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You are here: Home / Open Threads / A Picture Really Is Worth a Thousand Words

A Picture Really Is Worth a Thousand Words

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I had read about this, but seeing it is something else entirely.

I swear, the more I see of Musk, the more I think of him as a real-life Lex Luthor.

A Picture Really Is Worth a Thousand Words

Pure evil.

This time around, Trumps “friends” and allies are scarier then Trump.

Reader Interactions

152Comments

  1. 1.

    Soprano2

    I read about that a couple of days ago. It doesn’t surprise me at all. He cares about the government contracts and the tax cuts and having influence over the government.

    We’re sitting at urgent care; I think my hubby has a UTI. Something’s been off the past couple of days, then this morning he was verbally combative with me when I wanted him to take a shower. Plus, his blood sugar seems to be higher than it should be. Luckily I was able to get him to come and they aren’t busy.

  2. 2.

    The Audacity of Krope

    They were pulling this trick with gay and Muslim folk in 2016. Warning gay folk about Shariah Law and promoting themselves to Muslims on the basis of “religious freedom” to discriminate.

  3. 3.

    RaflW

    Musk is the very dangerous combo of evil, rich, and stupid. Very, very stupid. The accident of his getting in near the front end of PayPal has really, really fucked up everything.

  5. 5.

    Gin & Tonic

    I like the fact that Elmo’s “America PAC” paid people to knock on doors for TFG and some of those people took the money and avoided the whole messy knocking-on-doors-and-talking-to-voters business. I’m sure Donny would be proud of them

  7. 7.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @Gin & Tonic: I like the fact that Elmo’s “America PAC” paid people to knock on doors for TFG and some of those people took the money and avoided the whole messy knocking-on-doors-and-talking-to-voters business. I’m sure Donny would be proud of them

    Madoff rules apply here. Stealing from the rich is how you get in trouble.

  8. 8.

    RaflW

    @Soprano2: “He cares about the government contracts”. It is an unending fucking scandal that the Biden Admin has let this man who violates all sorts of laws just keep getting plum, huge gov’t contracts.

    He’s a massive nat. sec. risk.

  9. 9.

    JPL

    Elmo is all in because he knows trump is slipping and he sees his chance as be able to define our future.  Not gonna happen

  11. 11.

    TBone

    A dark money SNAFU – “Progress 2028” and fElon Skum:

    It turns out Apartheid Boy and dangerous immigrant Elon Musk has poured $100 million into this effort to poison our electorate:

    Via Open Secrets:

    An initiative called Progress 2028 that purports to be Kamala Harris’ liberal counter to the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 is actually run by a dark money network supporting former President Donald Trump.

    Building America’s Future, the dark money group at the helm of the network, has steered money to a constellation of groups and initiatives boosting Trump’s agenda and spreading messaging aimed at chipping away voters from Harris. The dark money group reportedly received over $100 million in funding from billionaire Elon Musk, along with other donors, the New York Times recently reported.

    Oh what a tangled web!

    crooksandliars.com/2024/10/elon-musk-tied-harris-campaign

  12. 12.

    Bruce.desertrat

    Lex Luthor was a competent evil billionaire. Phony Stark may be a lot of things but competent isn’t one of them. His corporate structure at SpaceX has a group of VP’s whose only job is to wave shiny dangly things in front of him to keep him occupied and out of the actual enigineers’ way.

  13. 13.

    Jackie

    @Soprano2: Hope you caught it early! It’s both sad and good you’re able to detect/sense things “aren’t right” at the get-go.

    I was my dad’s primary care giver and it got to the point when if I suspected UTI’s or other concerns, his Dr’s didn’t question me; they often prescribed antibiotics w/o me having to see him. Or, they’d have me bring him in right away.

  19. 19.

    Soprano2

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Yes, last time I had to call 911 because I couldn’t get him off the couch. This time I decided I’d rather have it checked and be wrong. He’s having an iron infusion treatment on Thursday, so I thought some of it was the anemia, but after this morning I decided not to wait

    We’re already being seen, so that’s good.

  20. 20.

    FelonyGovt

    I really hope when (🤞) Harris is elected, the government takes a good, hard look at the wisdom of having this jamoke’s company so deeply enmeshed in our government space and defense words.

  21. 21.

    Scout211

    OMFG. He really did it. Trump did his McDonald’s stunt.

