Young Justice

Except he did that at a bake sale in retaliation for the school not letting him enter a fission-powered toaster in the science fair.

Yes, that actually happened in the canon comics.

Edited by M84 on Jan 16th 2020 at 10:02:56 PM

TBF, those were the same comics that made Lex want to kill Superman for making him lose his hair. (And his pet, but that doesn't get brought up as much.)

I think one of the oldschool cartoons used the "became a supervillain because of hair loss" origin with Lex.

Didn't the Red Son version got obsessed with beating Superman after his clone beat him on a game?

Honestly, does it get any more petty than hating and wanting to kill someone just for being there? Even without Supes actively getting in his way, Luthor hates him just because Supes is better than him and he knows it.

Luthor once had the power to make the universe into a utopia but he squandered it cause he could not stop hating Supes.

Specifically, he gained the power of a godlike Phantom Zone entity, but he could only keep it on the condition of never using said power to actually hurt anyone. Supes begs him not to give in to his own grudge and just use that power to help everyone. But Lex of course refused. To him, godhood meant nothing if he couldn't use it to hurt Superman.

Luthor: I saw how to save the world! I could have made everyone see. I could have saved the world if it wasn't for you!

Superman: You could have saved the world years ago if it mattered to you, Luthor.

That exchange above defines Lex Luthor and his relationship with Superman for me. I like a certain balance between Luthor's pettiness and actual competence. I feel he's someone who works best when he's creating all these layers to justify his bullshit, paint himself as the hero, the victim, etc. when at the heart of it, he's just a petty asshole who is upset that he isn't the most capable person in the room. After all, with Luthor, it's not about control or anything like that with him. It's just about proving that he's the smartest, the richest, the guy with the best tech, etc.

There was a storyline where Superman lost his powers for an entire year and all Luthor did was commit crimes as he always does. The idea that if not for Superman, Lex would be a hero has always been bunk.

Supes even taunted him when he came back after that year by asking him "Where's your cancer cure, Lex? Your miracle food program?"

"You once said that you could perform miracles — transform the world — if only you didn't have to deal with me. well, you didn't. Not for a year. And what did you do? Found yourself a big, destructive machine so you could break things. What have you ever done but destroy, Luthor? But enrich yourself, and pretend to be doing good?"

Edited by M84 on Jan 17th 2020 at 11:04:46 PM

This entire discussion has further made me appreciate how great a villain Lex Luthor is. Well, when breaking it down with the 3 layers of characters, I think the ideal portrayal of Lex Luthor has the outer layer as someone who rationalizes himself as the hero, who does the best to present himself as a Villain with Good Publicity, who has fooled himself into believing he's the hero, etc. only for his core to reveal that he's a petty asshole with or without Superman around. I think its best showcased when Superman isn't around too. As for the second layer of character, the backstory and all that, its something I find can vary, so long as he's shaped the right way. I've seen takes on Lex with various backstories, but I feel he always works best so long as the outer layer and inner core remain the same.

So I was randomly scrolling through Brion's character page and I was wondering...does he really count as a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk?

He kills his uncle and takes his brother's place on the throne, but given the context it's pretty understandable and in some cases completely justified.

It feels unfair to call him that, but it is certainly true that the ending is him giving in to his worst instincts, at least when it comes to Gregor. It was hinted relatively early on that he believed himself better suited for the role of King, and he acted on that in the ending.

I have no opinions about the execution of his uncle.

Edited by Sannom on Feb 1st 2020 at 9:19:17 PM

Though it took the actions of a mild psychic to make him act on those feelings.

....are we sure said psychic made him kill Bedlam too? I can picture Brion being willing to do that on his own, what with everything that happened.

I think the psychic nudged him on a bit, but it's supposed to be a ambiguous whether he would have done it even without that.

Yeah. Even Brion will probably never be sure.

When you hate someone as much as he had to have hated Bedlam, lines like that become very blurred.

That there's no obvious "tell" when Baazovi uses his powers makes it all the more ambiguous.

I'm wondering, what kind of history is Markovia supposed to have? IIRC, it's pretty strongly implied to have been part of the Eastern Bloc, and yet it has a monarchy with considerable political power. Is the idea that the Markovian monarchy was restored after the end of the Cold War? I don't think that happened in any real-life Soviet Republic after independence. I think the country that came closest to restoring its monarchy after the fall of communism was Albania, which at least put it to a referendum.

Especially since his uncle was gloating about how he'll just escape again.

Edited by Cortez on Jun 7th 2020 at 2:28:54 PM

Regarding the ambiguity, I think the extent of Samariten’s powers seems of the compelling voice variety (like Purple Man) rather then the traditional mind telepathy (like every X-Men psychic ever). And given the scene it seems all he did was used his voice to praise Brion as a hero for killing Bedlamb and convince him (Brion) the usurp the throne from his brother. He didn’t say any kind of word or phrase which would incite murdering Bedlamb.

So I guess what I am saying is, Brion totally killed Bedlamb on his own volition. No mind control, no outside influence, nothing. It was all his decisions. But what he does AFTER said murder was him being under psychic influence. So if Samaritan wasn’t there, I think Geoforce would of later on realized that what he have done was wrong and turn himself in for charges of first degree murder just like Terra. After all his whole character development is about him growing inti being an inspiring hero who leads by example, so him showing how he isn’t above the law will cement that as its the natural correlation (just like how in X-Men TAS and New Warriors, Beast and Marvel Boy respectively refuse the chance of escaping prison just because they want to set an example by proving their innocence/serving their time . . . man am I in a Marvel mood tonight).

We don't know the details of the Samaritan's powers, but given that Brion didn't kill Bedlam the first time around but did the second I lean towards the Samaritan's influence.

RE: Markovia... look, Quarc was a middle eastern democracy that was pro-US, so chances are Earth 16 is just weird like that. Though I assume that the monarchy managed to maintain decent support in exile or through organizing resistance to the USSR backed regime.

Fictional nations are a hard thing to do in any story. They're always going to replace SOMETHING

https://mobile.twitter.com/Greg_Weisman/status/1234928511279751168

Here's an update from Greg Weisman for season 4. There are 12 episodes finalized and 8 already recorded.

I always appreciated how engaged Greg is with the fans. It’s pretty cool.

Any further updates on s4?