Lex Luthor.
Humans are generally lazy, emotional, fragile, bitter, vengeful and filled with bias. Superman is so popular because he is a fictional character because people can get things from him they can't get from real life. Its why we have so many friends, movies, TV shows, books, video games and ways to curb our boredom and entertain us until we die. With Superman the fictional character, writers can ignore realistic consequences because they are the ones that create them. Readers can heavily project their own reasoning and ideas into the character and plots. In reality all those subjective points of views will clash and conflict ultimately leaving a shell character thats either going to be super ineffective, a catalyst for dramatic change the likes of which will dramatically change living on Earth (including possible all of us losing freedoms) but its hard to predict. Power often corrupts because power often enables ability and when you have abilities others don't have you are put into a position of responsibility and there is no more neutral only action and inaction.
Lex Luthor is more manageable and predictable and he is fairly average in the grand scheme of things. In fact one of the most discussed and proposed reasons for the collapses of societies is how equally people are treated as far as what can be considered superficial reasons. Superman unfortunately creates quite the skewer. You know Justin Bieber has broken Make a Wish Foundation records with how many he has granted? He has probably given millions to charity too, but think of all the criticism and hate thrown at him? Whether its deserved or not isn't really the point (I am personally very critical but thats another thread) some people just really hate and resent him for having things that don't have. While it might be novel to have a Superman type hero around in real life, real life has thousands of real life heroes that have come and gone, that most people don't care or appreciate because they weren't in a comic their dad gave them when they were developing impressions about humanity. Think about how many scientists, solders, politicians that have done good for the world that are severely under appreciated?
Its really not a question about Superman or Lex Luthor really but more a question about humanity and its priorities and nature and current ability to process and cope with change. Superman is the equivalent of fast food. Great on its own, provides quick and easy fix to a problem (hunger) but long term consequences for humanity? Yeah… Lex Luthor can't be as polarizing a figure. We have had really intelligent confident billionaires before. They are rare in a relative sense, but they do exist and they have existed. Luthor is better for humanity because humanity must earn its way collectively, and we do have individuals that drag us down a bit more than most (Luthor at his worst), and we have individuals that will pull us up (Luthor at his best) and some times those individuals can be the same person, but its the majority and the direction they go that ultimately determines its own direction.
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