    Former President Donald Trump swapped his suit jacket for an apron to work the fry cooker and drive-thru window at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania on Sunday afternoon.

    “I’m looking for a job,” Trump said to the owner of the McDonald’s store in Feasterville-Trevose. “And I’ve always wanted to work at McDonald’s, but I never did. I’m running against somebody that said she did, but it turned out to be a totally phony story.”

    Trump’s visit to the fast-food chain comes as has his fixation has grown around Vice President Kamala Harris’ past employment there, and his visit to the restaurant marked his latest attempt to sow doubt about the Democrat’s work history.

    Trump received a tutorial on how to work the fry station and then tried his hand at cooking the fries in oil and scooping them into the packaging. Trump then stood at the drive-thru window and handed customers bags of food.

    “This is fun, I could do this all day. I wouldn’t mind this job,” Trump said.

    Click through to see him in a dress shirt, tie and McDonald’s apron.

  23. 23.

    TBone

    Damn, the fryer incident at McDonald’s that I prayed for didn’t happen, and they didn’t make him wear a hairnet either.  I hope people start boycotting Mickey D’s in Feasterville, PA for the stupid statement made by its owner.

  25. 25.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @TBone: I hope people start boycotting Mickey D’s in Feasterville, PA

    In honor of the former President, the town should drop the ‘a’ in their name.

  30. 30.

    kbid

    Elon Musk has lost his mind. Now we got Arnold Palmer dick jokes for millions a month. Am not sure how this happens — Musk manufactures EV’s and Trump derides them. The inconsistency is apartheid of the brain.

  31. 31.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @TBone: I was thinking more of the verb than the character; who is a delight, especially as played by Christopher Lloyd.

  32. 32.

    Jackie

    @NotMax:

    Dollars to donuts Dolt 45 didn’t wash his hands.

    Or have a food handler permit. That could cause the owner issues with the health dept.

  33. 33.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @Scout211: Trump then stood at the drive-thru window and handed customers bags of food.

    I would refuse my order. Even if I already paid at the prior window.

  35. 35.

    TBone

    @Jackie: I’d like to see the PA Attorney General get on this in cooperation with the DOJ.  It’s not legal to buy votes.

    Our Attorney General is Michelle Henry.

  37. 37.

    Noskilz

    I suspect Musk is going to be going through some things when Harris wins the election.

    I don’t even mean that in a reprisal-ly kind of way.

    He keeps doing dumber and more reckless things, so much like other Trump allies who can’t handle the remotest scrutiny without exposure, he has a long history of misconduct mostly shielded by not being looked at too closely, but is doing everything he can to basically demand the feds go over his affairs in detail.

    He’s started rattling Dominion’s chain by endorsing voting machine conspiracy theories, he seems to be offering money for voter recruitment and petitions, and he seems to be going all-in on things like impersonating the Harris campaign. This is on top of all the sketchy things he was already on the hook for – Tesla’s self-driving claims are already under investigation and he has a lengthy history  of labor violations and is facing years of lawsuits already underway for stupid things he’s done like his disasterous Twitter purchase and the incompetant mismangement that followed.

  42. 42.

    Baud

    @Noskilz:

    Musk is buying litigation insurance. Every time he gets investigated, he’ll run to court and claim it’s retaliatory because of his political activities. With his team of lawyers and unscrupulous 5th circuit judges, he can do a lot to gum up the works.

  44. 44.

    Scout211

    @Baud: CNN, Trump’s PR arm.

    I didn’t copy the whole thing.  But CNN did fact check that statement:

    Some background: A Harris campaign official previously told CNN that she worked at a McDonald’s in Alameda, California, during the summer of 1983 when she was a college student at Howard University in Washington, DC. She worked the register and manned the fry and ice cream machines, according to the official.

  45. 45.

    Tony Jay

    Luthor, like Von Doom, is a bona fide genius intellect who constantly fails because of deeply ingrained personal flaws that prevent him from growing as a person.

    Musk is just rich, while also having deeply ingrained personal flaws that prevent him from growing as a person.

    When he builds his own hyperadvanced body armour, I’ll reconsider my opinion.

  47. 47.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @Scout211: It occurs to me the IRS could clear this up fast, if the subject of the relevant records were to release them.

    But the controversy is stupid, so I don’t see any reason she should.

