Michael Cudlitz: The Definitive Lex Luthor

by Owen Quinn author

Photos copyright CW

When it was announced that The Walking Dead star Michael Culditz aka Abraham would be joining the cast of The CW’s Superman And Lois, it was an exciting casting choice.

But little did we know that this Lex Luthor would become the definitive version of the Kryptonian’s nemesis. We have had the movie’s Gene Hackman, Kevin Spacey and Jesse Eisenberg as well as Smallville’s Michael Rosenbaum to name but a few and they all had an element of humour about them, a humanity at some points. But no one could match the sheer power of the Cudlitz version.

For me, this was the first time I was actually afraid of Lex Luthor.

His arrival was foreshadowed in the cancer storyline featuring Chad L Coleman as Bruno Mannheim, a criminal that is working to restore Hell’s Kitchen which he blames Superman for abandoning. He has also had dealings with Lex Luthor who went to prison seventeen years ago. It turns out he went down for a crime he didn’t commit because of Lois and Superman. He committed many other crimes and Mannheim was happy to see him go away. Lex has total control of the prison and its warden controlling his empire from behind bars. His servant Ottis accompanies him when he is released from prison.

With the long ginger beard and bald head, this is a Luthor that is on a mission. he has been stewing for revenge for seventeen years and is determined to get it. He immediately goes to Smallville and to the Kent farm. He warns Lois to retire. He knows all about Lois and her kids, every last detail of her life. He warns her she should have listened to him as now he is going to take everything from her. Lex is furious that he has lost his daughter and Lois’s words will not be enough. She has her twins while his daughter is now thirty something and hidden from him. He never wants to read her words again; one way or the other. He doesn’t care how it happens but it will happen.

There is no doubt that the first meeting is electrifying. You can feel Luthor’s fury as he faces the woman who took his life from him for seventeen years. Even his roaring at Clark to shut his mouth explodes off the screen. Cudlitz’s very expression is terrifying. There is no doubting he will do what he says and nothing and no one will stand in his way.

The first thing he does is turn Bizarro into the lethal Doomsday. He doesn’t care that this is a person who lost his wife and family in the Bizarro world. Luthor is relentless as he tortures him to death over and over, each time bringing him a step closer to being Doomsday. Such is his anger that Bizarro’s tortured screams are silent to him. All he wants is the ultimate weapon that can kill Superman.

Season three ended with the classic Superman versus Doomsday fight which left viewers breathless as they battled on the moon.

In season four, Luthor’s plans went further with the death of Superman. He has no compassion for Lois or her boys when he finds out who Superman really is. All he sees is two more targets to take out as part of his plan.

That also includes destroying Smallville itself.

We get to see his machinations at play with his cohorts doing his bidding like Otis, Gretchen Kelly/Cheryl Kimble and most especially Amanda McCoy.

When Doomsday kills Superman and delivers his heart to Luthor, the quest for vengeance does not end there. Luthor is a master manipulator and realising Jordan is the son of Superman, he plays upon the grief and anguish of the boy to lure him into a trap. He incapacitates him and calls Lois telling her to choose which son she wants to live. Left with no choice, she picks Johnathan because he has no powers. Luthor later plays the recording to Jordan breaking the bond between mother and son. Jordan is broken also bcause Luthor crushed Superman’s heart beneath his boot inches from the helpless Jordan’s face. Whatever way he can break apart the Kents he will do so.

Another force driving Luthor is tracking down his lost daughter. Only Lois’ father, General Sam Lane knows where she is. Luthor has been buying up property in Smallville and intends to build his new headquarters. He almost kills Sam but Jordan finds him just in time. Sacrificing himself with Superman’s blood running though his veins allows Superman to return to life with Sam’s heart beating in his chest.

Superman asks Luthor man to man to stop this and call a truce but he refuses. Even when Lois appeals to his fatherly side, there is the glimmer of hope that Luthor may change his ways. Erika, his daughter played by Agents of Shield’s Natalie Moon, meets with her father in Smallville. Luthor is to be a grandfather and when talks between them fail, Clark steps in and begs Natalie to give it another shot. We see the past in flashback to the days Luthor lost his daughter. Erika almost persuades her father to come with her and be the father she lost and the grandfather he could be but Luthor’s need to destroy the Kents is too deep for him to let go. We see a softer side to Luthor here who is just a father happy to have his daughter back. To see him switch from a revenge filled war machine to a man about to welcome a grandchild to the world shows depths rarely seen in the character.

