Silly Question Time: If You Could Pick One Fictional Billionare to be Real Who Would You Choose?

[McAvoy]

Tony Stark. Even though he started off selling weapons he changed to developing new technologies.

Tony Stark would lack the inciting event in our world. He'd just remain the Tony Stark we see at the beginning of the first movie. Even if he'd be abducted by the Taliban, we'd end up with a self-indulgent jackass who thinks himself to be the king of the planet and sole arbiter about what is right and what is wrong at the end of that arc, except he'd have arc reactor technology at his hands. Guess what happens next with him in our reality. Lemme give you a hint: He needed an alien invasion to truely get his head out of his arse. That's not going to happen here...

The problem is that fictional billionaires usually have some kind of inciting incident to make them do things with their billions. Tony Stark someone who designed, built and tested weapons. Powerful ones. He needed be captured and create an Iron Man suit.

Bruce Wayne saw his parents killed. Then he goes on a journey to become an elite trained fighter with a suit with a bunch of gadgets, some that don't even work in real life. Or not the way portrayed in Batman media.

Green Arrow. Lost on island for years to hone his archery skills.

Black Panther. Fictional super power with super advanced technology in Africa.

Only maybe Lex Luthor would work. Afterall, he doesn't have Superman is annoy him.

[stryke]

Only maybe Lex Luthor would work. Afterall, he doesn't have Superman is annoy him.

He was my first thought on reading the thread title but I ummed and ahhed over actually making a case for him. If you use the example of a comic like Red Son then it'd be an enthusiastic yes. Without Superman around to get under his skin and break his own world view he creates a legit no fooling utopia.

Thing is though is that he really is such an utter git deep down in his core, and he really is incredibly genius smart, ruthless, and actually competent too. He will tear things and people down just because he can. It's bad enough already living in world where we have a very pale maybe even 1% of his level imitation of his style and goals.

[clearspira]

As we said over on the Musk and Trump threads, Lex generally tried to keep his activities a secret because to be outwardly evil is counter intuitive. He is the classic villain with good publicity. Lexcorp often guaranteed you a good job at least.

Plus it really does depend on which Lex you get. He is a nob in most continuities but some also imply that what tipped him over the edge was the "gods walking among men" thing. He believes that humans should control human destiny - and in real life, well, that would not apply.

[Madner Kami]

Plus it really does depend on which Lex you get. He is a nob in most continuities but some also imply that what tipped him over the edge was the "gods walking among men" thing. He believes that humans should control human destiny - and in real life, well, that would not apply.

As if there were no Lizardfolk-, Shapechanger-, Alien- or Argatha-Conspiracists around (or heck, baseline Jews control the world shit). You can bet your arse, that man would go full Elon Musk in reallife. He was looking for someone to project his inferiority-complex onto and people like that, well... *gestures at every single modern Nazi and MAGA-like*

[clearspira]

Plus it really does depend on which Lex you get. He is a nob in most continuities but some also imply that what tipped him over the edge was the "gods walking among men" thing. He believes that humans should control human destiny - and in real life, well, that would not apply.

As if there were no Lizardfolk-, Shapechanger-, Alien- or Argatha-Conspiracists around (or heck, baseline Jews control the world shit). You can bet your arse, that man would go full Elon Musk in reallife. He was looking for someone to project his inferiority-complex onto and people like that, well... *gestures at every single modern Nazi and MAGA-like*

Truth.

[McAvoy]

Plus it really does depend on which Lex you get. He is a nob in most continuities but some also imply that what tipped him over the edge was the "gods walking among men" thing. He believes that humans should control human destiny - and in real life, well, that would not apply.

As if there were no Lizardfolk-, Shapechanger-, Alien- or Argatha-Conspiracists around (or heck, baseline Jews control the world shit). You can bet your arse, that man would go full Elon Musk in reallife. He was looking for someone to project his inferiority-complex onto and people like that, well... *gestures at every single modern Nazi and MAGA-like*

Lex would be far more dangerous than Musk. Lex is actually a genius. Musk is... special.

[Winter]

Plus it really does depend on which Lex you get. He is a nob in most continuities but some also imply that what tipped him over the edge was the "gods walking among men" thing. He believes that humans should control human destiny - and in real life, well, that would not apply.

As if there were no Lizardfolk-, Shapechanger-, Alien- or Argatha-Conspiracists around (or heck, baseline Jews control the world shit). You can bet your arse, that man would go full Elon Musk in reallife. He was looking for someone to project his inferiority-complex onto and people like that, well... *gestures at every single modern Nazi and MAGA-like*

Lex would be far more dangerous than Musk. Lex is actually a genius. Musk is... special.

Actually, it's kinda darkly hilarious that in DC Luthor was not that bad as a president. He passed a bill called the “Justice League Spending Act” which ensured the metahuman superheroes of the nation had the necessary funding to do their work, redistributed the United States budget, sending billions of dollars to public schools.

Despite his rivalry with Superman, Luthor was seen as the most metahuman friendly president to date. President Luthor was one of the first world leaders to officially recognize Atlantis as a nation, setting up trading arrangements and sharing technology. Clark even assisted President Luthor with his first foreign relations crisis after the leader of Bialya imprisoned an American journalist. At the orders of President Luthor, Superman rescued the journalist and helped the United States avoid an international incident.

His was even able to when his good relations with the metahuman community paid off, and he rallied the Justice League to help the military take on an alien invasion.

Mind you this is still Luthor we're talking about here, he made tons of double dealings, and responsible for a lot of the problems he faced and still blamed Superheroes whenever things went bad but by and large he was much better then Trump and if he was in Musk's place he likely would be manipulating Trump to better serve the nation.

Again the fact that Lex Luthor, an actual supervillain, was a better president then the guy who inspired him (or at least the post crisis version of him) is both hilarious and sad.

[McAvoy]

Well in the end when it comes to fiction, making your super villain competent and even sympathic is a great thing for that charscter.

Unfortunately we don't get that sort of character arc in real life.