  50. 50.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @Baud: Lex Luther wouldn’t be caught dead in a cyber truck.

    A pale comparison to kryptonite-powered, weaponized armor; that’s for sure.  I still say it’s a rejected design for the Batmobile.

  52. 52.

    zhena gogolia

    I have experience as a clerk-typist at USDA, SBA, and FAA. Many years of it. But you won’t find it on any of my resumes.

  53. 53.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @zhena gogolia: I mean my first job is still on my resume; but there is theoretically useful experience there, my only time on bookkeeping.

    If I had a more recent or prestigious example, I might start leaving it off. But, as it stands, I just want employers aware I’m trainable into moderately complicated tasks.

  57. 57.

    Baud

    After she wins, I hope Kamala goes on TV and says “Haha, motherfuckers! It was an Arby’s!”

  61. 61.

    wjca

    @zhena gogolia: A couple of years of my college education were paid for by washing dishes in the dorm kitchen.  (Dishwashers got 10% higher pay than food servers.)  Never occurred to me to put it one a resume.

  65. 65.

    bjacques

    @NotMax: Dr Doom has a sense of honor. I’m thinking more like Mr. Mxyzptlk. If only we could trick him into returning to his home dimension.

  68. 68.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @bjacques: Mxyzptlk was in it for laughs. Muskrat wants ever more power and influence. How about Roland Daggett?

    Or, perhaps, comic books have yet to conceive anyone so evil as Musk.

  69. 69.

    Soprano2

    @Scout211: It’s so funny that he’s obsessed with that.

    We had to go to the ER *sigh*. The test for UTI was inconclusive, so because he has serious kidney problems he needs blood tests urgent care can’t do.  *sigh* Nothing is simple anymore. I hope he’s not admitted….

  73. 73.

    Chet Murthy

    @Scout211: “This is fun, I could do this all day. I wouldn’t mind this job,” Trump said.

    Goddamn.  I DID it all day, every Saturday and sunday for two goddamn years.  And the rest of the week too.  Just … Goddamn.  He has no idea how hard working fast-food is.  Dirty, sweaty, hot, exhausting.   I drank all the sugared Coke I could, ate a couple of Jumbo Jack hamburgers each shift, probably a few other hamburgers on the sly, and never gained a pound.  Hard, hard work.  And I had co-workers who were adults with children, working there.  I cannot imagine how they did it.

  75. 75.

    realbtl

    I didn’t put semi-hippie musician on any resume though I made pretty good money in late 60s Boulder Co.

  76. 76.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @NotMax: We might have a winner. I had to look him up (even though I saw Shazam). But let’s see; thriving off inheritance and stolen power, megalomaniacal, willing to destroy an orphanage if it’s in his way.

    Best equivalence I heard yet.

  77. 77.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Musk shit the bed with Twitter again, in case no one heard.  Bluesky got a million new people in one day because Musk simultaneously neutered the block feature and removed the ability to opt out of AI scraping.  From what I can tell, it’s the artists that abandoned Twitter this time, which means their audiences are doing the same.  That is a big, big deal on any social media site.

    That was only first day numbers, and Bluesky’s employees have a name for these huge signup rushes:  EMEs, or Elon Musk Events.

  78. 78.

    Geoduck

    I’ve often thought the most realistic Lex Luthor ever committed to screen was Gene Hackman’s smarmy money-grubbing asshole. Which is NOT an insult to Mr. Hackman or the movie, he brilliantly portrayed, yes, a smarmy money-grubbing asshole.

  81. 81.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @Geoduck: I always preferred the billionaire Luthor interpretation, myself. But Hackman is easily the best example of the career-criminal version. He played his role brilliantly and was a great adversary for Superman in those movies, which there were definitely only two of.

    No one tell me otherwise.

  82. 82.

    cain

    @Noskilz: I hope KH’s DOJ and military will be a lot wiser than what Biden’s has been. The feds seem to not willing to change.

    DougJ had a great tweet thread about this.

  85. 85.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Noskilz: I don’t know how he hasn’t been sued by Tesla’s shareholders. He’s supporting a candidate who bashes electric vehicles and is willing to sell out to fossil fuel interests for campaign cash. How is any of that good for an electric car company?

  90. 90.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @Geoduck: I think the best Luthor adaptation is the version that appeared in the 90’s animated Superman/Justice League series.

    🎯

  91. 91.

