#anon i spent like four hours rereading bits and pieces of these comics and trying to organize my feelings

[luthwhore]

Lena was a prominent figure in the comic, Superwoman. I think Lana was Superwoman in it. I was wondering if you’ve read it and what was your thoughts on it? Specifically the character, Lena

The few things I know about her is she’s a wheelchair user and one of the few people Lex Luther calls his equal, True Equal (not really sure about this one fact). It would also be appreciated if u could refer to a post talking about her in the lens of a disabled person, I’m (kinda?) sure there was one and i didn’t reblog it

Sure! So, I referenced by dislike for the Superwoman (2016) comic in my Lex comic rec list, but I haven't really gone into it on its own before, mostly because at the time I was reading it I was still getting into comics and hadn't really started doing a lot of liveblogging or commentary at the time.

I also want to preface my feelings on the ableism around Lena, both in this comic and in general, by saying that I am not physically disabled myself. I have several close friends who are, including a roommate who is an ambulatory wheelchair user, so disability representation is something that I try to be very aware of, but I am not of any kind an authority on disability issues.

Also, I'm talking about this arc mostly from a Doyleist perspective -- i.e., focusing less on the culpability of the individual characters and whether I think their choices are understandable or justified and more on the choices made by the real people writing the arcs. This is not a condemnation of Lena's actions; this is a criticism of the writing choices made around her.

Putting this under a cut because I realized this is getting very long.

For a bit of backstory, Lena had been ill as a child -- with what, it's never specified, but the implication is that it was something chronic -- and that in an effort to "cure" her when he was a teenager, Lex had inadvertently paralyzed her.

This is actually something that was introduced by Geoff Johns' during Forever Evil, and other than the kind of dehumanizing language of calling her an "invalid" (which will be a recurring thing), I don't hate it. Lex does clearly see his inability to cure her as a failure, but it presents him coming to terms with it and realizing that he wants to rekindle his relationship with Lena, presumably for the first time in many, many years.

I don't have a major issue with this writing choice, because prior to Forever Evil, n52 hadn't really broken much with the unambiguously evil version of Lex that had been presented since Crisis on Infinite Earths, so the idea that he had neglected Lena out of shame that he couldn't "cure" her doesn't seem terribly out of place, and it presents a nice moment of character growth for him.

Justice League (2012), also written by Geoff Johns, is the first time we actually see Lena. When we see her here, she's shown in a wheelchair, and sees to be working for Lexcorp.

You get the sense that in spite of genuinely loving Lena, Lex has a tendency to be far too over-protective of her, often keeping her in the dark about things, which is a dimension to their relationship I really like! Geoff Johns is known for taking inspiration from Smallville in a lot of his Superman comics -- there are a LOT of nods to the show when he writes Kon -- and this, to me, feels very much like Smallville-inspired characterization.

One thing that DC does, that tracks across Geoff Johns, Dan Jurgens, and Phil Jimenez's writing of Lex and Lena, is really, really focus on "curing" Lena. In spite of what he says to her at the end of Forever Evil, he still ultimately sees her disability as his fault, and therefore, sees her as something to be fixed.

You can definitely put this off as a character flaw of Lex's, and I'm definitely not arguing that it's not in character for Lex to want to do so -- but it IS worth noting that this arc was happening at the same time that DC was leaning hard into erasing Barbara Gordon's disability as well, so this not an isolated incident of DC treating disabled characters like they need to be "cured".

For context: Barbara Gordon was the first Batgirl, and after being paralyzed by the Joker, then took on the identity of Oracle and ran The Birds of Prey. However, after around two decades of her acting as Oracle and being established as a hero completely separate from Batman, DC aged her down, erased her disability, and relaunched her as Batgirl with the start of the n52. (Recent years have tried to walk this back a little, but there was almost a decade of her being written as having miraculously healed from her disability.)

(It also does make me think a little of the "Lexmas" episode of Smallville, where Lionel is willing to put Lex through a surgical with a very low survival rate rather than accept the prospect of his losing the use of his legs. This isn't relevant per se, but I do think it's an interesting similarity.)

Toward the end of Justice League (2012), there is a scene in which Lena, while in possession of a Motherbox, pulls a gun on Lex and tries to kill him, and it's left unclear whether she was being influenced by the Motherbox or acting of her own accord. This is technically the start of the arc that gets picked up in Superwoman (2016).

Afterward, she ends up in a coma from her use of the Motherbox, with Lex once again swearing to find a way to heal her.

We also get a really touching scene of Lex talking to Lena at her bedside and admitting that part of the reason he has decided to be a hero now is that he wants to make her proud, and he knows she wouldn't approve of his past actions. This feels in line with the characterization established in Forever Evil; Lena is Lex's only family, and she's the only person in his life he can earnestly say he loves.

So, this is where we are at the start of Superwoman (2016). Lex and Lena have recently reconnected, and Lex is trying to be a better person in large part because of his love for Lena. Lena tried to kill him, which Lex believes was due to the influence of the Motherbox, and Lena is put into a coma.

It does seem like Geoff Johns was setting up Lena to become a villain during Justice League, or at least the potential for it, which I have... kind of mixed feelings about. On the one hand, I do think there is an interesting tension there, because Lex kind of expects to just pick up his relationship with Lena where they left off, and I think using her as an antagonist for him could have been interesting. On the other hand, with how the previous several arcs had set up Lena as the entire reason for Lex's redemption arc, it seems like an odd choice?

However... that's not quite what they do. While getting revenge on her brother is clearly a priority for her in Superwoman, she also... just kind of wants to take over/destroy Metropolis? For reasons?

In Superwoman (2016), we find out that Lex had tried to heal her by experimenting on her, and that when the experiment didn't immediately work, Lex abandoned her. (I personally find that really out of character, given what we were shown about their relationship prior.)

And we are once again treated to a character in a wheelchair being cured of her disability. This time, specifically as part of a villain arc. Which is... a choice, I guess. If they were going to use her as an antagonist, I really wish they would have done so without erasing her disability, but that's DC for you.

I also feel like a lot of her emotional complexity is stripped out in favor of making her like... a #girlboss villain, which is pretty par for the course for something that came out in 2016. The characterization here just... doesn't feel congruous with the Lena we were shown before.

I personally think, whether they wanted to use Lena as a hero or an antagonist, it would have made for a much more empowering arc not to heal her of her physical disability and instead have her seek to prove to Lex that her disability isn't something that needs to be "fixed" and that she's still fully capable of operating on his level with or without the use of her legs.

I also think the choice to use her as a villain who just wants to take over Metropolis (ig as a way to prove that she's better than Lex? by succeeding at something he failed at?) was a mistake, because one of the core conflicts with Lex and Lena in Justice League (2012) was that... Lena disapproved of a lot of Lex's actions?

The message in the comic re: Lena's disability also just feels. Really muddled? Like. It almost says something important here -- the "I knew my body meant nothing to you if it wasn't a perfect reflection of your fantasies of what it should be, but it was mine" line is good!

I think in better hands, it could have been a really powerful story about Lena's bodily autonomy, and how no matter Lex's intentions, he was still ultimately making choices that should have been hers, to make, but it just got buried in the mess of her being a generic scenery chewing supervillain, and I think that message would have hit a lot harder if they hadn't "healed" her, and if they had focused more on giving Lex and Lena and emotional arc instead of just... having her do a bunch of villain monologuing before having Lex defeat her.

Anyway I hope the "Ultrawoman" arc gets retconned out at some point because this really felt like a waste of potential for Lena and I think she deserved better than just getting turned into a supervillain before being written out of the canon.