Elliot S! Maggin’s out-of-print Superman novel, Miracle Monday (1982), is brimming with joyfully odd ideas and wild, poetic tangents. Lex Luthor isn’t even the antagonist here – despite some time-travelling tourists, it’s really a Superman versus The Devil story – but Maggin’s Luthor steals every page on which he appears.

This Lex Luthor calls a press conference while he’s in jail to announce his inevitable breakout. He hides deadly scientific equipment by disguising it as modern art and selling it to respected museums. (For instance, “…the Whitney housed a corkscrew-nosed missile which could actually hold as many as six passengers while it tunnelled 12 miles underground.”) And he has dozens of alternate identities including journalists, doctors, and artists. This quirk allows Maggin to create the most (kinda-) convincing reason as to why Luthor, evil genius, never seems to realise that his arch-enemy looks an awful lot like the pesky reporter Clark Kent:

“It would probably have been a simple matter, had he chosen to do so, for Luthor to figure out what Superman’s secret identity was. Luthor did not think the information would do him any good. He assumed that Superman had the same sort of set up as Luthor had with his made-to-order people, and that if he were exposed, Superman would simply create new aliases.”

Luthor lists some of the men he’s suspected are just Superman in disguise – like Joe Namath, Muhammad Ali, and Bruce Wayne. He doesn’t understand that Clark Kent is much more than just a fake name, a cheap suit, and a pair of useless eyeglasses. Maggin’s Superman loves the Clark-persona he’s painstakingly constructed, valuing him just as much as “…he valued a human life.”

(Second prize for deft use of comic book logic goes to John Byrne. His Superman reboot transformed Luthor into from a mad scientist into a villainous businessman, and addressed the “but doesn’t Superman look a little familiar…?” conundrum early in his run. Again, it’s that Luthor can’t imagine anyone would think differently to him. When an underling reveals all the evidence that Clark and Superman are one and the same, Luthor belittles her: “I know that no man with the power of Superman would ever pretend to be a mere human!”)

DC Comics’ current Luthor has reverted back to a criminal mastermind, and one who takes himself very seriously considering he’s wearing a garish 1970s sci-fi battlesuit. I hope that Maggin’s Luthor – genius, prankster, unflinching smart-ass – reemerges one day, just to hear him whittle Superman’s nickname from “Supes” to “Soups” to “Chicken Noodle” again.

(Why the exclamation point in Elliot S! Maggin? Read Timothy Callahan’s lovely piece on Maggin for more.)