Thinking back to John Shea and Clancy Brown's performance, I enjoyed both performances, but it's hard to say which one I liked more. John Shea was underrated. I enjoyed him for being the villain who would challenge Superman, and wasn't a guy that could be taken down easily. He was more menacing. One thing that seemed to stand out form other portrayals besides Hackman though was that Shea's version seemed to know he was evil and embraced it, whereas Clancy Brown's portrayal of the animated Lex-I can't say I know for certain--but I think he trying to do good, or it was only because he cared more about his image and reputation than he cared about people--that and he just wanted to be loved by people?--then Superman takes his spot, and then from that day on, Luthor becomes jealous and obsessed with destroying Superman.
I discussed this once, but I was just going to touch on the way both Luthor's enunciated the name "Superman".
Shea: "Astonishing debut...SUP-ER-MAN." He had to hate it. He hated the name. You could sense sarcasm in his voice. He seemed to hate it so much that he was trying not to show his hate by saying the name.
Brown: "You see...um...Super...man...I own Metropolis." You could hear the hate in his voice and it sounded like he was thinking "The f#$%? SUPERMAN? What a stupid name. Who does this alien think he is taking my place?"
