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In the years surrounding the 2016 United States presidential election, Lex Luthor served as a representation exploring the cultural effects of encroaching xenophobia in live-action Superman media, from society in the film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) to the family in the fourth season of the television series Supergirl (2018-2019). Both adaptations situate Luthor’s xenophobia within character relationships that were socially relevant for the times they were produced. Developed in the years leading up to the election, Batman v Superman focuses on polarization of the characters on a societal level. Supergirl’s fourth season, produced a few years after the election and continuing the series’ focus on relatives and friends of Superman, reflects an intensification of Luthor’s xenophobia into the creation of pervasive divisions within the familial arena. Lex Luthor’s increasingly invasive disruption of superhero relationships in these adaptations acts as a Kryptonite reflecting a poisonous fracturing of relationships in the real world.

Ian Boucher is an Information Literacy Librarian at Dickinson College.

Boucher, Ian. Forging Kryptonite: Lex Luthor's Xenophobia as Societal Fracturing, from Batman v Superman to Supergirl. In Adapting Superman: Essays on the Transmedia Man of Steel, edited by John Darowski, 216-234. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2021.

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