Lex Luthor #1

Worst cover of Villains Month. It's as static and with as much depth as the first page of a Scott Lobdell comic.

Lex Luthor is a Type A personality. I am not a Type A personality. I think my personality is down around W or X. I have friend that was recently raving about a breakthrough he had in his meditation breathing and all I could think was, "Why the fuck do you need to meditate?" I have this theory! Yes, another one and it's just as valid as every other random thought that enters my head, so you'll fucking listen to it! I think meditation is helpful but only for Type A personalities. I think they spend so much time going, going, going and working on doing things that they forget to spend any internal time with themselves. Meditation helps them to slow down and get back in touch with who they are and why they're so driven. Whereas Type Most of the Other Letters of the Alphabet personalities have more lazy time to sit and reflect. Not all of them may spend any time with self-reflection or just unplugging all of the input coaxial cables from their brain because they're shallow pieces of shit. Meditation could probably help those tossers to really understand why they need a replica Glamdring hanging over their sixty inch television that's constantly playing a never ending stream of brand new Blu-Rays while they trudge through the levels of Candy Crush on their new tablet. I spend most of my time facing inward anyway. My parents said as a baby they could bring me anywhere and I'd happily stare at a wall and not make a sound. I have a feeling those "anywheres" were basement parties filled with hashish smoke and there was a fucking reason all I could do was stare at the wall. Anyway, Glamdring really would look pretty nice hanging over my television.

I hope Luthor begins this issue deep in meditation!

The first thing I notice is the writer. Christ, Charles Soule. How many issues did you write this month? Not that I mind. Take over as many as you want! Maybe you should try your hand at the Teen Titans!

Well he was kind of meditating! For a three or four year stretch!

I still don't know why Lex Luthor is in prison but he was apparently supposed to be there for another twenty years. But now he's getting out because his lawyers were paid enough that they actually did their job. And even though he just recently escaped, I guess nobody held that against him. Luthor does comment that nobody could escape the prison he's walking out of because it was designed by him. But that's just bullshit. Because it was designed by him! Obviously he's smart enough to, if he needed it, he could have just walked away. But as I suspected in other commentaries (I think mostly the H'el on Earth bullshit), Lex was using this prison time as a vacation and a way to force himself to take some down time. Sure, sure. He was busy holding telepathic meetings with super villain colleagues, but only while his mind had nothing to occupy itself because his body was sun bathing.

Lex's main concern is that Superman didn't show up to observe his return to freedom. Lex is obsessed with Superman so of course he thinks Superman is obsessed with him. But this time he's right in wondering what happened to Superman. Although he won't find out until he crashes in a helicopter while threatening Ted Kord's father. So I figure that's got to happen in a few pages.

But first: Facial Reconstruction Surgery!

He's got to look his best if he's going to have dinner with Olivia Wilde or Bar Rafaeli. I wonder if the Emma mentioned was Emma Watson?

So that explains Lex Luthor's missing scar. I suppose that was the last of the What the Fucks from Forever Evil. Maybe. I'm probably forgetting half a dozen of them.

Lex sends some of his astronauts into orbit on Operation Ghost Town. I suppose it's some protocol of his if Superman ever disappears since Superman hasn't been seen for over eight hours. Although Lex didn't even need that information. He knew as soon as Superman didn't show for his release that Superman was missing. Perhaps Ghost Town is an operation to scan the entire world to find Superman. Or not find him, giving Lex the go ahead to take over the fucking world!

Lex Luthor also checks on his Bizarro Clone and mentions how it's been going for about five years and needs to cook for five more. Which means it's going to be freed somehow during Forever Evil which is why he'll wind up being Bizarro. Because he's five years premature.

After that Lex tests his Battle Armor but finds it lacking and threatens the engineers with unemployment if they don't retool it.

It's a lot of work being a just out of jail genius! All this in mere hours out of prison and he still hasn't given Ted Kord's father an ultimatum!

Oh shit. Project Ghost Town may pay a lot but what good is it if you've burned up on a free-fall reentry?

With all the technology and super-science at Lex Luthor's hand, and he figures the easiest way to find out if Superman has left Earth is to drop a bunch of astronauts out of orbit! Yeah, that sounds like Lex. And he can probably blame it on astronaut error and not have to pay them for the mission. The families should be lucky he doesn't sue for their spouses being shit at their jobs!

I thought I said somewhere that I hope Lex Luthor's issue was twenty pages of him making business deals but I have no idea where I said that. Did I just think it up in my head and not write it down? Because so far this issue really is just him going from one piece of business to another and catching up on all of his work that he missed out on while in prison.

Luthor ruins a man's life while the astronauts fall out of the sky and his personal assistance gives him advice because she thinks he's some guy that isn't a complete and total prick. So of course she expected Lex Luthor to save the astronauts himself.

Oh Casey. You're heart just cost you a million dollar personal assistant gig.

Lex pushes Casey off of the building to land on a pile of other do-gooder assistants and heads off to meet with Thomas Kord so that he can kill him and give Ted Kord a reason to become a super hero! Although Blue Beetle is already taken so he'll probably have to become the Violet Butterfly.

Lex Luthor #1 Rating: This felt like an extra long back-up story as it bridged the moments between Luthor being released and the beginning scene of Forever Evil. It was nice to see Luthor being such a ruthless dick and I did enjoy his plan to check if Superman were actually still on Earth. Although how does he know Superman just isn't stuck on the toilet after a night of eating linguiça and jalapeño pizza and drinking shitty beers all night? Man, that pizza is the most complicated pizza to spell with all those strange foreign letters with squiggly lines attached to them. Anyway, people seem to want to hear what I thought so this one is ranked somewhere in the middle or something.