|
|
Post by johnreiter902 on Feb 22, 2019 1:45:14 GMT
I had this idea, which could turn into a story set pre-crisis. I was perusing counterparts of Lex Luthor in the DC Multiverse, and out of curiosity, I made a list of all the version of Lex Luthor in the pre-crisis multiverse who were, as of the last time we saw their world, heroes.
I started thinking, wouldn't it be interesting if all these heroic Luthors made contact and decided to work together to protect the multiverse from their evil counterparts? It would be fun to have Superman meet such a group, and see all the ways Luthor's life might have diverged and made him good. It would also be cool to see how these Luthors interact with each other, and compare their own histories and worlds, which could be explored in depth. I also love the Sliders theme, of having them visit diferent parallel world and all compare those worlds to their own.
The Luthors I found for the group are. . .
Earth-3 (Alexander Luthor, who fights the Crime Syndicate) Earth-23 (the Pocket Universe, Superboy is killed fighting the Time-Trapper shortly after joining the Legion of Super-Heroes)
Earth-34 (Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #34, where he is reformed by psychic alien surgery)
Earth-145 (Superman #145, Brainiac, Bizarro and Luthor all reformed under unknown circumstances)
Earth-148 (World's Finest #148, like Earth-3, except people have the same names as their Earth-1 counterparts)
Earth-159 (Superman #159, Earth blew up instead of Krypton. Luthor's counterpart is a female Kryptonian scientist)
Earth-162 (Superman #162, reformed by the satellites launched by Superman Red and Superman Blue)
Earth-167 (World's Finest #167, this Luthor was his world's Superman, because Kal-El lost his powers as an infant)
Earth-230 (Superman #230, Luthor is the son of Jor-El and became Superman on this world. Clark Kent was a criminal mastermind)
Earth-332 (Action Comics #332, grew up to be a benevolent scientist, in a world where Kara Zor-El and Kal-El's fates were reversed) Earth-338 (Action Comics #388, hair grows instead of being bald. reformed along with Brainiac and pardoned) Earth-1938 (Superman: War of the Worlds, the Martians from the War of the Worlds invade Earth in 1938)
I did not include the Luthor of Earth-175, because he was dead by the end of that imaginary story.
One thing I observed right away is that there are three subgroups, Luthors who were never criminals (Earth-3, Earth-23, Earth-148, Earth-167, Earth-230, and Earth-332), Luthors who were caused to reform by outside influences (Earth-34, Earth-159, and Earth-162), and Luthors who reformed naturally (Earth-145, Earth-338, and Earth-1938).
|
|
|
|
Post by DocQuantum on Feb 22, 2019 1:59:02 GMT
And then there’s the Dr. Luthor of Earth-1’s possible future according to Elliot S Maggin in which Superman and a reformed Luthor are close friends again.
The idea is pretty cool. Reminds me of Rick and Morty’s Infinite Ricks.
|
|
|
|
Post by johnreiter902 on Feb 22, 2019 17:38:39 GMT
And then there’s the Dr. Luthor of Earth-1’s possible future according to Elliot S Maggin in which Superman and a reformed Luthor are close friends again. I wanted to include the Earth-1 Luthor as well, since I think he definitely qualifies. However, he clearly did not reform until after the Crisis, when all the other earths would have been destroyed.
That could be the genesis of a plot, though. Suppose the League of Luthors visits Earth-1 to capture Luthor, only for Superman to prove to them that Luthor is on the path of reformation.
|
|
|
|
Post by lawrenceliberty on Feb 22, 2019 20:46:20 GMT
I once wondered about what if an E-12 Luthor- fat, wore lab coat not the green and purple costume- showed up on Earth 1 along with a more benign but still criminal Joker who didn't kill and was not insane along with a few other E-12 style villains?
|
|
|
|
Post by DocQuantum on Feb 22, 2019 20:51:26 GMT
And then there’s the Dr. Luthor of Earth-1’s possible future according to Elliot S Maggin in which Superman and a reformed Luthor are close friends again. I wanted to include the Earth-1 Luthor as well, since I think he definitely qualifies. However, he clearly did not reform until after the Crisis, when all the other earths would have been destroyed. That could be the genesis of a plot, though. Suppose the League of Luthors visits Earth-1 to capture Luthor, only for Superman to prove to them that Luthor is on the path of reformation.
Or perhaps the older E1 Luthor is helping the good Luthors against his younger self somehow, but only secretly to avoid a paradox. |
|
|
|
Post by dans on Feb 23, 2019 11:46:23 GMT
There are Earths where Luthor pretended to reform,also. So the LoL needs good screening procedures - good enough to catch a bad Luthor trying to slip in...
|
|
|
|
Post by johnreiter902 on Feb 23, 2019 20:06:24 GMT
There are Earths where Luthor pretended to reform,also. So the LoL needs good screening procedures - good enough to catch a bad Luthor trying to slip in... Yes, they had better beware. One excellent example of that is the Luthor of Earth-149, who pretended to be a hero for years until Superman trusted him completely, and then he killed him. |
|
|
|
Post by johnreiter902 on Feb 23, 2019 20:10:28 GMT
Luthor-145 and Luthor-338 would feel a special connection to the Luthor of Earth-1, since they both searched their souls as grown men and turned away from a life of crime, without reform rays or alien surgery to help them.
