“I love bringing people together,” Jesse Eisenberg burbles cheekily at the beginning of the second trailer for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Eisenberg’s portrayal of Lex Luthor has in fact united fandom, which, as one, appears to have recoiled in disgust. The actor is supposed to be portraying the bald, vindictive, cold-hearted genius Lex Luthor. But his interpretation is more kinetic ham than villainous schemer. He sounds like he’s been sucking helium as he bounces around the screen, long red hair being where no long red hair should be. Lots of people on Twitter pointed out that he’s more Joker than Lex Luther. One disillusioned soul even uttered the ultimate insult and compared him to Jar Jar Binks.
The new Batman v Superman trailer.
The filmmakers have tried to forestall some of this criticism by assuring fans that Eisenberg is actually playing playing Luthor’s son, an entirely different, and slightly bubblier, supervillain. No real Lex Luthors were damaged in the making of this film.
Batman v Superman might be good, and it might be bad, but the one thing it can’t be is “true” to characters who don’t exist in the first place. In fact, the real betrayal of the source material is pretending that Batman v Superman can be true to it, or that the filmmakers care about being true to it.
The original Superman was a smug high-jumping New Deal type who fought evil corporate overlords and domestic abusers while uttering mean-spirited quips like “you’re not fighting a woman now”. The resemblance to Henry Cavill’s flying, godlike angst-ridden nice-guy from Man of Steel is tangential at best. The original Wonder Woman was equipped with a lasso of command, and most of her adventures involved tying up others and being tied up herself in a winking BDSM fever dream – not brandishing a sword, as in the Dawn of Justice trailer.
Luthor himself was originally a stodgy, generic mad scientist with a full head of hair. He went bald accidentally when Leo Nowak, who’d been hired to illustrate the Superman newspaper strip, confused the character with one of his henchmen (or possibly a different supervillain).
Superhero fans often have an investment in a particular version of a character, and judge films on whether Superman is sufficiently noble, or Batman is sufficiently serious. But at the same time, fans know that Superman and Batman have been through a bewildering array of personality shifts over the last 70-plus years. Clark Kent’s been a snivelling nebbish and a cheerful yuppie; Batman’s been a campy goofball and a heartless incompetent ass. The two have been bitter antagonists and best buddies. (I was kind of hoping Affleck would call Cavill “old chum” in the trailer, but it didn’t happen, alas.) Lex Luthor has been a hero on occasion, and was outfitted with a truly hideous green and purple supersuit for a while, which made him look like he’d been eaten by a toy line.
Of course, few of these personality shifts had anything to do with the original creator’s visions. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster ended their creative input in the 1940s; for decades the duo’s main involvement with Superman was lawsuits over rights. Batman’s main creator, Bill Finger, was denied credit from the beginning by artist Bob Kane, and he died in poverty. Not much of a dawn of justice there.
At this point, there is no right or wrong version of Superman, or Batman, or Lex Luthor. Batman v Superman is just the latest exercise in corporate fan fiction, remixing bits and pieces of fan fiction based on fan fiction past. The result may be good, or bad, or mediocre, and you can love or hate Jesse Eisenberg’s performance for any number of reasons. But to say he’s not true to Luthor is to pretend that there’s some “true” version of Luthor to begin with – and to create a platonic, real Luthor who exists separately from, and overshadows, the original folks who, intentionally or by accident, came up with the character. Better to just take the upcoming film on its own merits, or lack thereof – and maybe give a nod to Leo Nowak, and his own stumbling lack of fidelity to Lex Luthor past.
- The Guardian (UK)