ACTION COMICS 23 (1940)
by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster
This is the first appearance of Lex Luthor… kind of: Superman #4 went on sale shortly before this one, but this is clearly meant to take place before it.
This is also technically Part 2 of a story, but all you need to know is that Clark Kent and Lois Lane are covering a war between two made-up European countries.
World War II had already started at this point, but we are well before Pearl Harbor.
Lois and Clark meet General Lupo, who should have a familiar physique.
Is this Lex Luthor? Nope! It’s just some guy.
A brief tangent: in the letters page of Jimmy Olsen during the Kirby run, there was one letter lamenting the use of “thru” instead of “through”, lamenting only low-brow Marvel comics would spell the word that way and DC should be above such juvenile slang.
Let’s hope he never read Golden Age comics.
Check out the cameras they had in 1940. I guess there’s a reason there is no Golden Age equivalent to Spider-Man!
The peace negotiations fail when there’s an assassination attempt on the delegation, and Superman suspects General Lupo is behind it.
At this point Superman has already learned how to fly, but he doesn’t have the pose quite right.
(I’m kidding, by the way, it’s very hard to pinpoint when he’s flying or jumping in this early era)
So up to this point it was a regular war story. But now we enter into crazy stuff, as it turns out General Lupo has been hypnotized by rocks.
Your regular reminder that Golden Age Superman does not f##k around.
And there you have it: the first mention of Luthor. He’s not “Lex” yet.
“Who is Luthor”? He’s the guy who CUTS THE GENERAL IN HALF WITH LASERS!!!
Kryptonite hasn’t been invented yet, so the green lasers do nothing to Superman. He’s so pissed off that he begins to slaughter the military!!!
I’m telling you, Golden Age Superman is hardcore!
Clark Kent tries to warn the government that someone is hypnotizing their generals, and we move to the very first panel of Lex Luthor… who is the ONLY person in it that is not bald!!!
We also have the first interaction between Luthor and Lois. Whose Golden Age version is pretty awesome and snarky.
I’ll talk later about Luthor losing his hair in later stories, but I want to point out that this story is FULL of bald people who look exactly like you would picture Lex Luthor.
Despite the help from this guy Lois is caught by Luthor before she can escape, but then Superman shows up to confront his future nemesis.
Luthor’s infodump is similar to the one we got from Ultra-Humanite, but it’s a little more nuanced.
When Luthor’s rays don’t work on Superman he resorts to bribery, and I guess that’s not too far from his future incarnation.
I stand by my definition of Golden Age Superman being hardcore, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t be silly.
I forgot to mention that the first Superman-Luthor meeting happens on a dirigible, and here is when that becomes significant.
And that’s the end of Luthor… unless you happened to purchase the other Superman title on shelves that same month.
With Luthor gone the war is soon over, but we have one last bit of history: this is the first time Clark Kent’s newspaper is called the Daily Planet! It used to be the Daily Star.
I’ll save the tale about how Luthor became bald at the end of my review of Superman #4.
Historical significance: 9/10
First Luthor of course, and on a much lesser scale the first mention of the Daily Planet. Misses a 10/10 with Luthor’s appearance basically being ignored by future stories.
Silver Age-ness: 2/10
Gains points for hypnotizing rays hidden behind giant stone faces that shoot lasers, but then loses points by dissecting a person with said lasers.
Does it stand the test of time? 6/10
Not the first time Superman goes up against a super-scientist who wants to take over the world, but unlike with the Ultra-Humanite you DO feel like Luthor might pull it off!
The story is very simplistic and obviously you do have to account for the Golden Age style of storytelling, but it holds up surprisingly well!
How close is this to the Silver Age character? 7/10
Luthor is such a drastically different character between the Silver Age and the post-Crisis version that it wouldn’t be fair to treat them equally.
He’s not QUITE there as the Silver Age super-scientist, and not just because he’s not bald: his rivalry with Superman doesn’t feel personal, and whole henchmen vibe seems to be WAY off.
Still… scientific super-genius who wants power and riches, so it’s not that different overall.
How close is this to the modern character? 4/10
That being said… what’s there about the amoral billionaire industrialist who hates Superman with a passion? There are very strong hints about his complete amorality, sure, but little else.