Ask Kurt Busiek

[Vordan]

I have always thought Lex worked best as "Superman's greatest mistake."

The Silver Age story where Superboy, trying to save Lex from an experiment gone wrong, accidentally causes his hair loss, and thus inspired Luthor's enmity, is so key to the character, as I understand him. He's someone who was on the path to being a great man, but because of Superboy -- trying to help -- he became one of Earth's most dangerous threats. And that, in turn, leaves Superman looking for a way to fix that, to redeem Lex and get him back on track to what he "should have" been.

That's the personal connection that makes Lex more than Joe Evil Scientist, to me.

It's a silly story, on the surface, because "You made me go bald so I will turn to crime and be your enemy forever" is a dopey motivation. But the underlying hook that, if not for Superboy, Lex would be a positive force in the world, is dynamite.

So if there was ever a Busiek Reboot of Superman and the whole legend (don't hold your breath, anybody), I'd find a better way to tell that story, but I'd still have Lex and Clark know each other as kids, and I'd still have Clark feel that Lex's turn to the dark side was something that he caused, so he always wants to fix that somehow, to win Lex back to the side of good.

It just wouldn't be about hair.

kdb

Mark Waid had the most satisfying revamp of that relationship in Birthright at least for me.

Would you keep the farmboy aspect in your hypothetical reboot or go back to the Silver Age status quo, where I believe the Kents sold the farm and opened a general store in Smallville?

Also one thing on CBR I’ve heard talked up a lot is how important legacy is to the DCU. Would you agree with the notion that “legacy is at the heart of what DC is about” or would you disagree?

Oh and I don’t think anyone has ever asked you this, but who is your favorite GL and who is your favorite Flash?

[DrNewGod]

I have always thought Lex worked best as "Superman's greatest mistake."

The Silver Age story where Superboy, trying to save Lex from an experiment gone wrong, accidentally causes his hair loss, and thus inspired Luthor's enmity, is so key to the character, as I understand him. He's someone who was on the path to being a great man, but because of Superboy -- trying to help -- he became one of Earth's most dangerous threats. And that, in turn, leaves Superman looking for a way to fix that, to redeem Lex and get him back on track to what he "should have" been.

That's the personal connection that makes Lex more than Joe Evil Scientist, to me.

It's a silly story, on the surface, because "You made me go bald so I will turn to crime and be your enemy forever" is a dopey motivation. But the underlying hook that, if not for Superboy, Lex would be a positive force in the world, is dynamite.

So if there was ever a Busiek Reboot of Superman and the whole legend (don't hold your breath, anybody), I'd find a better way to tell that story, but I'd still have Lex and Clark know each other as kids, and I'd still have Clark feel that Lex's turn to the dark side was something that he caused, so he always wants to fix that somehow, to win Lex back to the side of good.

It just wouldn't be about hair.

kdb

I do have to say that I love the idea of these two amazing people coming into conflict because they are both so huge and so opposed in goals that conflict was unavoidable, rather than being a function of proximity. In my mind it's more a function of bodies of great mass having gravity work upon them over distance than bodies of small mass being close together. The original meeting (when Lex had hair) was built on that. The Byrne revision was not.

But then, nobody pays me to write comics.

[Comic-Reader Lad]

I gotta stick up for the Luthor origin story.

Now, Mort Weisinger's stories could be as goofy as all get-out, but in this case, he gets it right. In Adventure Comics 271 from 1960, the childhood connection between Superboy and Luthor is first established, and in that story, yes, Superboy causes Luthor's hair to fall out, but it's NOT just about the hair. Luthor clearly shows that his hair loss is just a secondary consideration at best. He's upset with Superboy because he feels Superboy deliberately destroyed his lab and the experiment he was working on because Superboy was jealous of Luthor. In the earlier pages of the story, even when they were friends, Lex shows a few hints of being arrogant and narcissistic.

Below are the pages in question, and I think for a 1960 pre-Marvel story, there is an attempt to delve into Luthor's character and motivations that would make him worthy of being respected as Superman's greatest enemy.

[Comic-Reader Lad]

Anyway, in another thread, we are talking about whether the wordy comics of yesteryear are better or worse than today's sparsely written comics. It seems like us older fans like the older comics better, in spite of the often clunky dialogue, because we can get into the thought processes of the characters.

Where do you stand on this? You've been writing for decades, so you've seen the transition in comics writing. Do you think today's comics are too decompressed, or do you prefer today's style of writing?

Has the absence of thought balloons and captions been a good thing overall or did they add depth to the stories?

I'm sure we can all find examples where each style did and did not work, but do you have any preference?

[EmeraldGladiator]

I have always thought Lex worked best as "Superman's greatest mistake."

The Silver Age story where Superboy, trying to save Lex from an experiment gone wrong, accidentally causes his hair loss, and thus inspired Luthor's enmity, is so key to the character, as I understand him. He's someone who was on the path to being a great man, but because of Superboy -- trying to help -- he became one of Earth's most dangerous threats. And that, in turn, leaves Superman looking for a way to fix that, to redeem Lex and get him back on track to what he "should have" been.