    Jacel

    In 2000, there was a DC comics storyline about an election in the fictional United States, with the intended-to-be-shocking outcome of Lex Luthor being elected President, setting up plot lines for 2001 and the coming years. But in comparison to the simultaneous real-world Dick Cheney-GWB administration, Luthor as leader was competent and more conscious of the general public good.

  92. 92.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @Jacel: But in comparison to the simultaneous real-world Dick Cheney-GWB administration, Luthor as leader was competent and more conscious of the general public good.

    If it were otherwise, it would have been written off by the publisher at the time for being too over-the-top.

  93. 93.

    Weftage

    @Chet Murthy: Shades of Marie Antoinette playing with her carefully laundered sheep!

    (Though, in fairness, I don’t blame her for laundering the damn sheep. I foolishly petted an unlaundered sheep once. It took me some time to get the gunk off my hand.)

  95. 95.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @The Audacity of Krope: Those animated series had a lot of elements that the movies couldn’t and still can’t match. An argument can be made that they had the best Batman in Kevin Conroy; an even stronger argument can be made that they had the best Joker in Mark Hamill.

    (Anyone ever run across Hamill-as-Joker reading out Trump tweets, before Trump got banned from pre-Musk Twitter and his brain turned to slag?)

  97. 97.

    strange visitor (from another planet)

    @NotMax: so i mean, doctor doom runs his country quite well and his subjects have one of the highest standards of living in all of europe. for a tiny country, latveria punches way above its weight. no one fucks with doom.

    as for luthor, he has a moral code. he dropped his wealth and divested himself from lexcorp when HE ran for president. set mercy graves up as CEO and walked away. got more honor in his pinky than groper cleveland has in his entire orange body

    @Tony Jay:  you would be ASTONISHED at the character growth they’ve afforded victor over the years. luthor, not so much. more of a one-trick pony, once they altered him from mad scientist to evil corporate executive in the mid eighties.

  98. 98.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    Oh, and a good parallel for Elon Musk would be not so much Lex Luthor as Hugo Drax (Moonraker).

  99. 99.

    gene108

    @Chet Murthy:

    Makes sense the place was closed. Can you imagine the delays and possible health code violations that’d happen if Trump actually worked for real?

    Smart for the franchisee to keep the place closed for this publicity stunt.

  100. 100.

    ArchTeryx

    @Geoduck: Clancy Brown absolutely knocked that ball into orbit. He was the perfect Luthor, and a far deeper character than Hackman’s. The 70s Superman movies were literally inventing the genre, though, so you wanted to keep things simple. His bombastic Luthor was still a joy to watch. Brown’s version was much more like Xanatos.

  102. 102.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: Agree entirely. I think superhero movies suffer from an expectation of spectacle. The serialized versions have the freedom to tell smaller, more personal stories.

    I think Superman suffers from this the most in the movies, unstoppable guy does what would otherwise be impressive shit. What the shows get across that the movies struggle with is Superman’s fundamental goodness and his attention to even the smaller problems.

    I can’t imagine Zack Snyder’s Superman rescuing a cat from a tree and stopping for a conversation with the little girl who owns it. Lately, I’ve been watching My Adventures with Superman and the focus in mainly on Clark’s closest friendships. Brings me a contented smile every time.

  105. 105.

    hotshoe

    @Jackie:

    Or have a food handler permit. That could cause the owner issues with the health dept.

    If I were a customer of that McD’s while Dumpster was there, I would hope to challenge management at that moment and cause a scene about that filthy man being allowed to touch food.  Well, no I wouldn’t, but only because I don’t think quickly enough to respond like that, and not because I would be afraid to cause a scene. People need to stand up against these cartoon fascists.

    Of course it’s a Sunday so no use calling the health department today — and by tomorrow it will have all gone down the memory hole …

  107. 107.

    Another Scott

    @Chet Murthy: Of course!

    Remember when the Zombie Eyed Granny Starver washed the clean dishes at a soup kitchen?

    It’s what they do.

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  108. 108.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @wjca:

    A couple of years of my college education were paid for by washing dishes in the dorm kitchen.

    Same here, 2.5 years at the same dorm, first as a dishwasher, then in “pots and pans”, then that and cooking.