Luthor gives up his family for a final battle. He employs Milton Fine, a genius and puts him to work on a new plan.

In Smallville, Clark goes to face Luthor man to man and discovers Luthor has mined the street outside his home with red light that robs Clark of his powers. They have a savage fight to determine the fate of Smallville; no powers, just two men beating each other for control of the town. But even when Clark wins and sends him packing, Luthor never stops. He is consumed. He sends Otis to murder Lana Lane so she cannot prevent him buying up Smallville. The residents, urged by Lois, say no to his over generous offers to buy their farmland which angers him more. It is clear Clark’s secret is about to be exposed so he takes that power away by telling the world who he is. Jonathan (who now has powers) and Jordan find a new found celebrity status.

In a change of tactics, he arranges a televised debate with Lois in which he manages to twist things to show her as the bad guy. He even uses the footage of Clark beating him to a pulp as evidence that he is a victim in all this given he was in jail for a crime he did not commit. While the interview takes palce, Milton is rescued from a car crash by Natalie and John in their battlesuits. However Milton is able to take control of the suits. Just as Erika is about to expose her own father, the remote controlled suits attack forcing Clark and the boys to fight them.

Amanda thinks she and Lex are in love and that she is indispensable to Lexcorp but she is just another outlet for him to get what he wants. The implication is they are sleeping together but she is convinced he loves her despite Lois’s warnings that he did the same thing to Cheryl and now she is dead.

Knowing now that Superman is losing his power, Luthor gets Fine to refine John’s stolen battle suit into one capable of destroying this new weakened Superman. He also soups up Doomsday now immune from Lois’ pleas to its humanity and launches his final plan. If he cannot have Smallville then he will wipe it off the face of the planet. He hovers in the sky watching Doomsday and Superman battle it out beside the super twins. Using John’s hammer, they smash Luthor’s suit leaving him a wreck in the streets of the town he wanted to destroy.

Carted back to prison for life in Stryker’s Island, Luthor thinks he can start again where he left off but this time he is powerless and secured in his cell with no amenities. Bruno Mannheim is in charge now and Luthor will be his bitch now.

In the flashfrward detailing the rest of Superman and Lois’ life, we see a dejected Luthor in a black suit sitting at a table in the Kent household. Clark puts his hand on his shoulder as a show of forgiveness. Luthor, who has lost his chance at a family for the sake of revenge, realises too late how stupid he has been.

And that is part of the brilliance of this version. He has spent his time trying to destory the Kent family but never realised just how wide that family was. All the money in the world doesn’t make you happy; being surrounded by people you love does. These binds can never be smashed no matter what you do to try and break them. If he had accepted his daughter’s offer to go with her and be a grandfather, Luthor would have found the peace he sought. The Kents had what he always sought deep down and he was trying to destroy that thinking it would satisfy his emptiness.

The Luthor in this show was a rampaging madman that was prepared to destroy everything to quench his thirst. Cudlitz was brash but friendly as Abraham in The Walking Dead but here he is a simmering powerhouse of rage, engaging one plan after another to kill the Kents. Cudlitz masterfully steps from super criminal to a man on the cusp of happiness having got his daughter back only be consumed once gain by the darkness. The makers of Superman and Lois have never shied away from brutish reality and in their design for Luthor, they have made a version so deadly that it is a shame that the show has been cancelled to make way for the James Gunn movie.

Family has always been the heart of the show. It is almost like Luthor sees it as the cruxifix to his vampire. He uses Bizarro, who is grieving the loss of his family, to become the weapon of mass destruction to kill his other self who has what he has lost. This is what Luthor is attacking; family. He is flawed because he had the chance to get that for himself but blew it. So if he cannot have it then no one shall have that. Smallville itself is not just a town but everything that stands for family. The Kents are not the heart of this family but part of it. In a way, this theme echoes Smallville to some degree as that Lex Luthor wanted to be part of a family and saw the Kents as that adopted option. His father is pure evil and Lex tried to be part of the Kents but they rejected him outright. So in a way, the Kents helped create the supervillain we know and love in both shows. All he wants is to be part of that love and connection. For the Cudlitz version, he lost all that when his wife divorced him and took his daughter when he went to prison. Lois went on to build her own life and that is what is at the centre of Luthor’s rage.

This version will forever remain masterpiece on how to write a villain the right way.