Another Home-Run for Lex

MLB will test robot umpires in 2026.

Naturally, Lex did it first.

DC Super-Stars #10 (1976)
"The Great Super-Star Game"

Forget Superman; Lex Luthor is the Man of Tomorrow.

Publishing House of Mysteries

As I mentioned yesterday, CBR is constitutionally, DEFIANTLY wrong, so this latest bit should be no surprise.  I suppose none of what CBR does along these lines should surprise me. The whole clickbait/generic lisicle style is pervasive on internet topic sites of any kind; it's just the one that algorithms shove in my face most frequently, due to the topics.

It's not that I merely disagree with any of the opinions implied, but rather that there ARE no opinions really implied. These are not lists or positions taken by, say, an actual blogger/vlogger with their own vision.  Those might be interesting or engaging. Rather, CBR's articles might as well all be titled "Most Publicly Recognizable Examples of X" or "Assertion that Throwaway in Recent Issue is a Permanent Continuity Change" or "Everyone Has Forgotten An Important Thing That Is No Longer Even Remotely In Continuity If It Ever Was".  

But the linked article, "10 Biggest Mysteries in DC Comics", is just face-punchingly mislabeled, when it is, at best, "10 Most High-Profile Reveals That Were Actually Retcons."  It did, however, jog me into considering the legitimate question: 

What are the 10 "biggest" mysteries in DC comics? And by "mysteries" I do NOT mean "unanswered questions" like the Joker's real name, the Phantom Stranger's origins, or how DID the Giant Penny in there, anyway. 

[Any replies addressing those issues will be deleted.]

I mean, you know, ACTUAL MYSTERIES.  

Like the kind Ace Investigator SPEED SAUNDERS used to solve.

Things that are mysteries to us and to some of the characters, things that they and we are challenged to solve (fairly or not). You know, real Kay Daye, Christine Ariadne stuff. 

I'll concede, I doubt I can even LIST ten, so I'm asking in advance for YOUR help. No matter how years later you may read this, please add any good ones you think of. Because otherwise all people will think of BS like "Hush". P.S. Don't list "Hush", which not merely some BS, but some ****.

I can think of plenty of crappy DC "mysteries": Identity Crisis, Long Halloween, Hush, Zero Hour (Who is Extant?), Every Silver Age Story With A Mystery Hero, Terry Sloane's Murder, The Joker's Daughter, The Wild Dog Mystery.  But what were the good ones? And why aren't there more of them?  I mean, DC does stand for "Detective Comics", after all.

Our nation needs Ace Investigator Speed Saunders again.

Here are some that I remember as definite positive stand-outs.

Who Killed Myndi Mayer?

This was certainly among the most affecting mysteries I have ever read in comics (don't spoil it for anyone).  Myndi Mayer wasn't a disposable walk-on or side character.

Myndi Mayer was a substantial supporting character, an ongoing, vibrant, and unique member of Wonder Woman's cast at the time.  She was a Strong Female Character of a sort, in the sense that she was an independent, successful businesswoman (she was Wonder Woman's publicist), but she was no angel, which was refreshing for a WW character.  She was grounded in a way that innocent Diana, new to "Man's World" in those days was not, and she made helped her transition from Paradise Island possible for Diana and believable to us.

That really should be the function of WW supporting cast-- grounding her -- whether they be an Etta Candy, an I Ching, or a Hoppy (not the bunny, the fast food worker).

But Myndi was found one night with a bullet in her head and the mystery was:

And quite a mystery it was.  It was AWESOME because it was the LAST thing you expected from WONDER WOMAN. But there she was: stuck in a murder mystery, the victim a close friend of hers, and she was unable to punch something or just magically lasso everybody into confessing. Eventually she DID solve the mystery and because of all those things it was incredibly impactful. And for other reasons, but you deserve to read it yourself.  

I can honestly say there is no mystery in comics that affected me more. There are still occasions, forty years later now, where some real world happening will prompt me to say: "Hm; Who killed Myndi Mayer, indeed?"

