Today in Comics History, August 27: Sometimes flickering sometimes bright / Sometimes burning up the night / Hair today and gone tomorrow

On this day (mumble mumble) years ago, an accidental laboratory fire and a rescue by Superboy leaves the teenage Lex Luthor bald and vowing revenge for every single one of his lost follicles!


from Super DC Calendar 1976 (DC, 1975), letters by Ben Oda
Perhsp you can recall the early, happy carefree days of Superboys's Pal, Boy Luthor, the Boy Who was Boy Pals with Superboy! And his luxurious head of...brown hair?


from "How Luthor Met Superboy!" in Adventure Comics #271 (DC, April 1960), script by Jerry Siegel, pencils by Al Plastino
"My hair! My beautiful head of comics' Lex's hair!"






But don't forget that when Luthor originally debuted, he was copiusly red-headed!



from ["Europe at War"] in Action Comics (1938 series) #23 (DC/Detective Comics, April 1940), script by Jerry Siegel, pencils by Joe Shuster, inks by Paul Cassidy
It may have been this very story that gave Siegel and Shuster the idea that a bald villain was visually interesting:


Well, then, the next time they use Luthor in a story...whoops.


Of course, Luthor was still alive, as Supes himself discovers a month later over in his own titular mag:


from "[Luthor's Incense Menace]" in Superman (1939 series) #5 (DC/Superman Inc., Summer 1940), script by Jerry Siegel, pencils by Joe Shuster, inks by Wayne Boring
Oh the other hand, the shock of the previous adventure seems to have turned Lex's hair...grey!


Ah, at last Luthor's bald by summer of '41, but the retcon explanation for his alopeciac appearance wouldn't come up until that Superboy story at the top of this post.


from "[The Invisible Luthor]" in Superman #10 (DC/Superman Inc., May 1941), script by Jerry Siegel, pencils and inks by Leo Nowak
Of course, in the post-Crisis universe, there was no Superboy, so Lex and Clark never met as kids, and Luthor grew up with hair./..until stress from dealing with the Man of Steel led to it all falling out! Yes, there is no Silver Age story John Byrne left unretconned to try and make it less fantastic and more "sensible." In a book about a man who can fly.


from Man of Steel (1986 series) #4 (DC, November 1986), script and pencils by John Byrne, inks by Dick Giordano, colors by Tom Ziuko, letters by John Costanza
Of cojurse, as time passed, creators who had a fondness for the stories of the Silver Age gradually restored many elements of them.


cover of Superman: Birthright #8 (DC, May 2004), pencils by Leinil Francis Yu, inks by Gerry Alanguilan
This revised (and still yet to be revised even more in Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, and 52) universe (see how much we're depending on crossover events to define our stories) continuity-implanted into its history a similar story to the original of lonely (and arrogant) genius Teen Lex and Clark Kent's attempts to befriend him...


from Superman: Birthright #8; script by Mark Waid, pencils by Leinil Francis Yu, inks by Gerry Alanguilan, colors by Dave McCaig, letters by Comicraft
The circumstances, however, are quite different and a lot less silly. Clark is forced into retreat by Luthor's "discovery" of Kryptonite...


...while Lex endorses, as do most villains, the mantra of professional jerk Tim Allen, "more power":


Lex winds up losing not only his hair but his dad. Mind you, I think he missed the hair more.



So remember, on this anniversary of Lex's Quick-Hair-Loss Discovery: there's no story that can't later be redone to make it even more complicated.



from Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds #3 (DC, April 2009), script by Geoff Johns, pencils by George Pérez, inks by Scott Koblish, colors by Hi-Fi, letters by Nick Napolitano