Quote Originally Posted by Jim Kelly View Post
I know that Luthor's baldness is explained as an artist's accident--but I'm skeptical that's the whole story.

When Luthor is introduced in the syndicated newspaper strip, he's called the "Ultra-Scientist"--which makes clear Siegel's association of Luthor with the Ultra-Humanite. We should really consider the Ultra-Humanite as the original Luthor. You could even imagine that the brain was transplanted from Delores Winters to Red Luthor (one story followed on the heels of the other). In Ultra, Siegel seems to be going back to his original Superman concept, where that Superman was a villain. Although of infirm body, Ultra is the "Ultra-Humanite" because his brain power makes him a Superman. It's an interesting parallelism that, not long after Superman appears on the scene, another kind of super-being appears to challenge him.

That's really the essence of Ultra/Luthor--he exists to challenge Superman.
It's really an oversimplication to call the Bill Dunn Superman from "Reign" a villain. He's a guy who volunteered for an experiment to get a hot meal and a suit.

I think treating Dunn like a villain is like treating Superman declaring war on unsafe automobiles to be a dick.

I think those early examples of Superman being a dick are cases where Siegel hoped we'd be thrilled to see Superman take society into his own hands and do what Siegel wished he could do but couldn't. I think Dunn is the kind of person Siegel had a lot of sympathy for (but there may be some lingering inspiration from how Siegel's father was killed by a man who wanted a suit).