While there’s a lot of good candidates (the Koch Brothers, for example), I think the three top choices are…Trump, Jeff Bezos, and Vladimir Putin.
Trump…He’s the most obvious and top candidate. A lot of people like Lex Luthor and can’t see how evil he is no matter how many times Superman catches him doing something awful. The same way that a majority of the nation simply doesn’t believe Trump can obstruct justice, collaborate with America’s enemies, sell out the country, screw over his business partners, brag about his litany of crimes on television, etc. You could literally show people footage of Trump asking Vladimir Putin for help, and they won’t believe it.
Also, Luthor’s big grievance against Superman is that he’s an alien, and aliens have no right to rule over Metropolis. Trump’s big grievance against Barack Obama was that he wasn’t born in America and shouldn’t be ruling over it. Luthor is deeply suspicious of aliens, Trump’s entire presidency is a reaction to immigration fears. Plus, Luthor is a businessman who eventually becomes President in the comics. And the Gene Hackman-version of the character in the 70’s “Superman” movies might as well be called “Donald Trump.”
Vladimir Putin…Hands-down the most evil son of a bitch on this planet. He doesn’t care about the environment and is actively destroying it; he doesn’t care about civil rights; he doesn’t care about sinking Europe into a total mess (there’s no question he’s created massive chaos on that continent); he doesn’t care about international laws (he’s hacked the U.S. to the extent he could turn off our power grid today if he wanted to); he hates Democracy; he doesn’t care about turning the Middle East into a huge mess (backing deadly civil wars in Syria and Iran’s proxy wars in Yemen); and there’s not a single despicable nation in the world that doesn’t receive some kind-of assistance from Russia (some analysts believe he’s helped North Korea’s weapons program more than China has).
Between Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, etc. he’s basically created an anti-United Nations of the world’s most belligerent, criminally inclined nations. Plus, if you believe he successfully hacked America’s elections (and I do) to put a puppet in the White House (he tried similar things in France and Germany), then he’s hurt the only country capable of standing up to him (America) worse than any Russian leader in history. No matter what Luthor SAYS about Superman, he truly hates him because he doesn’t want anyone alive to be able to stand in his way…well, that is Putin to a T. AND he’s bald but strong-looking, like Luthor.
Jeff Bezos…He’s bald. He’s a gazillionaire (the richest human in world history). Amazon is beyond a monopoly since it’s not just focused on ONE industry, but something closer to total economic domination of all industries—groceries (Whole Foods), shipping, retail, cloud computing, tech devices, movies and TV (Amazon Prime), and it’s believed they’d like to do for all these industries what they did to books: monopolize them to the point of near-ruin. When people think “monopoly” they think tycoons like John D. Rockefeller, but Amazon under Bezos is closer to economic colony collapse, a corporation so massive and monopolizing so many industries that it endangers the entire economy.
In the few years, it’s believed Amazon played a pretty big role in the death of Toys ‘R’ Us, Claire’s, Pier 1, Sears, and K-Mart. These were literally hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of jobs, and things are only going to get worse for traditional retail. Not to mention he promised to cut prices at Whole Foods, and has unequivocally NOT done that—some things are more expensive than before Amazon took over, and the biggest change I see is that employees look miserable and there’s twice as much security trying to catch shop lifters, least Jeff Bezos be out one nickel.
Bezos’s contributions to charity are also pitifully low. Whereas other billionaires like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates at least pretend to care about poor people. Not to mention Amazon’s corporate culture (which he has set) is notoriously ruthless, and many people say it’s one of the worst places to work in America; in particular, their warehouses–which sound about as enjoyable a place to work as a North Korean prison. All of it adds up to a picture of a giant a-hole billionaire who doesn’t care much about other people at all.
Great article and comparisons. Never thought about Lex but spot on. You need to write for a paper or talk show.