#lex luthor: the unauthorized biography

[smashedpages]

On this day in 1989, DC Comics released Lex Luthor: The Unauthorized Biography #1, by James Hudnall, Eduardo Barreto and Adam Kubert. Due to a C&D from LexCorp, that's all I'm allowed to say.

[evilhorse]

Publishorial by Jenette Kahn (circa June 1989)

[cantsayidont]

February 1961. If Lex Luthor was a teenager in Smallville when Clark Kent was Superboy, what happened to Lex's family? Jerry Siegel answered that question in a curiously roundabout way about a year later, in a story in SUPERMAN'S GIRL FRIEND LOIS LANE #23. Perry White assigns Lois to "write a story on witchcraft," and sends her to the New England town of Cardiff, where there were witch trials centuries earlier. In Cardiff, Lois visits the local library to learn more about the trials and notices that one of the alleged witches burned at the stake, Louella Thompsons, bore a striking resemblance to the town's current librarian, a young woman with the unusual name of Lena Thorul:

Learning that Lena was orphaned as a child, Lois soon works herself into a froth imagining that Lena is the reincarnation of Louella Thompsons, and that the accidents that killed her family might be the result of black magic. Lois then begins to think she's being watched, and experiences several bizarre events, including the mysterious disappearances of her camera and typewriter. She also narrowly avoids a car accident like the one Lena said killed her parents. Superman, as always in these stories skeptical of any kind of "superstitious magic," is convinced that there must be a scientific explanation — and since evil scientist Lex Luthor recently escaped from prison, Superman concludes there must be a connection. Locating Luthor's secret lab with Lois in tow, Superman finds that Luthor has been using remote "vision-screens" to monitor Cardiff and the Daily Planet offices, and used "super-science rays" to cause the mysterious disappearances of Lois's stuff. Superman even guesses the reason:

Superman then gets Luthor to explain the whole story:

In late 1962, Lena popped up again in the Supergirl strip in ACTION COMICS #295, which reveals that she moved to Midvale not long after her previous appearance. Lena befriends Supergirl in her guise as Linda Lee Danvers and applies for a job as an FBI secretary, but is rejected because, as an FBI official explains to Supergirl, "Our security check on Lena drew a complete blank! No one knows where she came from! There's no birth certificate! All we know is that she was found in the wreckage of a car after a serious accident, and once worked as a librarian in a small town! She's a complete mystery! A girl without a past!" Dismayed, Supergirl — who's unaware of Lois's earlier encounter with Lena — travels back in time and learns what Lex had previously revealed to Superman and Lois about his family.

That story reveals that while Lena's resemblance to Louella Thompsons was a coincidence, Lena does possess extrasensory perception. Learning that his sister has fallen in with a gang of thieves who want to use her psychic abilities for robbery, Luthor asks Supergirl for help:

Luckily, Lena actually uses her extrasensory powers to thwart the gang's attempted bank robbery. As she tells Supergirl:

From this point on, Lena became a semi-regular Supergirl supporting character. About two years later, in ACTION COMICS #317, she married FBI agent Jeff Colby and became Lena Thorul Colby. Supergirl kept her promise to Lex and didn't tell Lena about him, but in the Supergirl stories in THE SUPERMAN FAMILY #213–214 in 1981, Lena found out anyway, and was outraged that Supergirl had never told her the truth. Lena reconnected with Lex — whose concern about her wellbeing was completely genuine, if perhaps misplaced — and Supergirl expressed hope that Lena would eventually forgive her. However, THE SUPERMAN FAMILY #214 was Lena's last pre-Crisis appearance, so it seems they didn't reconcile before Kara's death in the Crisis in 1985.

Unlike in many modern stories, the pre-Crisis Luthors didn't appear to be particularly rich. Lex's comment in Lena's first appearance about their parents having "left everything" to her suggests that she might have inherited a little money, but given that she was working as a small town librarian and applying for secretarial jobs, she presumably wasn't independently wealthy.

In post-Crisis continuity, there was initially no indication that Lex Luthor had any siblings, but his parents were still killed in a car accident, which LEX LUTHOR: THE UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY strongly implied that Lex arranged so he could collect on their life insurance policy.

[gothamcityneedsme]

WAIT my 4th fav comic page is from lex luthor the unauthorized biography where the journalist actually gets to be face to face with luthor

[dr-archeville]

Heck, DC Comics got in on it, too: when John Byrne was revamping Superman (following 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths), he changed Lex Luthor from a Mad Scientist to a Corrupt Corporate Executive, modeling him after Howard Hughes, Ted Turner, and Donald Trump.

And later, when Lex Luthor: The Unauthorized Biography (by James D. Hudnall) was released, the cover

was clearly based on Trump's own book, The Art of the Deal.

[picture not included, because I don't want that on my blog.]

It's worth noting that, at the time, DC Comics was also headquartered in New York, keeping alive the tradition of New Yorkers shitting on Trump.

God, remember when Donald Trump used to just be a punchline about him being a weird rich guy? And not a vector by which everything wrong with the world got measurably worse?

[balu8]

Lex Luthor: The Unauthorized Biography 

by  James D Hudnall and  Eduardo Barreto ; Cover by Eric Peterson

DC

[ericrobertnolan]

Cover to “Lex Luthor: The Unauthorized Biography,” Eric Peterson, 1989 DC Comics.

