A Stable Genius President

This week marks one year since the inauguration of Donald Trump, and its been quite a year. And, quite frankly, we’re sick of writing about it. So we have decided to ignore the Donald -if only for one day- and turn to the story of another billionaire business magnate turned President of the United States, Lex Luthor. However, we don’t want you to see this tale as some sort of veiled reflection on our current commander-in-chief. After all, President Luthor was a supervillain, who put his name on buildings, committed multiple federal offenses, colluded with known enemies, and was obsessed with destroying only one or two reporters from the Daily Planet… Quite frankly, we don’t even know how you could draw any comparisons between the two?

43rd President of the United States
The story of President Lex Luthor began after a major crisis in Gotham City. The New Jersey city of Gotham was hit with a massive 7.6 magnitude earthquake, which severed its connection with the outside world, and plunged the people into utter chaos. In response, the US Government destroyed all bridges and highways leading to the city in order to contain the growing madness inside its borders. The government, and especially the President were criticized heavily for the move, and it was Lex Luthor who stepped in and started buying up land to restore. He began rebuilding the city and reestablishing order. Under the direction of Luthor, Gotham ended its hellish six months and rejoined the rest of the United States.

By stepping in to help the forgotten man and rallying the voters that the people in power had abandoned, Lex Luthor was able to ride a populous wave into office. During the campaign, the Man of Metropolis made huge promises about furthering the technological advancement of the country, creating jobs, and protecting it from all alien invaders. Lex Luthor was elected by the common people who believed his words, and a new era began in American politics. Yet, despite his popularity he did have his detractors, most notably Lois Lane of the Daily Planet.

President Luthor made some noteworthy appointments during his time in office, especially Pete Ross as Vice President, and Jefferson Pierce as Secretary of Education. However, he also made some questionable appointments. Among them, Sam Lane as Secretary of Defense and Amanda Waller as Secretary of Metahuman Affairs. Overall, the reaction to President Luthor was mixed. The superheroes of Earth were not happy with his election victory, but remained silent on the issue. The Justice League even forbid any of its members from trying to unseat Luthor. Even Superman found himself bowing to the will of the people, despite Luthor’s already proven history of being a criminal and a con-man.

Crisis of Infinite Presidencies
Early in President Luthor’s term the Imperiax attacked Earth, destroying Topeka, Kansas during the initial salvo of the conflict. Lex Luthor was able to coordinate the United States Armed Forces, Earth’s superheroes, and a number of alien allies -including Apokolips and Warworld- to successfully fend off the attack and defeat the Imperiax. Vowing to keep the USA and the Earth safe from illegal aliens, President Luthor heralded the end of the conflict as a success of his Presidency and made the prevention of more incursions a chief priority of his administration -probably through the construction of some sort of space wall.

However, behind the shining persona, it was eventually proven that President Luthor was responsible for corruption, collusion, and general criminality, all meant to enrich his own pockets. The earthquake that rocked Gotham was Luthor’s fault, caused so he could buy Gotham real estate at reduced prices in an attempt to buy up a majority of the city. When his deceit was discovered by Bruce Wayne, he covered it up and framed Wayne for the murder of the billionaire playboy’s current girlfriend, Vesper Fairchild. During the Imperiax War it was proven that he was aware of the invasion in advance and let Topeka be destroyed so that he might heighten his own status as President. He then traded weapons of mass destruction -a creature named Doomsday- with Darkseid in order to secure the tyrant’s aid during the conflict, as well as several pieces of beneficial technology for his private collection. Lastly, he framed Superman for the existence of a Kryptonite comet that was on course for Earth, and the death of the supervillain Metallo.

During the crisis it was further revealed that President Luthor began injecting himself with a serum made up of Kryptonite and the Venom steroid. The concoction had slowly been making the President lose his rationality and objectivity. It heightened his paranoia and his sense of ego. Any altruism or rationality quickly disappeared, and in the end Lex decided to let the comet hit Earth so that he could rule over whatever was left of humanity. When Superman and Batman finally confronted him, President Luthor injected himself with the rest of the serum and donned an Apokoliptian battle-suit, which he also secretly secured through his collusion with Putin… err Darkseid.

The Impeachment of a President
After Lex Luthor’s mental state, his corruption, greed, and his schemes became public. Superman and Bruce Wayne were cleared of all wrong doings and the President of the United States was impeached and brought up on criminal charges. When all was said and done Lex Luthor served about three years of his term as President, and Vice President Pete Ross took over in his stead to finish his last year. Yet his election will forever be remembered in US history as a time when the electorate put an actual supervillain in office. Moreover, his Presidency will be forever marked by his insanity, his obsessions, his ego, his greed and corruption, and also that he was willing to let a comet destroy three-quarters of humanity rather than admit he was wrong. And so, his term as President ended with jail time and the loss of his precious business.

Now, again, we caution our readers to not try and find any parallels between the story of President Luthor and Donald Trump. After all, one is a two-dimensional-comic-villain whose own ego was so big that he was prepared to let America suffer and fall to dust and ruin rather than admit his own flaws and faults. The other -of course- is Lex Luthor.