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Post by starskyhutch76 on Sept 29, 2019 11:45:15 GMT
It has bugged me that she claims Lex Luthor is her uncle since, as far as we know, the only sibling he has is Lena Thorul. What if he was her uncle in the sense that kids with single moms can have a whole string of 'uncles'.
This could open up the possibility that Lex is actually her father. Given her age, he might have been gathered her back when he was still a juvenile delinquent making life harder for Superboy. Since we know so little about her family, perhaps she has a little brother who could become an enemy for Kent Shakespeare.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Sept 29, 2019 12:10:17 GMT
I think that that description of her relationship with Luthor makes the most sense.
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Post by redsycorax on Sept 30, 2019 1:06:05 GMT
In the All Star Superman continuity, I seem to recall Lex communicating with Lena in a spherical communication device, which implies that Lena knows Lex is her brother in this timeline and possibly that she's contacting him to keep an eye on Nastalthia, her daughter. Or that may be an inferential jump. Given Nastalthia's contrarian nature, it figures that she might have switched names from Thorul back to Luthor to spite Lena, her mother. If Nasty is Lena's daughter, I suspect there's considerable estrangement there. Okay- apparently, she's the daughter of Lex's unnamed older sister, not Lena, according to one DC database, who eloped to Europe and was disowned by Jules and Arienne Luthor, her parents/Lex's parents/Nasty's grandparents. Jules and Arienne seem to have been rather an upright couple, compared to Lionel, Lex's dad in some continuities.
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Post by DocQuantum on Sept 30, 2019 17:30:57 GMT
I don’t think Lex is old enough to have fathered an adult woman the same age as Supergirl who must’ve been born in the late 1950s or early 60s at the latest, unless there were some time travel shenanigans involved.
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Post by DocQuantum on Sept 30, 2019 17:35:16 GMT
I prefer the explanation that during the college years of Superman, Lex was involved with an older woman (probably European, given her daughter’s name of Nasthalia) who had a daughter already from a previous relationship. She called him uncle and eventually took his last name when she was in college herself, because she admired him.
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Post by DocQuantum on Sept 30, 2019 17:39:14 GMT
I do like the idea that Lex fathered a son sometime in the early 1970s who Lex might only now become aware of, and who is as brilliant as his father. Perhaps he lacks social skills (in a different way than Lex) and has taken to crime to prove himself worthy of the name Luthor.
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Post by redsycorax on Sept 30, 2019 21:11:04 GMT
I'd have to say I prefer the original explanation for Nastalthia's origin (that she's his biological niece by an unnamed older sister who headed off to Europe), given that that seems to be the most logical one. In one of the frames in which Lex gets kicked out of home for being a supervillain, he seems to have older parents, who would have had time to have had an older sister for Lex, as well as for Lena as a toddler. Otherwise, there's just continuity hash which doesn't fit properly into what I assume is the Earth-1 timeframe that you're trying to fit this into. This is one case in which I prefer the traditional explanation, which seems to be the most apposite one under the circumstances. Let's call this elder sister Lorelei Luthor.
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Post by starskyhutch76 on Oct 1, 2019 0:10:43 GMT
Apparently, that was Like Sekowsky's explanation for her that he have in a letter column in the back of Adventure Comics. Though it never played out in the comics, I'm sure it would have if he hadn't quit DC and Supergirl.
I think it's interesting that he said 'older sister '. That means she was born out of wedlock. Pretty scandalous stuff for a code comic in the 60s.
Maybe this older sister had more kids. Nasty Luthor might have a little brother. We could bring Kenny Luthor to our continuity. (But less annoying than Jon Cryer made him in Superman IV)
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Post by jonclark on Oct 1, 2019 9:12:06 GMT
I was planning on revealing that Nasthalia wasn't a true Luthor in my current tale. The older sister bit would be Nasty's own embellishment. I was leaning towards the daughter of someone Lex was involved with (maybe not even romantically) deciding to make herself Lex's relative. He might even have seen her as a replacement for Lena and have encouraged it. I'm not sure if Lex was always aware of Lena being alive or if there might have been a time when he assumed she had died with his parents. Either way Nasty is not a fan of Lena or Val largely because they are Lex's blood relatives and he values them over her for that reason.
