Review by Win Wiacek
Dealing with the threat of the Joker with magical powers in Emperor Joker brought Superman no respite, and this bulky collection delivers another nightmare scenario as Lex Luthor announces he’s running for President. As with earlier collections of millennium-era Superman material, assorted creative teams supply connected stories.
Metropolis is now fully adapted to its status as the most technologically advanced population cluster on Earth, rebuilt and overwritten into a technological wonderland by Brainiac-13. Judiciously selling scraps of the future-tech has made Luthor immeasurably rich and oppressively influential. It has even allowed him to massage his own history: accentuating the positive and deleting the negative, “the truth” as those who know him call it.
The blueprint to power begins with ‘The Why’ by Greg Rucka and Matthew Clark, picturing the provocations that inspired the nefarious businessman to throw his hat into the political ring.
Following a short extract by J.M. DeMatteis and Mike S. Miller in which Luthor announces his candidacy, Rucka and Dale Eaglesham follow his conniving and murderous ploys as he selects Daughter-of-the-Demon Talia Al G’hul to run his various commercial enterprises while he’s running the world.
Next comes ‘The American Dream’ by Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness, in which Lex hits the campaign trail, naming Clark Kent’s boyhood pal Pete Ross as running mate. Frustration is continually building in the Man of Steel at the impossible situation and he’s in no mood for extreme or arbitrary actions from JLA team-mate Aquaman who chooses this moment to attack Metropolis for alleged pollution crimes generated by LexCorp and the super-city.
Even with teen terrors Young Justice lending a hand in concluding episode ‘Where Monsters Lurk!’, Superman is unable to prevent Atlanteans from abducting Luthor. He is utterly aghast when the Presidential candidate negotiates his own release and even closes a deal with the repentant and conciliatory sea-dwellers.
Another extract from DeMatteis and Miller depicts the ultimate indignity as the defender of Truth, Justice and the American Way has to publicly congratulate his greatest enemy on becoming the new boss. ‘Metropolis is Burning’ by Mark Schultz, Doug Mahnke and Paco Medina discloses a council of war with inventive genius John Henry Irons AKA Steel to handle the Luthor situation.
Elsewhere, as scarily obsessed Batman warns Superman and Lois Lane to do something about President-Elect Lex, in ‘Tales from the Bizarro World’ Loeb and McGuinness find safety-averse newsboy Jimmy Olsen adopted by an immensely powerful simpleton doppelganger.
An assortment of vignettes close out the final third of the collection, the first of which offers chilling insights into the mettle of the new President in warts-and-all origin yarn ‘Lex Luthor: Triumph over Tragedy’ by Loeb and Tony Harris. The remainder focus on other supporting players Batman, Jimmy Olsen, Lana Lang, Superman’s first girlfriend, current wife of the new Vice President, and a selection of Christmas-themed shorts.
Two longer stories interrupt the shorts. Time guardian Liri Lee showing how horrific the ‘World Without Superman’ would be (Schultz and Duncan Rouleau), while the President is targetted by Earthquake in ‘Saints’ by Schulz and Mahnke.
The final shorts show Luthor selecting his cabinet, dealing with aggravating old business and which wrapping up with a foreboding look at unlikely Special Advisor Nathaniel Mackelvany.
President Lex can seem a tad confused and a little perplexing due to playing fast-and-loose epic with chronological order, but provides plenty of action, thrills and even some humour as it embarks on one of the boldest and most inventive periods in the Man of Steel’s decades-long history.