    Never put it on a resume but I worked for some crusty elderly (to me at the time) women who brooked no nonsense.  The manager was a guy in his 40s who somehow managed college students and the fulltime, longtermers really well.  He remains to this day, even after I retired, one of the best bosses I ever had.

  109. 109.

    Geminid

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: I’m not sure anything you describe is actionable through a shareholder lawsuit, but for all I know some might be.

    But back when Musk acquired Twitter reports were that he “borrowed” Tesla employees to help out in the changeover, and I think that may have violated his duty to Tesla shareholders. I don’t know if Musk was sued over this.

  110. 110.

    strange visitor (from another planet)

    @ArchTeryx: the entire DCAU, the timmverse was a work of genius. andrea romano’s voice direction was superb. having the same actors work across series was inspired and “really tied the room together”.

    i have pretty much the entire run on dvd and blu-ray from the batman animated series, through superman, justice league, JLU, static shock and batman beyond.

    the movies of the period were good as well. the animated films dropped quality recently but some of their shows like young justice are seriously top-notch.

  111. 111.

    scav

    @Chet Murthy: So kind of his staff (carers?) to squeeze in this little Trick or Treat costume event for him!  Such a busy schedule, poor boy, we haven’t seen him so happy since they arranged his truck driving encounter in 2017.  Although, bless, it might be the Make a Wish crowd stepping up to the task by now.

  112. 112.

    Scout211

    @Soprano2: Oh no.  I feel so bad for you and also I have so much empathy, as a fellow spousal care-giver.

    Yes, I hope your guy doesn’t have to be hospitalized again.

    Take care of yourself.  ❤️

  114. 114.

    Scout211

    I forgot to put all those years of babysitting from junior high through my college years on all my applications!  Will no one believe now?  Will I have to reapply for my license to practice therapy? Oh, yeah.  I’m retired and so is my license.  Phew! I was worried.  🙄

  115. 115.

    Soprano2

    @Scout211: Thanks, I hate the waiting. We’re still waiting for the doctor to come back. He’s not nearly as bad as last time, I hope I caught it early. We didn’t even get to eat breakfast! I’m eating M&M’s instead.

  116. 116.

    Tony Jay

    @strange visitor (from another planet):

    Doom did get a lot of work done on him, culminating in the double-header of Hickman’s ‘Uncle Doom’ portrayal in his seminal FF run and the short-lived Infamous Iron Man arc where a post-godhood Victor tried to do a heel/face turn and fill Stark’s shoes.

    Then Marvel said “He’ll with that” and returned him to his core portrayal of a megalomaniacal prick who wastes his genius seeking revenge on Reed Richard’s for being smarter than him and who can never succeed because he’s incapable of treating other people as anything other than things.

  120. 120.

    matt

    @RaflW: not entirely luck – Thiel was a founder at Paypal and he’s been cultivating evil right wing fucks for tech since before then.

  121. 121.

    mrmoshpotato

    @gene108:

    Makes sense the place was closed. Can you imagine the delays and possible health code violations that’d happen if Trump actually worked for real? 

    Also, not risking an actual member of the public – not a Trump trash cult member – throwing their order in Dump’s fat, orange, fascist face.

  122. 122.

    jonas

    @Chet Murthy: So for a publicity stunt designed to supposedly call out Harris for faking a job at McDonald’s (which she actually had, natch), he fakes working at McDonald’s.

    Leave it to Trump to find a way to actually lie about faking a lie.

  124. 124.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @jonas: I’m still stuck on trying to understand how Trump doing a photo op in front of a deep fryer does one damn thing to disprove that Harris had worked at McDonald’s.

  127. 127.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @zhena gogolia: He’s a disgusting slimeball.

    And that’s Trump’s best feature.

    I imagine he can’t even conceive of what it is like to do that work, the full job, for more than ten minutes.  Let alone how life is for people who do it for years to (almost) sustain a livelihood.

  128. 128.

    Soprano2

    So, good news/bad news. I was right that something is wrong, that’s the good news. The bad news is he’s going to be admitted to the hospital * big sigh* Boy, I knew something wasn’t right, but I guess it’s bad, he’s acidotic again.

  131. 131.

    Soprano2

    @The Audacity of Krope: Me too, for some reason his kidneys have gotten a lot worse in just the past two weeks. The only thing that’s different is the two meds for the myeloma.

    No more urgent care, I’ll go to the ER at the north location of his health system. They can’t admit him, but they can do the bloodwork that urgent care can’t.

