Pawns of the Master
Superman Daily Newspaper Strip - October 7, 1940 to November 30, 1940Luthor debuts in the daily newspaper strips but with more than a few cosmetic changes.
Divested of his usual classy suit (or cultish robes), about half of his stocky body mass, his upright posture and – most notably – his scarlet tresses, this appearance marks Luthor’s debut as the iconic bald villain he’ll be known as for more than seventy years.
The story usually bandied about is that the artist on this arc – specifically, Wayne Boring – mistook one of Luthor’s henchmen in a previous issue of Superman’s self-titled comic for Luthor himself.
The only problem with that story is that the henchman in question – bald head aside – doesn’t much resemble this interpretation of Luthor. For one thing, the henchman was burly, powerful, possibly overweight, stocky and standing straight upright. Pawns of the Master’s Luthor, by contrast, is a shriveled, hunched-over and gaunt figure, with a witch-like maw for a mouth and wizened, clutching hands. If Boring has mistaken one of Luthor’s hirelings for the man himself, then he did a poor job re-rendering him.
What other reasons could there be for the change? Well, there’s every chance that Boring mistook the early appearances of Superman’s original mad scientist foe The Ultra-Humanite as early Luthor appearances. In the same vein, it’s not impossible that Siegel asked for the change directly – Ultra had been his original stroke of villainous genius, he might’ve been interested in fusing the finer qualities of Luthor and Ultra now that the former was getting name recognition with the audience.
Just as likely is that it wasn’t Luthor’s henchman who inspired Boring’s redesign, but another Superman foe. At the same time that the newspaper strips were being put together, artwork showing other gaunt, bald super-menaces were making the rounds at the studio; one, an ad for the radio show portraying the returning villain The Yellow Mask and, in the pages of Action, a similarly built figure calling himself Zolar (pictures coming soon). It’s easy enough to imagine that Boring mistook one of these fellas for Luthor…
