How would YOU have done the President Lex storyline?

[LordUltimus]

Noticed people around here don't think that story lived up to its potential, and I kind of agree. So what would you have done?

[Sacred Knight]

Wouldn't have done it at all. The idea of having a major fictional player in a character's lore be president, that reflects wholesale in the wider shared universe, I think is a dumb idea. Be it Lex Luthor or anyone else from anyone's mythos. As far as I ever would have taken the idea is that maybe he ran a campaign or something but ultimately lost. I don't particularly like that its back in continuity as having ever happened.

[Vakanai]

Sadly president Trump is already going above and beyond expectations for anything I could have imagined on the whole "evil president" thing (minus the brains), so I don't really feel like I need to come up with anything new for Lex. If only we could have a real world Superman to go with our real world Luthor.

Sorry if anyone got offended, political views being what they are and all. But the fear mongering, hate spreading, and systematic dismantling of fundamental institutions, this is the sort of thing I expected from a Lex Luthor as president story, but I got it in real life instead.

Maybe Lex should have equipped a military task force with kryptonite?

[babybats]

I would use the President Lex storyline to teach kids about the dangers of not voting.

[Rod G]

Wouldn't have done it at all. The idea of having a major fictional player in a character's lore be president, that reflects wholesale in the wider shared universe, I think is a dumb idea. Be it Lex Luthor or anyone else from anyone's mythos. As far as I ever would have taken the idea is that maybe he ran a campaign or something but ultimately lost. I don't particularly like that its back in continuity as having ever happened.

I agree 100%!

This is the kind of thing that soured me on DC that it took the New 52 to bring me back. Furthermore, I might buy Luthor as Mayor of Metropolis but that’s about as far as it goes.

[LordUltimus]

Wouldn't have done it at all. The idea of having a major fictional player in a character's lore be president, that reflects wholesale in the wider shared universe, I think is a dumb idea. Be it Lex Luthor or anyone else from anyone's mythos. As far as I ever would have taken the idea is that maybe he ran a campaign or something but ultimately lost. I don't particularly like that its back in continuity as having ever happened.

I agree 100%!

This is the kind of that soured me on DC that it took the New 52 to bring me back.

What about fictional presidents? Because I think that post-Infinite Crisis/pre-Flashpoint era stuck with some guy that wasn't actually Bush as its President.

[Ascended]

I would have just let it keep rolling.

I liked Lex as President. I thought it was an interesting way to use him and I liked the dynamic it forced between Clark and the government. Of course, I love the Golden Age style material where Clark is an outlaw anyway, so I have a bias. But I thought Lex was a fascinating character for the oval office; he's enough of an egomaniac to want America to succeed because that would reflect well on him, so he's not going to ruin the nation....but he's Lex Luthor, and the dude is a total monster of a human being.

I thought the whole thing was working pretty well until DC decided to torpedo it after OW@W. So the only change I would've made is letting Lex stay in office longer, rather than self-destructing like he did with Loeb.

After ten (or so) years of President Lex you could say that election time has come again in the DCU and he could be voted out. You could get some concern and some noise out of whether Lex would willingly relinquish the role, and then move on.

When it comes to politicians in my DCU, I don't want real faces. Any time Clinton or Bush or Obama show up, it instantly dates the story. And sometimes you want that (like the Spidey-Obama issue or Watchmen) but usually? It's best to have a fake and/or unseen POTUS.

I personally would insert a member of the Knight family (of Starman and Phantom Lady fame) since that family is basically the Kennedy's of the DCU (and had one short lived POTUS already, in the 06 Freedom Fighters series) or the son of Frank Rock or maybe even Sam Lane, since Sam is (when written correctly) in a really fun gray area when it comes to superhero morality. Amanda Waller is an obvious choice too, but I feel like it's a little too obvious.

[manofsteel1979]

What about fictional presidents? Because I think that post-Infinite Crisis/pre-Flashpoint era stuck with some guy that wasn't actually Bush as its President.

Pete Ross was Luthor's successor for about 10 minutes,replaced by a generic guy that looked an awfully like Bush. Then sometime just before the New 52 they used Obama (I remember him briefly appearing in the Reign of Doomsdays story arc that ran in the last few issues of ACTION just prior to the relaunch. Then of course Obama cameoed during TRUTH.

[Rod G]

Pete Ross was just as bad.

By the way, when the New 52 started, Bush was in office with no mention of anyone other than Clinton preceding him, and then we had Obama.

The current POTUS is supposed to be implied to be Trump as seen in recent issues of Suicide Squad.

[Kuwagaton]

Honestly, I don't mind that it didn't get cleverly deep or scathing of real politics. I think the initial story, what I imagine is collected in the new trade, was good. I kinda have to re read year 2001. At the time I really didn't like the disconnect with real life but I'm more or less for it now, because it's not like Metropolis is a real place anyway.

The only thing is I'd have scrapped some of the subplots, like Lena being given away, Lex possibly finding out about Clark, and the cabinet of pre existing characters. Even in a completely fictional world I just think that was over the top.

Lois had some parts that were a little hard to swallow. Captain Atom being a stooge was the worst. That last Pok Zod story and the first arc of Superman/Batman were not my favorites at all.

Then of course Obama cameoed during TRUTH.

Rofl, of course. I didn't remember that though. I smell a "how would you fix Truth" thread at some point, and that's the one story I would just not do.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Not sure how you'd fix this storyline. It was big and stupid, but damn that was a great story idea.

[Jon Clark]

I'd have made Lex an effective president and avoided things like OW@W. Other than the Super-titles and the Justice League book all I'd want is a consistant use of Luthor as President. He wouldn't have to have any impact anywhere except if your book needed to use a national leader or you planned to deal with some government agency. In the Super-title I'd play up Lex as pushing for funding more high-tech stuff like space exploration, new energy research, and maybe some new equipment for dealing with meta-threats.

Pry would have done a slow build-up to a Legends-lite event. Superheroes wouldn't be outlawed, just slowly restricted. Try to clean up the DC covert ops to get a single organization rather than the way the DEO, Checkmate, and task Force X at points seemed to be working at cross purposes. And to that end the Luthor administration would be using the Suicide Squad on more black-ops missions while creating a public faced hero team to phase out the League. A sort of policy where Lex would never outright verbally attack Superman or his allies but would instead have guys like Captain Atom, a new Commander Steel, Phantom Lady, and others as a government sponsored group to deal with superhuman threats and other disasters.

"Thanks, Superman, but the Meta-mericans have this"
"We appreciate the assistance so far, Batman, but this is now a national security matter"
"America is sending the Meta-mericans to aid Atlantis with …"


And when it was time to move on from the storyline I'd revive the ol' Zero-year curse and have Lex assassinated … probably by someone that would lead to more stories (framed General Lane or Captain Atom, A supervillain, an alien who'd bring up a battle between the US and the Lanterns for jurisdiction ….)

[raidensix]

Wouldn't have done it at all. The idea of having a major fictional player in a character's lore be president, that reflects wholesale in the wider shared universe, I think is a dumb idea. Be it Lex Luthor or anyone else from anyone's mythos. As far as I ever would have taken the idea is that maybe he ran a campaign or something but ultimately lost. I don't particularly like that its back in continuity as having ever happened.

This. Superman said it himself later, Lex should never have become president.

[Flash Gordon]

President Obama was in a lot of AQUAMAN REBIRTH.

I wouldn't do the Lex as PotUS storyline, but he should always be around as the true power behind the chair.

[Denirac]

I’d do it like JLU did, Lex RUNS for President with no intention of winning- All That Money for a Fake Campaign, just to tick Superman off