Poll: Joker vs. Lex Luthor: Who Is Off to a Worse Start?

[Ivan Drago]

Mandarin. Oh, wait, which poll is this?

Lex Luthor is one of the biggest comicbook villians.

The Joker is a pop culture icon.

Mandarin is a D lister, as a DC fan I couldn't care less about him.

 

[MbJ]

The silver lining of this year's DCEU movies is every single person I've ever met who hated Iron Man 3 would scream something to the effect of "Imagine if they did that to Lex Luthor or the Joker!"

Now we no longer have to think!

 

[Tacit Ronin]

I would be relieved if Joker and Lex turned out to be not Joker and not Lex. But they are Joker and Lex unfortunately.

 

[Boom]

The Joker.

The character was just as terribly written and just as terribly acted, but on top of all of that he was terribly pointless. And that's not even taking into account the trashy gangbanger aesthetic. It literally could not have been a worse introduction.

As bad as Eisenberg's Lex was, he served the narrative. And hey, he did blow up a Senate hearing with zero ****s given, so that was cool.

 

[Timebomb]

Both are Horrible. My love for the Joker makes that one hurt a little more.

 

[Lantern Venom]

Lex Luthor is one of the biggest comicbook villians.

The Joker is a pop culture icon.

Mandarin is a D lister, as a DC fan I couldn't care less about him.

No. You are entitled to your opinion of the character, but it's impossible to rewrite history. Mandarin is Iron Man's archenemy, period. Every comic book fan should know that since that's how Marvel presents him.

He embarked on a long series of attempts to achieve world domination, all of which failed, usually due to the efforts of Iron Man, his American arch-nemesis.

http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Mandarin_(Earth-616)

The silver lining of this year's DCEU movies is every single person I've ever met who hated Iron Man 3 would scream something to the effect of "Imagine if they did that to Lex Luthor or the Joker!"

Now we no longer have to think!

Logically, movie studios would have learned their lesson about INOs at this point. But if WB is willing to let those kind of radical changes happen with Joker and Luthor, I doubt that any villain is safe from caustic rewriting.

 

[Osiris-Rex]

It seemed like Lex Luthor was more like The Joker than The Joker was like The Joker. But at least The Joker was more like The Joker than Lex Luthor in any way resembled Lex Luthor.

 

[MbJ]

No. You are entitled to your opinion of the character, but it's impossible to rewrite history.

No, they're correct.

Mandarin is not, nor has he ever been, anywhere near the Joker or Lex Luthor's level of notoriety or popularity.

 

[Micromind]

Both gave over the top performances, they needed to tone it down. Having said that, Lex was better, Eisenberg left a lot more impression as scheming, evil Lex (in BvS:UC) than Leto as Joker.

Both could do better.

 

[Lantern Venom]

No, they're correct.

Mandarin is not, nor has he ever been, anywhere near the Joker or Lex Luthor's level of notoriety or popularity.

Cold, hard facts say they're wrong. When I see someone like Stan Lee, Alex Alonzo, or Dan Buckley say Mandarin is D-lister, then the argument will have credibility. Until then, I will continue to believe what has been written by Marvel and related by Iron Man readers for decades. Opinions of non-fans are irrelevant.

 

[Erzengel]

It would have been nice if this poll was public.

I chose both.

And I wish they had a Hunka Hunka gif.

 

[Greens]

Cold, hard facts say they're wrong. When I see someone like Stan Lee, Alex Alonzo, or Dan Buckley say Mandarin is D-lister, then the argument will have credibility. Until then, I will continue to believe what has been written by Marvel and related by Iron Man readers for decades. Opinions of non-fans are irrelevant.

...what? Are you honestly saying that the Mandarin is part of the public conscience just as much as Joker and Lex Luthor?

The latter two villains are so iconic that they're recognizable outside of the comic community. Pretty much everyone knows at least one incarnation of those characters. This is not the case with Mandarin. There's a cold, hard fact for ya.

 

[harlequinade]

It would have been nice if this poll was public.

I chose both.

And I wish they had a Hunka Hunka gif.

 

[Erzengel]

Thanks!!!

 

[MbJ]

Cold, hard facts say they're wrong

Only if you don't know what the word "fact" means.

It would have been nice if this poll was public.

To see who picks "neither"?

...what? Are you honestly saying that the Mandarin is part of the public conscience just as much as Joker and Lex Luthor?

