Actor's to portray Lex Luthor

[annericelover]

Ok, well after listening to the podcast called World's Finest Podcast, and hearing their enthusiasm for Clancy Brown's Lex Luthor I thought I'd do what I did with Superman/Clark Kent and give a little film history on the character of Lex Luthor.

In 1950, Kirk Alyn reprised his role as Superman in the live action serial Atom Man Vs Superman , this film would also mark the very first live action appearance of Lex Luthor(he was called Luthor, had no first name), here he isn't a billionaire, he was a mad scientist. He was portrayed by Lyle Talbot.

Luthor got his name extended to Lex Luthor, but remained the Mad Scientist when he returned in the mid-70's to 80's in the Animated Series Superfriends and Challenge of the Superfriends(in which he is the leader of the Legion of Doom), here he was voiced by Stan Jones

Lex Luthor would be given his most remembered portrayel of all by Gene Hackman in the Christopher Reeve series of films of the 70's and 80's These films are: Superman: The Movie, Superman II: Theatrical Cut, Superman II: Richard Donnor Cut and Superman IV: The Quest For Peace.

In the 1988 Ruby-Spears Animated Series he was voiced by Michael Bell.

1989, would give us a glimpse of Young Lex Luthor, but not the scientist Lex Luthor, the spoiled rich version we have come to know in the last 20+ years. In the first season of The Adventures of Superboy Scott James Wells played the character, when the series came back for a Second Season Sherman Howard took over the role and continued the role until the cancellation in 1992.

When WB and DC cancelled The Adventures of Superboy it was mainly to make way for a new series that would run on ABC from 1993 to 1997 called Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman , here Luthor was portrayed by John Shea (who would later play as one of the X-Men inspired Mutant X)in a much more serious matter, than what we saw in the Superboy series.

In 1996, Bruce Timm and Paul Dini, who had given us the definitive Batman in the Animated Series, decided to continue more great animation with Superman: The Animated Series , here he was voiced by Clancy Brown(Highlander, Shawshank Redemption fame)he was so recoginized that he returned for the role in 2001's Justice League, 2002's Justice League: Unlimited and later in 2007's The Batman(this is noted because it's outside the DCAU). The DCAU Lex Luthor was also the first time we saw a combination of two eras of different Luthor's in one Luthor. In the Superman: The Animated Series, we got the billionaire, in Justice League and Justice League: Unilimited we got to see his Mad Scientist version.

Meanwhile, while Clancy Brown was impressing us with his voice talents, Michael Rosenbaum was impressing us with his live action portrayel of a Young Lex Luthor in the series Smallville, Michael Rosenbaum played the voice of Wally West/The Flash in Justice League and Justice League: Unlimited in one episode of JLU called "The Great Brain Robbery" a transferring of the minds, caused The Flash to end up in Lex Luthor's Body and Lex Luthor in The Flash's body, so for this episode, we get a Flashed Version of Lex Luthor by Michael Rosenbaum.

Seth Green at some point in this area portrayed the voice of Lex Luthor in an episode of Robot Chicked entitled "Toyz in the Hood"

In 2005 Brian Dobson voiced Lex Luthor in Krypto: The Superdog

In 2006, WB decided to bring Superman back to theaters with Superman Returns while much of the film had problems, mainly through acting abilities, Kevin Spacey managed to keep the charisma of Gene Hackman's portrayel and spin it to his own craziness. He has signed on to appear in the sequel Superman: Man of Steel scheduled for release in 2009

In 2006 Bruce Timm and Co. decided to create the direct to video film Superman: Brainiac Attacks, due to scheduling conflicts Clancy Brown could not portray the voice of Lex Luthor, so we got Powers Boothe

In 2007 the animated series Legion of Super-Heroes introduced a female called Alexis, the richest girl in the galaxy. Although, she's not Lex Luthor, she's at times an immature female version, she's also voiced by Tara Strong who voiced Batgirl in the New Batman Adventures, Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman and Gotham Girls.

Also in 2007, James Marsters(famous for his portrayel of Spike in the TV Series Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel) gave us his voice talent *cough* when voicing Lex Luthor in the PG-13 Superman: Doomsday. He has gone on to do a great job in portraying Milton Fine/Brainiac in Smallville

So now that I have made this info out, what is my top five:

5. John Shea

4. Stan Jones

3. Kevin Spacy

2. Gene Hackman

1. Michael Rosenbaum

THE BEST. Clancy Brown