  132. 132.

    Aziz, light!

    @Ksmiami: All government Contracts with Musk should be terminated

    SpaceX gets billions in contracts from the Department of Defense because DOD needs a reliable, cost-effective way to get its payloads into orbit. SpaceX capably fills this need. DOD also makes major use of the Starlink network.

    Your facile statement ignores this reality. I’d love to see Musk cut loose, but what’s the alternative that doesn’t compromise our defense requirements?

  133. 133.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @Aziz, light!: NASA?

    I’m tired of the government contracting out government work to private businesses in general. We should develop these capabilities for ourselves, increasing the available competencies in our government , and typically saving money.

  136. 136.

    Chris

    @The Audacity of Krope:

    They were pulling this trick with gay and Muslim folk in 2016. Warning gay folk about Shariah Law and promoting themselves to Muslims on the basis of “religious freedom” to discriminate.

    The remarkable thing about modern fascism is the extent to which it manages to just be a universal movement of bigots.  Tolerance and diversity have made enough progress in the world that bigots of increasingly all backgrounds however contradictory, Islamophobic gays and homophobic Muslims, anti-Semitic Muslims and Islamophobic Jews, misogynistic immigrants and racist women, etc, can all look at the GOP and see it as their shield against the dark forces that want them to love their neighbor.

  139. 139.

    Chris

    @Bruce.desertrat:

    Lex Luthor was a competent evil billionaire. Phony Stark may be a lot of things but competent isn’t one of them. His corporate structure at SpaceX has a group of VP’s whose only job is to wave shiny dangly things in front of him to keep him occupied and out of the actual enigineers’ way.

    Elon Musk is what people like Lex Luthor and Tony Stark are actually like in real life.

    Tragically, while he has nothing like Luthor’s brain (because that’s effectively a superpower; nobody has that), Musk’s emotional state is actually a very faithful reproduction.  Luthor’s whole thing is that he’s insecure, narcissistic, and petty beyond belief, and basically his entire fortune, his megacorp, and the superpower that is his brain are all devoted completely towards the goal of avenging himself on what he sees as Metropolis’ popular kid.

    Lex Luthor basically predicted Elon “I had to buy Twitter and go full alt-right because my trans kid stopped talking to me” Musk and Donald “I had to become president and destroy the country because Barack Obama made fun of me” Trump decades before they happened.  Although the best analogy for him is still Richard Nixon, who at least had shared his genuine brain and capacity for hard work.

  142. 142.

    Chris

    @NotMax:

    More like Doctor Doom than Luthor, IMHO.

    Doom is a politician, and he runs Latveria with an autocratic but very effective hand.  (Unrealistically effective, really, much like Luthor’s big brained CEOship).  What really makes him anti-Musk-ian is how public-minded he is: Latverians may not have civil liberties, but he guarantees them a ridiculously good standard of living.

    It’s not just unthinkable that someone like Musk would ever be competent enough to achieve what Doom does, it’s unthinkable that he would ever want to.  Musk is the kind of leader whose country would end up looking like a mixture of Mad Max and The Hunger Games, on purpose.

  143. 143.

    Chris

    @The Audacity of Krope:

    Or, perhaps, comic books have yet to conceive anyone so evil as Musk.

    Leverage is probably still the best place to find people like Musk, or Trump, or any real life villains.  Very few of their villains are memorable; they’re flat, petty, nasty, boring evil, because that’s what evil is like in real life.  If a fictional villain is memorable enough for you to know his name offhand, he’s probably already too interesting to be realistic.

    Leverage‘s grandfather, The A-Team, also deserves a shout-out.  Most of their villains were the blue collar version of the Leverage ones.  Take the smug law school graduate in the Brooks Brothers suit taking away your home because you signed on the wrong dotted line, substitute the dumb thug in a trucker cap who peaked in middle school beating up smaller kids for their lunch money and basically never stopped.  Less Elon Musk, more Joe Arpaio.  The current GOP has plenty of both.

  145. 145.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Chris: … against the dark forces that want them to love their neighbor.

    Sums it up so well. Also, it’s shocking to me. It’s a strange and contrarian “doctrine”, and I’ve almost gotten used to this being encouraged, I’m nearly numb to it. But you’re exactly right. It’s an intentional process of teaching and inculcating people into hating their neighbors, and into othering people. It’s teaching the opposite of what I thought that mainstream religion was about.