If this was made into a story, I would also include the heroic Luthor from Earth-33, created in the story "the Mirror cracked" on the Five Earths site.
|
|
|
|
Post by redsycorax on Feb 24, 2019 21:47:26 GMT
So what about the rest of the Luthor family in this context- Lena Thorul, Nastalthia, and Ardora? Do they have any cognates in this context?
|
|
|
|
Post by redsycorax on Feb 24, 2019 21:49:39 GMT
And as Alexei Luthor of Earth-Two isn't on the list, I suspect that he's viewed as an unregenerate criminal in this context? He does seem more aggressive and murderous than his Earth-One counterpart, judging from some pre-Crisis Superman team ups I've read, in which the two Luthors teamed up against Kal-El and Kal-L.
|
|
|
|
Post by johnreiter902 on Feb 24, 2019 23:14:46 GMT
And as Alexei Luthor of Earth-Two isn't on the list, I suspect that he's viewed as an unregenerate criminal in this context? He does seem more aggressive and murderous than his Earth-One counterpart, judging from some pre-Crisis Superman team ups I've read, in which the two Luthors teamed up against Kal-El and Kal-L. Yep, he would be considered an enemy by the League. |
|
|
|
Post by johnreiter902 on Feb 24, 2019 23:30:27 GMT
So what about the rest of the Luthor family in this context- Lena Thorul, Nastalthia, and Ardora? Do they have any cognates in this context? Not a bad question. Very few of them have known counterparts, but presumably Lena exists on every Earth except for Earth-230 and Earth-159. Nastalthia, if we assume she is not Luthors niece but some other relation, is harder to determine.
Ardora is very interesting. Luthor apparently never met her on Earth-3, where he married Lois Lane. Earth-34 diverged before Luthor ever met Ardora, and he also married Lois Lane. This is also the case on Earth-145, at least the part about him never going to Lexor. Earth-162 also diverges before Luthor met Ardora, although it is after he first visited Lexor, so he might have met her later. Alaxa Lu-Thoria of Earth-159 almost certainly never traveled far from Krypton, and if she had met Ardora it would have met nothing to her. The Luthor of Earth-332 is a research scientist, who probably never went to another world, although that is not certain. Nor do we have any certain information on whether the Luthors of Earth-148, Earth-338 or Earth-230 ever visited that planet, although it is very possible. Finally, the Luthor of Earth-167 exiled himself from Earth and became a space explorer after he gave up his powers to save Batman (Clark Kent). I am convinced that he eventually settled on his Lexor and married Ardora.
|
|
|
|
Post by redsycorax on Feb 25, 2019 23:03:53 GMT
Given that there seems to be gender reversal in Krypton 159's universe insofar as Supermaid and Lu Thoria are concerned, might there be an Ardor instead of an Ardora there? Krypton 159 seems to have far greater access to space travel, given that Kandi Khan's childhood friend Len Landor eventually ends up an astronaut.
|
|
|
|
Post by johnreiter902 on Feb 26, 2019 11:37:02 GMT
Given that there seems to be gender reversal in Krypton 159's universe insofar as Supermaid and Lu Thoria are concerned, might there be an Ardor instead of an Ardora there? Krypton 159 seems to have far greater access to space travel, given that Kandi Khan's childhood friend Len Landor eventually ends up an astronaut. It's possible, and Lu-Thoria's knowlege of space travel is probably even grater than the Kryptonian norm. Good point. |
|
|
|
Post by redsycorax on Feb 27, 2019 0:57:02 GMT
I'm quite fond of that particular imaginary story myself, so much so that I decided to scrunch together the three distinct alternate surviving Kryptons of Futuro, Supermaid, the one in which Kal-El succeeded Tomar-Re as Green Lantern and the Black Mercy phantasm of Alan Moore's "For the Man Who Has Everything" into a composite Krypton-27. And come to think of it, there's a story segment in the Supermaid story where Lu-Thoria lures Supermaid and Kal-El out into space. As there are large chunks of Earthite in the vicinity of their encounter, the implication is that this must be several light-years away from Krypton, allowing for the vagaries of wormholes and spacewarps and the initial momentum and drift rate of Earthite from the Sol nova in that universe. If this is the case, then Lu-Thoria clearly knows how to operate an interstellar vessel, which implies that she has astrophysics expertise or has been a past or trainee astronaut. Assuming that she didn't design it herself, she may have stolen one from Kryptonopolis Spaceport. I don't recall that story clarifying how distant the cluster of Earthite asteroids was from Krypton within the story, however. Which also raises some interesting questions about how far her technological expertise might be ahead of the other Luthors in your proposed League, too.
|
|