That's the personal connection that makes Lex more than Joe Evil Scientist, to me.

It's a silly story, on the surface, because "You made me go bald so I will turn to crime and be your enemy forever" is a dopey motivation. But the underlying hook that, if not for Superboy, Lex would be a positive force in the world, is dynamite.

So if there was ever a Busiek Reboot of Superman and the whole legend (don't hold your breath, anybody), I'd find a better way to tell that story, but I'd still have Lex and Clark know each other as kids, and I'd still have Clark feel that Lex's turn to the dark side was something that he caused, so he always wants to fix that somehow, to win Lex back to the side of good.

It just wouldn't be about hair.

kdb

I always felt the same way, I never got the rivalry really besides just ego/hubris at least until that Action Comics Lex reboot #644 after the death of his long time love and son, Lex had a reason to hate Superman, but it still wasn't very well thought out. The best version and closest to what Mr Busiek mentions is Smallville which while not a comic, presented the most well fleshed out version of Lex. He is tragic and I actually found myself rooting for him after a while. Clark never stopped trying to win back his friend who ended up on the dark side.

[Comic-Reader Lad]

I always felt the same way, I never got the rivalry really besides just ego/hubris at least until that Action Comics Lex reboot #644 after the death of his long time love and son, Lex had a reason to hate Superman, but it still wasn't very well thought out. The best version and closest to what Mr Busiek mentions is Smallville which while not a comic, presented the most well fleshed out version of Lex. He is tragic and I actually found myself rooting for him after a while. Clark never stopped trying to win back his friend who ended up on the dark side.

Not to derail this thread, but the way I read Adventure 271 was that Lex was ALREADY an unstable borderline personality to begin with.

He worships Superboy so thoroughly, complete with what's basically a shrine, that when he thinks Superboy deliberately destroyed the experiment that was going to make Luthor famous, he reacts almost like a stereotypical scorned lover and the love/hero worship that he feels toward Superboy turns to hatred that's just as passionate.

I think we've all known people who've flipped on us because of a perceived slight they thought we caused them. This is just a heightened, comic book version of that. Remember, this is just a 12 page story from 1960. You're not gonna get Chekhov here.

[Kurt Busiek]

Would you keep the farmboy aspect in your hypothetical reboot or go back to the Silver Age status quo, where I believe the Kents sold the farm and opened a general store in Smallville?

I dunno. I like the store a lot. And I'd really like downtown Smallville to be a much richer, more engaging setting, so it'd be nice to have the characters closer to it.

But I like the farm, too, and those great cornfield visuals.

Also one thing on CBR I’ve heard talked up a lot is how important legacy is to the DCU. Would you agree with the notion that “legacy is at the heart of what DC is about” or would you disagree?

I think it starts with the characters. DC has a lot of legacy characters, but they're a second step, not the first one.

Oh and I don’t think anyone has ever asked you this, but who is your favorite GL and who is your favorite Flash?

Hal and Barry.

I like others, but Hal and Barry are primo, for me.

kdb

[Kurt Busiek]

I think for a 1960 pre-Marvel story, there is an attempt to delve into Luthor's character and motivations that would make him worthy of being respected as Superman's greatest enemy.

And speaking of Marvel, Dr. Doom's college days have echoes of this story in it, whether it's coincidence or not.

kdb

[Kurt Busiek]

Anyway, in another thread, we are talking about whether the wordy comics of yesteryear are better or worse than today's sparsely written comics. It seems like us older fans like the older comics better, in spite of the often clunky dialogue, because we can get into the thought processes of the characters.

Where do you stand on this? You've been writing for decades, so you've seen the transition in comics writing. Do you think today's comics are too decompressed, or do you prefer today's style of writing?

Has the absence of thought balloons and captions been a good thing overall or did they add depth to the stories?

I'm sure we can all find examples where each style did and did not work, but do you have any preference?

I don't think there's only one best way.

I like comics with texture, which tends to mean rich narrative and rich illustration. But I'm also a fan of, say, the early JOSIE comics by Frank Doyle and Dan deCarlo, which are pretty copy-light.

Ultimately, I don't care what techniques the creators use, I care how well they use them.

kdb

[Myskin]

Dear Kurt, since you've mentioned Smallville visuals I'd like to ask your opinion about an element I keep thinking about, that is Superman's Metropolis.
As a city, it is generally considered way less distinctive in terms of visuals than Gotham (I share this opinion, by the way). Gotham has the gargoyles and - thanks to Batman TAS, I think - the airships. Metropolis has recognizable buildings, like the Planet, but nothing more than that.
In same cases, Metropolis was given a distinctive feel, sometimes a cyberpunk-ish look which IMHO worked well with the themes of "future shock" which were so present in early Superman stories as well (robots gone crazy, etc.). Most of these revisions didn't really stick though, even if from time to time they are used in some books. What is your opinion about it?

