SCOTT: Lex Luthor's name says a lot about him, when he was introduced in 1940 he only
went by the moniker of Luthor. He didn't get a first name until 20 years later in Adventure
Comics #271 when it was appeared to be Lex short for Alexander, but what story does this
name tell us? Welcome to another Tie-In video were I wear a tie... in videos? I'm Scott and
if you're anything like me you love looking up etymology's and origins of common phrases
and of course, meanings of names. And if you aren't like me and don't care any about that
stuff just indulge me for a bit. I'm sure we're all used to names of comic book characters
that are a bit on the nose especially Batman villains. Victor Fries becoming Mister Freeze,
Harleen Quinzel becoming Harley Quinn and one of my favorites is Julian Gregory Day
becoming Calendar Man. It just hits, all the highlights in one name. You get my point though,
the real name of the person reflects what they will inevitably become or even their
personality. Lex Luthor might not have been intentional, but I believe his name reflects
more about him than you might think at first. Luthor is just a variation of Luther which
is old Germanic roughly translating to "solider of the people" and this is the part of the
show where I assure you that I am not a linguist or anyone who really knows anything about
languages other than what I can find searching Google. Alexander, I found a lot more information
on. It comes from the Greek Aléxandros which translates to "defender of man", so put the
full name together and we get, Lex Luthor: Defender of man, solider of the people.
You might be wondering how this reflects Lex's personality. He's the villain right? He's
not a solider for the people or defender of man. That's Superman! Right? Well If you're
going by the original incarnation of Lex in the comics then sure he's just some generic
evil scientist / industrialist / megalomaniac who wants to kill Superman and rule the world
or whatever. But in recent times, they've really fleshed out his character a bit more.
I welcome you back to my favorite superman comic, Birthright where we see a retelling
of Superman’s first appearance and Metropolis as well as they dynamic between Lex and The
Man of Steel. In this story Lex sees Superman as a threat and sets up an elaborate plan
to fake a Kryptonian invasion and paint Superman as the “sentry for and alien race of warmongers."
In a nutshell, Luthor is trying to make it look like Superman is a member
of a violent race of aliens who was sent to Earth to scout it out, and signal a fleet
of warships to invade. Luthor even has an army of people dressed in Kryptonian garb,
with Superman's iconic “S" symbol to try and further incriminate Superman by making
it look like he is definitely involved with the invasion. So, what was Lex's reason for
this incredible stunt? Why was he trying so hard to make people believe that Superman
was against us? Well it's pretty simple. With so much power, it's only a matter of time
before Superman would turn on humanity and try to rule it himself. We shouldn't trust
someone who has that much power. We should be skeptical. We should destroy him, before
he destroys us. So Lex spreads this hoax of Superman being an invader trying to conquer
the planet so that we would all turn against him. Then, Lex would take Superman down and
save the Earth from when he would have inevitably turned against humanity and try to rule over
us. Lex Luthor would have been known as the savior of Earth -- of humanity! A.k.a. -- the
Solider of the people and the defender of Man, just like his name implies. At least,
that's one line of Lex Luthors thinking. It's nearly impossible to summarize every reason
that Lex has for hating Superman in a short and snappy sentence. Now, I am inclined to
believe that the meaning behind the name Lex Luthor was completely coincidental and they
just chose a name that sounded cool at the time, but I like that his name tells a story
about his personality whether it's intentional or not. What do you guys think? Am I reading
too much into this? Am I a crazy person who needs to stop over-thinking things? I think
that last part is definitely objectively true regardless. Either way, I would love to hear
your thoughts on this in the comments. This video is a Tie-In I did for the video recently
about why is Lex Luthor bald and if you haven't seen that one yet, I urge you to go do that.
It's really good, you can click right here or there's a link in the description below.