So was Luthor ever President in current continuity?

[Will Evans]

I’m guessing no?

[Kuwagaton]

It really shouldn't be possible, at the least because OW@W would make no sense in this continuity and upon arrest they didn't say a former president went to jail

[Venomized-spider-man]

i mean nothing really contradicts that in the timeline

Ending No-man in Gotham (which NML is mention in current continuity) which got him elected, debut of the Elite (and that follow up arc; "never ending battles"?) while the presidency of Luthor wasn't a factor in the story you still had Luthor interact with Manchester for the first time & Toyman II version from public enemies was around in the Deathstroke Inc book

[Digifiend]

Would Lex being currently in jail even be possible if he was an ex-POTUS?

[CosmeticSkull]

Would Lex being currently in jail even be possible if he was an ex-POTUS?

You know Trump was arrested, right?

[Vordan]

Bendis referenced his time as President but it’s never been brought up in a big way. I personally would like them to retell that storyline in a similar way as Waid is retelling the origins of the original Titans. President Luthor was a fantastic idea that got hurt by 9/11 making America unreceptive to stories that portray the government as the bad guy.

[Will Evans]

So shouldn’t per “real world” rules, Luthor, Pete Ross and Lana Lang be constantly guarded by secret service as former President, Vice President and First Lady. (I just realized Lana was considered First Lady since Lex had no wife at the time).

[Kuwagaton]

You know Trump was arrested, right?

There's a certain flavor of politics that is unpleasant in comics but considering how far the parallel goes back, it would be kinda funny to reference

[Vordan]

So shouldn’t per “real world” rules, Luthor, Pete Ross and Lana Lang be constantly guarded secret service as former President, Vice President and First Lady. (I just realized Lana was considered First Lady since Alex has no wife at the time).

This is where it gets complicated. Lana and Pete were never married, that hasn’t been restored. Lana doesn’t have a kid she named after Clark either. At best all that’s been restored is that maybe Lex was President at one point, but it didn’t happen the way it did in the Post Crisis books. Classic DC move

That’s why I’d prefer they retell that story for modern continuity.

[JBatmanFan05]

You can be confident Lex was still Pres. simply because it was a big story for Lex and DC in that it got some media attention. Obviously, some things around it all probably happened differently.

[Frontier]

Writers love referencing it too much for it to not be canon .

[Ascended]

I think it was referenced by someone other than Bendis at some point too? Seems to be canon, but the stuff around it (like Lana and Pete) are different so the current version of Lex being President is probably quite different from what we actually got.

Yes, Lex could be a former POTUS and go to jail. It's never happened in the States but the law does allow it. Nixon avoided jail only because he was pardoned, for example. There's several cases in the pipe that could result in trump going to jail, though I very much doubt anyone has the stones to do it. But Lex probably *should* have secret service though. I dunno how that works if a President goes to jail (does he get secret service while he's *in* prison? How's that work?) so maybe not a problem right now, with Lex behind bars. But otherwise it's something he probably should get, yeah. Maybe he does, but he just sends them off?

I loved Lex as POTUS. Thought it was a fantastic direction. Hated that it was walked back so quickly, though it's hard to blame DC for it considering what was happening in the real world. The unfortunate thing is, DC might be hesitant to revisit the idea again because of trump and the obvious comparisons.

[Vordan]

Marvel is making Thunderbolt Ross the President in the MCU, if they can do that then I don’t see why DC doing a President Lex story would be a problem. Just don’t let Weisman write it because he’s the only one who really made Lex into a Trump analog that I know of.

[Will Evans]

Marvel is making Thunderbolt Ross the President in the MCU, if they can do that then I don’t see why DC doing a President Lex story would be a problem. Just don’t let Weisman write it because he’s the only one who really made Lex into a Trump analog that I know of.

To be fair, they already made MCU Ross the Secretary of State back in 2016.

[Ascended]

Well, the trump comparisons don't work as well with Ross. He's a career soldier while trump and Lex are both (allegedly) corrupt businessmen of questionable stature who went into politics later in life and abused their authority.

It's about as vague, basic, and broad a comparison as you can get, and sane people wouldn't think much on it. But these are not sane times and conservative outlets have lost their **** over less.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for Lex being POTUS and I don't care if the easily offended rightwing extremists gets their panties in a twist over it. But DC has to think, at least a little bit, about the optics of their creative choices.