[DrNewGod]

Dear Mr. Busiek,

I posed a question on another thread, and I'd be curious on your take: Do superheroes inherently engender distrust in institutions?

[Kurt Busiek]

Dear Kurt, since you've mentioned Smallville visuals I'd like to ask your opinion about an element I keep thinking about, that is Superman's Metropolis.
As a city, it is generally considered way less distinctive in terms of visuals than Gotham (I share this opinion, by the way). Gotham has the gargoyles and - thanks to Batman TAS, I think - the airships. Metropolis has recognizable buildings, like the Planet, but nothing more than that.
In same cases, Metropolis was given a distinctive feel, sometimes a cyberpunk-ish look which IMHO worked well with the themes of "future shock" which were so present in early Superman stories as well (robots gone crazy, etc.). Most of these revisions didn't really stick though, even if from time to time they are used in some books. What is your opinion about it?

I think the old saw about Metropolis being midtown Manhattan at noon, and Gotham being downtown Manhattan at night makes a lot of sense.

But the thing is, it's easier to exaggerate downtown Manhattan.

So when they try to make Metropolis more interesting looking, they tend to drop back to the 30s and make it a 30s vision of the future, all Deco elegance. But that doesn't make Metropolis look like the City of Tomorrow, it makes it look like the City of Yesterday's Tomorrow. It's nice, but it's more nostalgic than forward-looking.

I have ideas on how I'd make Metropolis more distinctive and tomorrowesque, but I expect I'll use them somewhere eventually -- if not in a Superman project, somewhere else. So I'll hang onto them, for now.

kdb

[Kurt Busiek]

Dear Mr. Busiek,

I posed a question on another thread, and I'd be curious on your take: Do superheroes inherently engender distrust in institutions?

Not really. I think readers have a pretty good idea that superhero fiction is fantasy, and not an accurate picture of the modern world. And that the whole "superheroes fight threats our current institutions can't handle" is not an indictment of the institutions, because the threats themselves are largely fantastic and not real.

You might do better looking at private-eye fiction, where, going back to Sherlock Holmes (and earlier), the cops can't solve the crimes without the PI's help. Those are generally (but not always) more realistic crimes, so if something was going to engender distrust, that's more likely.

But on the flip side, there's an argument to be made that crime fiction has distorted our view of institutions like the police by making them seem more noble than they have been -- that where we used to have the Keystone Cops (because at the time, police departments were generally corrupt, but it was safer and funnier to depict them as inept and bungling rather than criminal) and PIs who solved cases the police didn't care about, that turned into the police as idealistic paragons like Joe Friday, even though that was just as much a fantasy as earlier portrayals. More here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/op...ped-hollywood/

In any case, I don't think superhero fiction does much to engender any particular view of real-world institutions, but those real-world institutions often seem to do plenty to engender distrust all by themselves, without needing help from fantasy stories...

kdb

[Johnny Thunders!]

I just re-read the Eagle and the Mountain from The Shining Stars Hardcover! (I really love Mark Waid’s intro. Added to my understanding.)Such a great story and Astro City still surprises me. I think Jack in the Box is still my favorite run but this story jumped way up into my top ten favorite Astro City tales. We’re you thinking of Vandal Savage, Immortus, or anyone specific character when you thought of Infidel? (Any Omnibus or Absolute editions coming?) Do you have an endpoint for Astro City like Neil Gaiman's Sandman? Would you let other creators work in that Universe?

[Myskin]

I think the old saw about Metropolis being midtown Manhattan at noon, and Gotham being downtown Manhattan at night makes a lot of sense.

But the thing is, it's easier to exaggerate downtown Manhattan.

So when they try to make Metropolis more interesting looking, they tend to drop back to the 30s and make it a 30s vision of the future, all Deco elegance. But that doesn't make Metropolis look like the City of Tomorrow, it makes it look like the City of Yesterday's Tomorrow. It's nice, but it's more nostalgic than forward-looking.

I have ideas on how I'd make Metropolis more distinctive and tomorrowesque, but I expect I'll use them somewhere eventually -- if not in a Superman project, somewhere else. So I'll hang onto them, for now.

kdb

Thanks for the answer. I am always under the impression that the Superman universe in the latest years has basically become a bunch of potentially good, but generally underdeveloped ideas which never really mesh together. It's as if many good-willed writers (and artists - it's a problem which concerns the aesthetics, too IMHO) had approached the character with a specific vision which never entirely came to fruition (for a lot of different reasons, including editorial interference); the following writers began working on Superman with entirely different ideas and back to square one again. So now we have many different ideas from a lot of past eras which from time to time reappear or become the focus of a story, but are somehow incoherent with the other ideas. It's as if they had built a house several times on the same foundation, each time in a different style and without ever finishing it, and now the house has deco doors, rococo windows, a roof in Mediterranean style etc. For some reason (I have my theories about it) Batman seems to be more coherent even if sometimes it was used almost as a creator-owned character. I'd like to know your thoughts about it.