Who is Sensor Girl?

Although this mystery probably OBSESSED me (and everyone else) more.  I assured you nobody obsessed as much over all of the things on CBR's list COMBINED as they did over this. People LOST SLEEP over it!

I know because I kept them up talking about it.

It's a Legion of Super-Heroes' mystery and LSH LOVES mysteries, almost all of which have the form "Who is?"  But this is the greatest LSH "Who is?" mystery of all time.

Sensor Girl was a character who joined the Legion but kept her identity and the precise nature of her powers secret.  This violates, like, 47 of their little Constitutional Rules, about which they are quite fussy. But Saturn Girl says "I vouch for her", which immediately ENDS that subject, because nobody-but-nobody in the Legion crosses Saturn Girl.

You... do not want to cross Saturn Girl. Or doubt her.
Or suggest that that costume makes her look trampy.
(from Legion #90, a very memorable issue from Tom Peyer's very memorable run)

Sensor Girl was a mystery that stumped the most intelligent person in the DCU: Brainiac 5.  

Who has a 12th Level Intelligence, in case no one has mentioned it yet this issue.

Most people thought she was Supergirl. Her demonstrated variety of powers did seem consistent with that theory, but she seemed to have weaknesses inconsistent with it.  I knew it wasn't Supergirl because she had this flair about her that Supergirl could never have. Supergirl was a sad sack; Sensor Girl was a big old drama queen.

With a wicked pimp slap.

Eventually, Brainiac DID figure it out because, well, he's the most intelligent person in the DCU and that IS his power in the Legion so, how else could the story end?

He also pointed out that the answer was obvious and that you were an idiot for not figuring it out, because making you feel stupid is his other power.

But the real story is: with no internet hive-mind to solve it, this mystery OBSESSED anyone who knew anything about the Legion and was a high-point for Legion obsession and if you know anything about the Legion, you know that obsession is, um... well, knowing anything about the Legion and being obsessed with the Legion are pretty much the same thing, aren't they?

The Geoff Johns' Mysteries 

Geoff Johns is basically Nancy Drew or, if you prefer, a Solo Hardy Boy.  Geoff tells a very particular type of mystery, one especially designed to reward comic history aficionados.  A Big Event is building in one book or across many (or perhaps... on a television show); it's got lots of players and several appear to be driving the events. But it doesn't QUITE all add up.  

And you can't quite tell whether that's just, you know, how it's written or whether ... there's something else.  So MUCH comic book writing has big plot holes that we accustom ourselves to not questioning too much. Comic book roads are full of plot holes, so we've equipped our mind-cars with such extra shock-absorbers and heavy tires that it's easy to overlook it when we really DO run over a dead body.

Unlike Ace Investigator Speed Saunders,
who ALWAYS notices these things.

Geoff Johns takes advantage of that and ALWAYS hides things right in plain sight...right in our blind spots.  There is always Something Else, and that Something Else is always a Piece of DC History He Remembers Which You Forgot.

Blackest Night?  Nekron, refugee from a blacklight poster. Who even READ that first story?!

JSA: Darkness Falls? Ian Karkull, who fought Dr. Fate. Twice.

 

I mean, only ROY THOMAS remembered Ian Karkull.

Doomsday Clock? Dan Didio.
Oh, I mean, "Dr. Manhattan". Dr Manhattan screwed up the DCU.

You can think of others; you get the idea.  I love 'em, but they are all sufficiently similar that I lump them together.  I'm not being dismissive; it's the kind of thing that a Brad Meltzer tries to pull off but can't.

Watchmen

Speaking of Watchmen, it is ... a lot.  So much to think about. It's been part of our comic book history for so long that it's easy to forget--especially if you weren't alive when it came out--that it was, first and (at least apparently) foremost, a MURDER MYSTERY: who killed The Comedian?  But I still remember discussing the theories with my boyfriend at the time.  

I remember keeping him up all night talking about it.

I don't remember whether I or anyone else was surprised at the time. It's not like there were any 'bad guys' to choose from after all.  