[youtwitinmyface]

Lex Luthor: The Unauthorized Biography

Written by James D. Hudnall Drawn by Eduardo Barreto Inked by Adam Kubert Published by DC Comics

Superman is one of the most well-known fictional characters in the world. People who’ve never read a single comic-book in their life, nor watched any Superman cartoons, TV shows or movies, nevertheless can recognize Superman and know significant details of his life. Like that he’s from Krypton which…

[downthetubes]

In Memoriam: Comic Writer James D. Hudnall

In Memoriam: Comic Writer James D. Hudnall

James Hudnall

We’re sorry to report the passing of American comics writer and novelist James Hudnall, who died earlier this week aged 61, a day before his 62nd birthday.

He had recently been working on a new episode of the fantasy adventure, Age of Heroes, drawn by John Ridgway, but the script, based on James novel of the same name, had not been completed.

Artist Matt Cossin, who was working with…

[diogenescynic2288]

Did anybody else read that 80s/90s prestige format one-shot: Lex Luthor: the Unauthorized Biography? The one where the cover artwork looks Trump's Art of the Deal fake bio. In that origin, Lex got the seed money for his fortune from getting insurance on his parents, especially his dad, and then tampering with the brakes on the car to kill them.

So, yeah not likely to hug his dad anytime soon.

" 🌟 Clark Kent 🌟 tweeted: If Bruce Wayne wants to go on a date this saturday, he should call me. @WayneBruce are you free this Saturday? I'd love to take you on a date. Please message me this Saturday, when I am free "

[gothamincarnate]

trying to think how much of lionel’s abuse is on public record, and how much of it lex actually talks about. he openly tells lois that he and lena “endured abuse that would shatter most people” so the public probs knows it was Some Shit but like i wonder how many details or specific incidents are like, acessable.

basically i was poking at the idea of someone looking into lex’s past a’la Lex Luthor: The Unauthorized Biography (not quite as huge a coverup bc lex wants to paint himself as a marytr but still)

[evilhorse]

Lex Luthor: The Unauthorized Biography house ad (circa May 1989)

[biggoonie]

SUPERMAN: PRESIDENT LUTHOR TP NEW EDITION

Written by PETER DAVID, J.M. DeMATTEIS, JEPH LOEB, GREG RUCKA, MARK SCHULTZ and others Art by ARTHUR ADAMS, MATTHEW CLARK, DALE EAGLESHAM, TONY HARRIS, DOUG MAHNKE, ED McGUINNESS and others Cover by ERIC PETERSON Lex Luthor is the most powerful man in Metropolis. So what’s next on his horizon? The White House, naturally! It was only a matter of time before billionaire Lex Luthor ran for the highest office in the land. And besides bringing him victory, Luthor’s campaign for the presidency is calculated to bring maximum grief to the Man of Steel. This title collects SECRET FILES: PRESIDENT LUTHOR #1, SUPERMAN #162-163, SUPERMAN: THE MAN OF STEEL #110, SUPERMAN: LEX 2000 #1, LEX LUTHOR: THE UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY #1, plus content from ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #581 and #586, SUPERMAN #164-165 and SUPERMAN: THE MAN OF STEEL #108-109. On sale FEBRUARY 21 • 296 pg, FC, $29.99 US • ISBN: 978-1-4012-7765-9

[superman86to99]

Forgive me if this has been asked before, but do you have any idea exactly how many of these comics (including prestige/mini-series/etc. such as Lex Luthor Unauthorized Biography or Superman: Doomsday) are out there? I'm trying to get a scope of the task you have before you, which I know is gargantuan. Also, since this is the Superman run of my childhood I'm contemplating diving in deeply and also tracking down the trades they're putting out. Keep up the good work! Your blog rocks.

Thank you! I think there’s 720 or so main issues that will get their own posts. By “main issues” I mean the monthly series and a few specials that are essential reading; basically, if it has a triangle number on the cover, we’ll do a full post about it. Then there’s like 300 non-essential one-shots, miniseries, crossovers and stuff that we’ll only cover briefly, in group posts. Those group posts might also include the spin-off titles (Superboy, Steel, The Astonishing High Pockets, etc.), which would bring the total to something like 1350 issues. There are currently 375 posts on this blog, by the way! (Yes, I have to pick up the pace.)

Since you brought up the trades, I should mention that DC recently upgraded the upcoming collection of post-John Byrne issues to a giant-ass omnibus collecting everything leading up to the Exile in Space, the Exile in Space itself, and the first Eradicator stories. Since the Byrne era is now available in trades (the nine “Man of Steel” volumes) this means the first years of this era will now be FULLY collected. Everyone pre-order this book so they’ll eventually cover the whole damn thing! (Give me free shit, DC!)

Anyway, thank you for writing, here’s 720 Baldy Awards:

[multiversitycomics]

James Hudnall, Comic Book Writer, Dead at 61

James Hudnall, best known for writing 1989's "Lex Luthor: The Unauthorized Biography," died yesterday aged 61.

[image align=left width=208 caption=”James Hudnall”]http://multiversitystatic.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2019/04/James-Hudnall-website-portrait.jpg[/image]

Comic book writer James Hudnall died yesterday at the age of 61. Artist Matt Cossin, who was working with Hudnall on a new book, announced the news on Facebook, stating “James’ sister, Susan, has informed me that my good friend, writer and…

[balu8]

Lex Luthor the Unauthorized Biography cover by Eric Peterson