    The thing that stuck and stayed with me from my childhood in episcopal church, was that the whole doctrine, the main point, could summed up as this: love god with your whole heart, and (the second is like unto it:) love your neighbor as yourself. Also, it stuck that Jesus had very good press for being a healer, and bringing people into better self connection and right relationship. I always liked that part.

    To me it means, have a heart. And, other people matter. I try to live like that, and to look for how are you like me, even if it seems at first that you are different.

    all the rest of  what people do in the name of their Christian religion, the whole back history of it, the judging and superiority, seems quite odd and unhelpful. And they’re  teaching the opposite, in their politics and public speech!

    thanks

    neutralize all that toxicity!
    tolerance and diversity for the win!

  146. 146.

    Chris

    @Geoduck:

    I think the best Luthor adaptation is the version that appeared in the 90’s animated Superman/Justice League series.

    Seconded.

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR:

    @The Audacity of Krope: Those animated series had a lot of elements that the movies couldn’t and still can’t match. An argument can be made that they had the best Batman in Kevin Conroy; an even stronger argument can be made that they had the best Joker in Mark Hamill.

    Super seconded.

    I loved the crossover where Luthor and the Joker team up against Superman and Batman, because Clancy Brown actually makes you believe that Luthor is one of the few beings who can actually intimidate the Joker.  (Hamill, meanwhile, makes you believe that the Joker is one of the few muggles who actually poses a threat to Superman: by all rights there’s no way that should work, but he’s just the right combination of clever and DGAF).

  148. 148.

    Chris

    @strange visitor (from another planet):

    @NotMax: so i mean, doctor doom runs his country quite well and his subjects have one of the highest standards of living in all of europe. for a tiny country, latveria punches way above its weight. no one fucks with doom.

    Doom is basically fantasy Tito.  Ruthless East European dictator, but he gets a mulligan from the fact that he’s the only person holding his country together and alternatives to him are inevitably worse.  Also unusually enlightened in promoting ethnic tolerance among his subjects, largely due to his own particular background (Doom is Romani, Tito was of mixed Croat and Slovene descent).

  149. 149.

    Gloria DryGarden

    I wish I had read some of these comics, and seen these movies so I understood these characters and could get the references, the nuances.  It seems important, when literature addresses things going on IRL.
    The villain as a character study and protagonist- it’s not my fave, but you guys are enabled to see, head-on, some things, that are pretty useful right about now.

  150. 150.

    Chris

    @Gloria DryGarden:

    It’s a whole process of associating the things you talk about with weakness.  Right-wing ideology aggressively recategorizes empathy, humanity, and ordinary decency as “wokeness,” “political correctness,” “coddling,” “welfare,” “socialism,” “liberalism,” “being a snowflake,” and other, increasingly gendered terms.  It’s what leads to the increasingly psycho spectacles, like not even just hating other humans, but Kristi Noem killing a dog and a goat and then trumpeting it as a sign of how strong and steely-eyed she is.

  152. 152.

    Chris

    @Kayla Rudbek:

    Come to think of it, there isn’t a connecting show that I know of.  Never mind.  The A-Team is just Leverage‘s father.

    Another take would be that Leverage is the child of Mission: Impossible and The A-Team.  The premise is The A-Team (team of outlaws go around helping the people who’ve fallen through society’s cracks), but with Mission: Impossible‘s methods (outsmarting the bad guys rather than punching them in the face).

    The grandfather or great-grandfather or founding ancestor of the entire genre (so far as I know) is The Saint dime novels by Leslie Charteris, made famous by the Roger Moore TV show.  You can probably go beyond that to earlier folk heroes at least all the way back to Robin Hood, but I think The Saint codified the modern version.

    Yeah, The A-Team is a lot of fun.  Formulaic, but a lot of fun; even long after I had all of the plot beats down, I still kept watching because I was guaranteed to laugh out loud at least a few times an episode at some utter zaniness from the team (usually from Murdock).  I got into it during my funemployment years in the Great Recession, when it felt like the entire nation was just being sucked dry by these kinds of crooks and thugs, and there was something cathartic about seeing them get punched in the face.  Eventually someone pointed me towards Leverage, which I realized was our generation’s version of it.

    Still wish the movie adaptation had gotten sequels, too.

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