Quote (oRAnGeInAbOx @ Aug 21 2020 03:30pm)
hero or villain doesn't seem too important. luthor is a mad scientist and he's intimidated by superman, thats really the only contrast between him and dr.manhattan as dr.manhattan wasn't really intimidated by anyone afaik. and just to keep it simple im just going to pretend in the superman world, superman is #1 and lex is #2, #3 and the rest are just simple mortals. so in that world luthor basically is a dr.manhattan level genius and most likely sees everyone as subhuman except for the mighty superman.
all my knowledge of watchmen comes from the movie and ive only seen it once nearly a decade ago. and as far as superman goes ive only seen smallville & played various video games. so yea im definitely not well informed but from what i've seen the two are just so different. so to read that manhattan was inspired by the author's dislike for superman was surprising to read. i thought he was just a metaphor for the atomic bomb like the other comment mentioned. though of course 1 character could be inspired from many things but i still dont see superman in it outside of the genre.
Many writers dislike Superman because of how utter bullshit the character is. The creator of The Boys also talks about his open dislike of the character and while Homelander is satirical, he's a much more realistic representation. You've got two opposite spectrums, both gods, one who treats humans like playthings and one who thinks nothing of them at all. Luthor has nothing to do with the conversation, since again, he's A. Not a god or godlike by any standard, and B. Not a hero. Being evil and having a genius level intellect go hand and hand, thus he's a believable character.
Being able go do whatever the fuck you want with no repercussions, being treated like shit anytime something goes wrong and still remaining a smiling symbol of hope is nonsensical. It's a comic though and most superheros are like this. We as fans are lucky to get more real representations spawned from such ludicrously written characters, The Boys and Watchmen being two fantastic examples of this.