Lena came up in Lex stories even after she had largely vanished as a character. Nasty was only ever a thorn in Linda's side who vanished once Sekowsky's Supergirl run ended. Not knocking her potential as a character, just pointing out that her connection to Lex was never that strong outside of her original appearances, and then more from her perspective than his.
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Post by starskyhutch76 on Oct 1, 2019 17:06:41 GMT
I think she has to have some sort of legitimate connection to Lex. Otherwise, she becomes his version of Fuels Dent. That character bugs the heck out of me.
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Post by jonclark on Oct 1, 2019 17:55:39 GMT
I think she has to have some sort of legitimate connection to Lex. Otherwise, she becomes his version of Fuels Dent. That character bugs the heck out of me. The difference is that Nasthalia has Lex's "approval". She wouldn't be his niece in blood, but at some point he'd approved of her using the Luthor name and being his proxy in dealing with Supergirl. He is less enamored with that decision after how badly she handled the role, but he still has some affection for her.
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Post by starskyhutch76 on Oct 1, 2019 20:33:24 GMT
Dang auto correct. I meant to say she would be his version of Duela Dent.
Even in fiction with fantastic elements, it's important to have your characters behave like real people. Last names aren't something you just adopt because you admire someone. (Unless you're Nicolas Cage.) Someone as proud/arrogant as Luthor would be even more protective of his name. I'm sure he probably has a few cousins in Smallville from whom he wishes he could take back the name.
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Post by DocQuantum on Oct 2, 2019 1:53:32 GMT
Luthor probably does have cousins somewhere, though probably not Smallville since they were a new family in the origin story. Still, perhaps Nasthalia really is related, but she’s a cousin instead of a niece. The “uncle” could still be a title she calls Lex even if it’s more complicated than that. In my wife’s family she has cousins much older than her who have kids her own age. She grew up calling them aunts and uncles due to the age difference. It’s easier to just keep doing so now than try to change things now, and it’s usually not worth explaining it to anyone outside the family.
Lenny Luthor probably does exist on Earth-1, and given that intelligence isn’t always inherited, he’s just as much of a lackey type here as in the Superman movie he appeared in.
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Post by jonclark on Oct 2, 2019 7:26:52 GMT
Dang auto correct. I meant to say she would be his version of Duela Dent. Even in fiction with fantastic elements, it's important to have your characters behave like real people. Last names aren't something you just adopt because you admire someone. (Unless you're Nicolas Cage.) Someone as proud/arrogant as Luthor would be even more protective of his name. I'm sure he probably has a few cousins in Smallville from whom he wishes he could take back the name. People go to court all the time to change their names. Not a huge number of people, sure, but enough that there is a procedure for doing so in most jurisdictions. And I wouldn't be surprised to find people having changed their last names to things like Clooney, Presley or Kardashian. They'd have no connection to actual celebrities and they probably fade into the background in their hometowns after the original publicity if they rename themselves Clark Kent, Sherlock Holmes, or Fred Flintstone. I once came across someone who'd legally changed their last name to Freak. In Nasthalia's case I'm positing she was a young girl who Lex knew around the time he went from being a juvenile criminal to an adult one. This girl would have seen Lex as a role model and he would have been reminded of Lena. Whether she legally changed her name to Luthor, she simply adopted the name and still is legally "Natalie Jones", or a fake identity was created from whole cloth with criminal help I'm not sure. But I'm betting a girl named Luthor gets more respect from her gang members- especially if she can produce Lex or pictures of the two of them together. And in Lex's case I'd assume any blood relatives took their cue from Jules and Arlene in regards to ditching the Luthor name. I'd feel sorry for the kid coming into first grade in the 1980's with the last name Luthor on Earth-1 or Earth-2. It would be like meeting a guy named Bill Hitler. You'd wonder why he didn't change that last name and wonder if he might not be a Neo-Nazi type for not having changed it.
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Post by starskyhutch76 on Oct 2, 2019 15:23:26 GMT
I think one of my qualms is disrespecting the creator. It would be different if we didn't know the creator's intention, but he put it in print. plus, expanding on the Luthor family opens up future possibilities.
What went on in this supposedly respectable household that one kid ran away and another became the world's most infamous criminal mastermind? Maybe the parents were a little nuts themselves. Perhaps strict to the point it became abuse.
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