The president of the United States of America could potentially be a megalomaniacal businessman with an axe to grind against aliens and major insecurities about his hair follicles.
That is the current state of United States politics and also the storyline for the line of Superman books published by DC Comics circa 2000, during another particularly contentious presidential election.
While many have compared Donald Trump to a cartoon character, they should have said comic book character – in particular, Lex Luthor, supervillain and arch nemesis of Superman who in the comics launches a successful bid for the US presidency despite his past misdeeds.
These misdeeds include killing hundreds of innocent people using hard-light holograms projected from a skull-shaped space satellite, which is still only half as evil as some of the things Trump is on tape bragging about.
First off, both men are self-made billionaires. Lex Luthor raised himself up out of an abusive childhood home in the Suicide Slum of Metropolis using only his iron will and genius level intellect to found LexCorp.
Trump utilized million dollar loans from his rich father only to declare bankruptcy on multiple occasions. Self. Made.
Luthor started his presidential campaign after Gotham City – home of The Batman – was decimated by an earthquake and abandoned by the U.S. government, being declared a “No Man’s Land.”
He used his own fortune to rebuild the city and, in the process, his public image. This boost, along with his platform of clean, renewable energy, proposing a moratorium on fossil fuels hoping to put “a flying car in every garage,” are what clinched him the seat in the Oval Office.
Then we look at Donald Trump who used the terrorist attacks of 9/11 as an opportunity to cash in and take recovery funds intended to help small businesses rebuild in the wake of the attack for himself. Trump is also on record as wanting to lift restrictions on fossil fuel production.
It starts to become difficult to discern which one is the fictional super villain.
The two men also have a mutual hatred of aliens. Trump’s aliens come from just south of the U.S./Mexico border and his plan to combat them mainly consists of building a very luxurious wall.
Luthor’s beef is with a very particular alien hailing from the planet Krypton. He wears a red cape, flies real fast and goes by Superman. Friends call him Supes.
While I’m sure nobody builds walls better than Lex Luthor, constructing one that could keep out a Kryptonian would be difficult. Kryptonite is very expensive and it would be hard to make the Kryptonians pay for it as Trump plans on doing with the Mexicans, especially considering that the Kryptonians are (mostly) all dead.
Luthor’s defense is actually a bit more practical – a giant, green and purple mechanical suit.
This is something I think Donald Trump should look into. If Lex can take on Superman in one of these bad boys, Trump can certainly bash a few of the “Mexican rapists” that are flooding our borders.
Plus, nobody is going to be questioning the size of your hands when they are controlling an Apokaliptian battlesuit.
Both are also masters of manipulation. Luthor successfully framed fellow billionaire Bruce Wayne for the murder of one of Wayne’s ex-lovers Vesper Fairchild after Wayne severed business ties with LexCorp.
Meanwhile, Trump has – in the eyes of his supporters – successfully blamed opponent Hillary Clinton for pretty much everything. I think he’s convinced his supporters that she is the reason it rained yesterday and why Firefly got cancelled. Because Trump supporters love Firefly.
Unfortunately, both are often victims of their own hubris. When Trump was caught on tape bragging about his uncanny ability to rape women, he characteristically attempted to deflect blame from himself.
Instead of his go-to Hilary bashing he attempted to use a fresh scapegoat in the microphone that recorded the conversation. But microphones are not sentient beings, something even Trump supporters are smart enough to know – but just barely.
Luthor’s time in the White House came to a screeching halt after he attempted to blame Superman for an asteroid that was hurtling toward Earth. Without evidence to back this up, Luthor had to take drastic measures and pilot his aforementioned mech suit in a battle against Superman while hopped up on the super-steroid known as Venom mixed with just a smidge of liquid Kyptonite.
The American public didn’t take too kindly to this and promptly ousted their Commander in Chief.
At the time of publication, no one at DC Comics could have possibly foreseen how spot-on this particular plotline would be.
The idea of one of comics’ greatest villains being elected president rang false for a lot of readers at the time; it was too farfetched.
Sixteen years later, the actual American public is close to electing a man somehow more repulsive than a fictional character created to be evil. Figure that one out.
David Tunis-Garcia is the Assistant Arts Editor and can be reached at david.garcia@ubspectrum.com. Follow him on Twitter at @davidubspectrum
