Superman’s Archenemy Takes on Wall Street : Comic Book Theme Resembles Articles in Business Sections

Move over, Donald J. Trump. Step aside, Frank Lorenzo. Lex Luthor, the cunning comic book villain and archenemy of Superman, is in the hostile takeover business and pillaging the blue chip pickings of Metropolis.

Lately, the baldheaded billionaire bad guy has schemed to acquire Scientific & Technological Advanced Research Laboratories, a rival to his LexCorp Group.

Yes, the folks at D.C. Comics Inc. magazines have discovered a theme already milked by the Hollywood producers of “Wall Street” and “Working Girl”--corporate takeovers and foxy financiers make good entertainment.

The April and May issues of “Superman” and “The Adventures of Superman” featured “Lex Luthor’s Hostile Takeover.” Some real-life professionals call it an intricate and accurate portrayal of big business at its greediest.

With Superman off in outer space for soul-searching meditation during these episodes, the companies of Metropolis--many already have been acquired by LexCorp subsidiaries--are defenseless against further Luthor raids.

But wait. Before going further, some explanation. Four years ago, Superman and the regular characters in his exploits were retooled for the 1980s and beyond.

He’s Really Scary

Luthor, for instance, went from crafty criminal scientist bent on world destruction to conniving corporate genius desiring world domination. Capital and calculators are as important to today’s Luthor as robots and ray guns were to his predecessor. But Superman remains his nemesis.

“To most people on the street, Lex Luthor isn’t a bad guy. He’s the guy who signs their paychecks,” writer Roger Stern said in a telephone interview from Ithaca, N.Y. “The old Luthor could make a death ray out of an aspirin and an alarm clock. But this Luthor is really scary. He’s really amoral.”

So, with the Man of Steel temporarily out of the picture, Luthor is plotting. Stern gives him a challenge on scale with the massive mergers and acquisitions that dominate newspaper business pages.

Part 1: A peek into a meeting of LexCorp directors reveals a discussion of takeover targets. Luthor nixes them. A glance out the window at the building across the street reveals his target--S.T.A.R. Labs.

The reader finds later that Luthor doesn’t want the whole company, just its brain-researching “psionics lab,” part of his obsession with obtaining technology to destroy Superman.

Part 2: Luthor lets it slip that he’s interested in S.T.A.R. Rumors rock the market. The price of S.T.A.R. stock spirals. Company division heads meet, angry that they haven’t been told of a possible takeover. S.T.A.R.’s chief executive tries to calm them. It’s just rumors. But LexCorp would be a good parent for S.T.A.R., he says.

Division heads disagree. Many threaten to quit if Luthor gains control. The mere possibility of Luthor at the helm prompts five S.T.A.R. researchers to take early retirement.

“It’s realistic and plausible,” said Tony Viscogliosi, a securities research analyst at Roney & Co., a Detroit investment concern. “When you do an acquisition in a research lab, it can’t be a hostile takeover. Its assets are its people. If they walk, you’ve got nothing. It’s similar to what might happen in the takeover of a pharmaceutical company like Upjohn.”

Part 3: As speculative buying of its stock continues, S.T.A.R. decides to fight Luthor by lobbing a “poison pill” defense at him. It issues thousands of new shares of stock that will make a takeover more difficult.

S.T.A.R. sells its psionics unit to raise cash--unwittingly to a dummy corporation controlled by Luthor--while searching in vain for a friendly white knight buyer for the rest of the company.

Part 4: Luthor announces he no longer is interested in S.T.A.R. The stock price plummets. S.T.A.R. is ruined. Luthor walks away, the psionics lab in his possession through his shell company. He’s made millions by riding up the price of the S.T.A.R. stock he owned, then later dumped.

“I don’t think it was very far off the mark if you take the comic-bookness out of it,” analyst Viscogliosi said.

He said Luthor played to the news media throughout the series with the deft touch of Trump, the billionaire property mogul. The S.T.A.R. employees’ distaste at working for Luthor reminded him of the antagonism that striking Eastern Airlines employees have expressed for their boss, Lorenzo.

“What’s important in the market is not who acquires the shares. It’s who controls them,” Viscogliosi said. “In one story, this brought up all the relevant ethical and moral issues that are faced by all the interested parties in one of these deals.”

While Viscogliosi found few faults with Stern’s tale, he said the Securities and Exchange Commission likely would have sued Luthor for stock manipulation.

The possibility of SEC investigators going after him was hinted in the comic tale, but Luthor dismissed it, saying: “The only people who might tell them do not dare.”