (and often inconsistently illustrated) costume, [[ThouShaltNotKill killed bad guys]], and was something of a rebel. But especially weird, given his current international sensibilities, is when we're told that "Superman says 'You Can Slap a Jap'" as seen on many World War II-era covers.

* In his earliest appearances, ComicBook/LexLuthor was a war profiteer whose [[MadScientist scientific genius was considered "mad" specifically because he used it to invent horrific weaponry to sell to the highest bidder]]. Later, he became a MadScientist who uses his skills to commit crimes. It wasn't until the Iron Age that Lex Luthor became a CorruptCorporateExecutive who moonlights as a supervillain. During the Silver Age, his motivation for battling Superman was actually more complex: In ''ComicBook/HowLuthorMetSuperboy'', Kal and Lex became friends. In gratitude for setting up a lab, Lex discovered a cure for Kryptonite, but he accidentally started a fire. In order to save him, ComicBook/{{Superboy}} used his super breath to blow out the fire, accidentally killing Lex's experiment (and causing Lex's baldness). Lex accused him from intentionally destroying his experiment -an artificial lifeform- out of jealousy, decided to get even with the "backstabbing" alien, and the rest is history. Before that, his Silver Age relationship with Superman boiled down to a simple villain-who-gets-foiled-by-the-hero dynamic.