Australian Lex Luthor Junior

I wasn't sure whether to count this as a mystery per se, but "Who is Australian Lex Luthor Junior and whose side is he on?!" was a definite PUZZLE of GREAT power during its time. 

And it's time was LONG.  It was SO long. That was what sold it.  No one could believe that DC had the attention span to hoax us that long. But in those days, the glory days of The Superman Triangle Comics, they did indeed.  They convinced their entire readership that Lex had died and been replaced by his illegitimate son from Australia. Over time it was impossible to believe this person

was this person

There was so much to like about the new Lex.

Possibly more than we can imagine.

In a way, he was still a challenge to Superman, even though he was a GOOD guy, not a bad guy. He was a challenge by BEING a good guy. Supergirl became disenchanted with Superman and became Lex's girlfriend, enchanted by seeing what he could do without even any powers.  Superman, with his minimalist approach to intervention, looked like a slacker compared to Junior's proactive approach to improving Metropolis. It seemed as though DC had decided that was a new, mature tack for the concept of "Lex Luthor" and really had throw out the scheming greedy egoistical big-brained madman of the past.

But in fact...

THEY SAVED LUTHOR'S BRAIN

Still one of the greatest panels in comics.

The whole thing was just so damned... COMIC BOOKY. In a GOOD way. They just WENT THERE. And it was GLORIOUS to realize you had been lovingly duped for OVER TWO YEARS.  DC can't even go two years now without a crossover that reboots the entire mutliverse, let alone stay the course on this sort of thing.

Can you image DC doing anything like that now? :-)

But enough of my remembrances: what are YOUR favorite mysteries from DC comics?

Apex Lex is discount Neron

I have been wondering lately why no one but me seems to be rolling eyes at DC's current crossover schtick. I mean the "Doom" one with "Apex Lex" (which slows me down every time I type or read it, because I need to involuntarily eyeroll). Not the one with Leviathan.  Or the one with the Doomsday Clock.  Or the one that I probably don't even know about that probably involves Aquaman, because isn't there ALWAYS some Aquaman-based crossover happening at all times now...?

Doom is the one where they have cobbled together some folderol about Lex dying but getting better and embracing nihilism so that they could find some storyline excuse for the name "Legion of Doom", and being empowered by the latest new Cosmic Entity that is Beyond, Above, and Before all the OTHER previous Cosmic Entities because now we know the real story of the universe / multiverse / omniverse / metaverse / diversiverse / free verse.  Speaking of pretentious entities, all you kids who laugh at Silver Age names like "Starro" and "Despero" and "Amazo" can get off my lawn and read your comics about "Perpetua" and "Apex Lex" somewhere else.

Now-cosmically-empowered Lex is skittering about Earth offering Faustian power upgrades to any and almost all villains like he's the Exchange Counter in a DCUO game; "I'll offer you Spiked Synthium Shoulderguards and a Soder Cola if you agree to continue to be evil, which you are already doing for nothing."  

This ridiculous "Let's Make a Deal" routine is SUCH a clear copy of the demon Neron in the "Underworld Unleashed" storyline that I've been amazed that no one seems to be noticing it. But then I realized : Underworld Unleashed was 23 years ago, so a lot of readers just don't remember it.

In short, the '90s was the era in which DC, as part of its neoPlatinum age, made a statement of rejecting the moral relativism of anti-heroes and turned up the moral contrast between its heroes and villains.  Underworld Unleashed complemented this approach by using a convenient plot device (a magical demon from Hell!) to give power-ups to whatever villains DC wanted to make sexy again.  

That's part of a era-based cycle in comics. Over time the hero gets more powerful or SEEMS to be, because he keeps defeating his Rogue's Gallery again and again.  In short, Batman (or any other hero) always starts out like this:

What's this? The Cape Crusader pwned by the Penny Plunderer?!

and winds up like this:

Darkseid, killed by the man who was pwned by the Penny Plunderer

One of the signals that a continuity cycle is re-initializing is when the hero is de-powered or his villains get powered-up.  "Uh-oh! NOW you must BEWARE the Polka-Dot Man!"

