“This volume contains one of my least favorite all-time comic book stories.
In it, Lex Luthor basically uses the 1980’s version of big data, feeding all sorts of things into a computer to find out what the connection between Clark Kent and Superman might be. And when he does, the computer spits out the answer: Clark Kent is Superman.
And it’s a breathless moment in the comic. Holy shit! HE KNOWS!
And what happens? How does Supes get out of this one?
Lex dismisses it immediately. Bah, no Superman would live like a lowly Clark Kent. Shut down this entire program. It’s obviously a failure.
Now, I do have a BIT more tolerance for this story as an adult. I think I get the nuance a bit here. THIS is a version of Lex Luthor with incredible means and abilities, but he’s not infallible, and his biggest fault is that he’s a dickhole who thinks he’s awesomer than everything else. It’s not the subtlest example, but, eh, 1980’s comics aren’t subtle.
But I STILL have a little problem with one part: Lex Luthor has like unlimited resources. Why not just send some goon to shoot Clark Kent? If he succeeds, well, whatever. If he fails, shit, maybe there’s something to it…
And, if I’m going to get REAL Machiavellian about it, why not just announce to the world Superman is Clark Kent. Either it’s true, or it’ll force Superman to reveal/prove he’s NOT Clark Kent, and maybe that helps you figure out who he is. It’s win/win.
So the thing is, there’s no drawback to just acting on the information, so why not?
I don’t buy it. I think this was a classic John Byrne cop-out, my other favorite being The Trial of Galactus.
Want to hear that one?
Okay, so someone somehow captures Galactus, and they put him on trial. They’re like, “Finally we got this world-eating menace by the BALLS. His balls are probably those fork things on his head, but whatever, he’s alien, let’s just go with it.”
Reed Richards gives a stirring speech that proves Galactus is bad, but necessary, exonerating him.
What is the content of the speech?
Nobody knows. Because John Byrne, who writes himself into the comic, basically says that it’s not something that can be related, it was super amazing, you just had to be there.
Since reading these two books as a kid, I’ve come to enjoy a lot of John Byrne’s work, especially on The Thing and some others. But hoo boy, these two stories are really classics of writing out of a corner that just didn’t work.”