Welcome to another edition of "First Strike," taking a look at our favorite superheroes' first published clashes with their most famous foes! This week, I'm finally getting around to one of DC's Big Three - and by popular vote on Twitter, the first of them is the Man of Steel himself, Superman, matching his power against the nefarious Lex Luthor!
(Originally posted on The Comics Bolt) Welcome to another edition of "First Strike," taking a look at our favorite superheroes' first published clashes with their most famous foes! This week, I'm finally getting around to one of DC's Big Three - and by popular vote on Twitter, the first of them is the Man of Steel himself, Superman, matching his power against the nefarious Lex Luthor! Like the authors of the hero pulp stories before them, Superman's creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster realized early on that the Man of Steel could only go so long tackling ordinary criminals and corrupt businessmen before readers started getting bored. A hero as powerful as Superman required a worthy opponent to challenge his power. The first of these was the Ultra-Humanite, who I'll get back to one day. Suffice to say, Siegel and Shuster traded the Ultra-Humanite in for Luthor, another mad scientist who sought to match his brain against Superman's brawn. Interestingly, Luthor's debut story is actually the second half of a two-parter that began in Action Comics #22 about Superman trying to stop a war between two fictional nations, Toran and Galonia, and continued in Action Comics #23 (April, 1940). (Quick bit of trivia for you: in between the two parts of this story, The Daily Star changed its name to The Daily Planet.) Continuing from the previous issue, our story opens with Superman still intervening in the conflict between Toran and Galonia, trying to prevent innocent casualties. But just it seems that the two nations are ready to make peace with each other, a mysterious figure provokes new hostilities, determined to keep the fighting going as part of an insane bid for world domination. Superman's investigation leads to his discovery of the hidden mastermind, a robed scientific genius named Luthor, who naturally has taken Lois captive to keep her off his trail. By threatening Lois's safety, Luthor is able to compel Superman's submission, but naturally, it's only a matter of time before he escapes and thwarts Luthor's evil plans, the malevolent mastermind seemingly killed at the end of the story. Obviously, that wasn't the case, and thus begins one of the oldest hero-villain feuds in comic book history! As a debut for a new arch-villain, there's little to complain about From his airborne city suspended by a blimp to his ability to make his face appear in solid rock, Luthor (not yet given the first name of Lex) was more larger than life compared to anyone else the Man of Tomorrow had gone up against at this point. He even has a science ray of some kind that weakens the Man of Steel. (Luthor is also described as hideously grotesque, but the art never conveys this.) I can see why Siegel and Shuster kept this guy around instead of making him another one-shot villain, and why he was infinitely more enduring than the Ultra-Humanite. He stood out in a way no other Superman antagonist had done up to that point, and the conflict between them would only intensify over the years. As Luthor transitioned from mad scientist to costumed supervillain to corrupt tycoon, he remained the ultimate nemesis for Superman, a mere mortal man with unbridled intellect matched against a physical powerhouse. If you want to see his first clash with Superman for yourselves, you can get a hold of Superman: The Action Comics Archives #2 or the trade paperback Superman: The Golden Age Vol. 2. There are plenty of great Superman stories in these collections, but Luthor's debut is certainly the highlight.
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