The latter two villains are so iconic that they're recognizable outside of the comic community. Pretty much everyone knows at least one incarnation of those characters. This is not the case with Mandarin. There's a cold, hard fact for ya.

Fact bomb.

 

[Lantern Venom]

It would have been nice if this poll was public.

I chose both.

And I wish they had a Hunka Hunka gif.

Joker at least bore a passing resemblance to his comic counterpart. He still reeked of studio meddling, but he wasn't completely unrecognizable like LLINO.

 

[The Endless]

Cold, hard facts say they're wrong. When I see someone like Stan Lee, Alex Alonzo, or Dan Buckley say Mandarin is D-lister, then the argument will have credibility. Until then, I will continue to believe what has been written by Marvel and related by Iron Man readers for decades. Opinions of non-fans are irrelevant.

Seriously... Mandarin is no where near Joker or Luthor. Those characters are icons in their own right. Up until 2008 they were more famous than Iron Man, let alone the Mandarin.

How can you argue against this?

 

[Lantern Venom]

...what? Are you honestly saying that the Mandarin is part of the public conscience just as much as Joker and Lex Luthor?

The latter two villains are so iconic that they're recognizable outside of the comic community. Pretty much everyone knows at least one incarnation of those characters. This is not the case with Mandarin. There's a cold, hard fact for ya.

I only said that INOs are always unacceptable, whether it's a hero or villain. I still liked BvS and SS, but they would have been better had the weak archvillains been left out completely.

 

[InCali]

Things have been looking up for BVS recently. Not only does this look like a poll Luthor can actually win, but BVS has been kicking ass too and looks to be on course to win its first poll since the movie came out:

http://forums.superherohype.com/showthread.php?t=521985

All in all, not a bad week.

A lot of that probably has to do with how high a profile BvS had along with the expectations of what it could be.

Looking up.....funny.

 

[Flint Marko]

No. You are entitled to your opinion of the character, but it's impossible to rewrite history. Mandarin is Iron Man's archenemy, period. Every comic book fan should know that since that's how Marvel presents him.

He's Iron Man's archenemy, but Iron Man has a notably poor rogue's gallery. He's still a D-list villain.

 

[Greens]

Trevor Slattery, now THAT is an A-lister.

 

[The Overlord]

No. You are entitled to your opinion of the character, but it's impossible to rewrite history. Mandarin is Iron Man's archenemy, period. Every comic book fan should know that since that's how Marvel presents him.



http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Mandarin_(Earth-616)



Logically, movie studios would have learned their lesson about INOs at this point. But if WB is willing to let those kind of radical changes happen with Joker and Luthor, I doubt that any villain is safe from caustic rewriting.

People keep trying to put Mandarin on the same level as Lex and Joker, but look at their pop culture track record.

Every time Mandarin was adapted to animation, they made him into a different guy:

The 90s cartoon made him a white guy who got green skin after touching the rings.

The CGI cartoon turned Mandarin into a book worm teenager who wanted to avenge his mother's death.

The animated movie turned into Sauron from LOTR.

I don't think Mandarin is consistently written in the comics and that shows with his adaptions, the problem being racial stereotype origins makes the writers want to do a radical new take on the character each time.

Joker and Lex, while not perfect, are far more consistent then this.

 

[MbJ]

A lot of that probably has to do with how high a profile BvS had along with the expectations of what it could be.

Looking up.....funny.

Yeah there were a ton of way worse movies this year. It's just that this one cost 200 million dollars and starred three of the most popular fictional characters ever created.

 

[Victarion]

Lex got a bad start. He had a great backstory explaining why he hated Superman; I loved it, but his manic, Ed Nygma like character is glaringly bad when compared to his story about daddy = God, daddy beat me and God didn't save me from his fists.

 

[Lantern Venom]

Lex got a bad start. He had a great backstory explaining why he hated Superman; I loved it, but his manic, Ed Nygma like character is glaringly bad when compared to his story about daddy = God, daddy beat me and God didn't save me from his fists.

As I rewatched BvS for the 5th time, I noticed that a significant portion of Luthor's dialogue was strong. I get the feeling that the early concepts of this story had more classic Lex. Those lines stood in painful contrast to the man-shaped Chihuahua performance that Eisenberg gave. He was almost Blowpher-level bad. Almost.