"In exchange for your soul I shall give you...
this baseball bat!"

Villains who rely on gadgets for their abilities are granted "power internalization"; cold guns are replaced by ice powers, heat guns are replaced by pyrokinetics, the Prankster gets nanobots with which to craft props out of thin air.  Never forget that Underworld Unleashed turned Killer Moth into "Charaxes" and tried to sell us that as an improvement.

"What If...."

"...Alan Moore had created Killer Moth?"

"Apex Lex" is doing the same thing now, and, I note, making some of the same offers to the same villains. Somehow even though Carl Sands' original shadow-suit was eerie and powerful and then Neron gave him an upgraded one and now he's getting ANOTHER upgraded shadow-suit from Lex, he STILL comes off as a yutz.

Somehow you know that the Shade would STILL kick his ass, and without scuffing his shoes.

Lex's DoomShopping Network is also skipping some of the same villains previously skipped, such as the Riddler, who gets no offer from Lex (and demands to know why), who refused any offer from Neron, and who, you'll recall, was the only major villain in the "No Man's Land" crossover to do the sensible thing and just leave Gotham City.  The Riddler is immune to power upgrades because what he can do has nothing to do with 'powers'; his only limitation lies in what the WRITERS can do with him.

Lex, like Neron, is giving villains upgrades mostly just so that they can be bigger pains in the ass for heroes and as part of some Bigger Picture where he benefits from The Triumph of Evil.  Despite Lex's OWN upgrade from "Perpetua" (*snort*), his QVC-level offers seem pretty crappy.  Giving Cheetah a mystical artifact of the kind archeologist Barbara Minerva could dig up herself? Giving Black Manta a giant black mecha, which is the kind of thing Black Manta puts together in his garage on the weekends?  Giving Brainiac his 10,000th upgrade? At this point, I'm just hoping for a Steam version of Brainiac, so that the upgrades are automatic upon login.  Silver Age Lex, I remind you, could have outdone all this with some bed spring coils and the warden's busted transistor radio.

Yup; Lex Luthor invented Twitter.

The only difference this time around is that Lex seems to be making offers to heroes as well (Batgirl, Red Hood, Martian Manhunter), but, of course, those come to nothing. Those are mere exercises in showing us how good the good guys are by refusing to make a deal with the worst person they know, who is currently trying to bring about the end of the universe.

The end result of this event is certain: the DCiverse will NOT be destroyed, any classic villains who were powered up will, over time, return to their classic forms, and a few less-than-classic villains will retain their power ups, get a few good licks in against their traditional foe, and either take their place on a higher tier in their respective Rogue's Galleries or it will be collectively, silently decided that they are more useful as background Z-list bad guys, so their power ups will fade away until they finally move to Star City to fight Green Arrow.

I think there are a LOT of villains in Star City who'd love to hear from you, Apex Lex.  Then again, they are fighting Green Arrow... do they really NEED upgrades?

I apologize, Lex

Lex Luthor, I owed you an apology.

When you were elected U.S. president in 2000, I scoffed.  I said it was ridiculous. I said it was unrealistic, even for comics.  I'll believe a man can fly, but not that a supervillain can be elected president.  No, even more essentially I laughed at the idea that a non-politicians, someone with no government background, a mere businessman--regardless of how successful or well-known--could be elected president.  Particularly since he didn't seem to really have the backing of either major policital party.

A person who runs for the presidency so clearly for no reason other than ego?  A man who's made his life's work crushing other people beneath his heel successfully portraying himself as a man of the people?  And who wins...?!

Absurd. Clearly a storyline written by desperate writers, ones more interested in making a splash than it going anywhere with a story, since next to nothing was actually done with "President Luthor".  Their only focus was in the shock value of having him elected, not in his actual agenda once in office.  Clearly a storyline written by people who simply have no idea HOW Washington works.  So naive.  Smartest man in the world or not, there's no way, Lex, you would have been elected president.

I feel now, however, that I owe you an apology.