Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Fun with Polls Who is Scarier: Luthor or Trask?

Say you're about to write or read a fanfic. Which bad dude makes for a scarier story that'll get your blood pumping?

If you can, please explain your choice.

Definitely Luthor. Trask is just a thug and a bully. Luthor has the intellectual and psychological abilities to really mess you up in ways you can't even begin to imagine until he does.

LabRat

I voted for Luthor, but the two are scary in different ways.

Luthor is out for pleasure and power for himself, plain and simple. Trask actually has a very good motive -- trying to defend the earth from alien invasions. The New Krypton arc proved him correct in being concerned about such an invasion; indeed, a story could easily be written (and probably has been, although I don't know of such a one) which could make the case that if it weren't for Trask's foresight, the Kryptonite gas which ultimately defeated Nor might never have been made in time, and humanity might have perished.

Trask is a villain not because of his motive but because of the means he chose to achieve it. He was paranoid and delusional and firmly believed that the ends justified the means. (Of course, Lois -- with all of her breaking and entering -- also seems to subscribe to a similar view regarding means and ends, just on a smaller scale and with more limits.)

Also, what you see with Trask is what you get. He is not into deception*. In contrast, Luthor revels in mind games and delights in appearing to be a good guy to the world at large.

Their motives and modi opernadi are so different that the choice of which to use in a story would be fairly easy for me once I knew what I needed the villain to do. If, hypothetically, I were writing a story in which the proper motivation for villainy could be ascribed equally to Luthor or Trask, and if I wanted more of a psychological thriller, I'd use Luthor. If I wanted the threat to be immediate and at the hands of the villain himself, I'd go with Trask. If subordinates were involved to do the dirty work, I would look at the rest of the story and see if either character would 'fit' better.

I can't really give a simple answer to this question. Maybe I should have voted for 'other'.

Joy,
Lynn

* edit: Well, except for the phony warrant; but the fact that the good guys realized so quickly that it was phony shows to me that he doesn't do deception particularly well.

Well, Luther is truly evil but Trask is just 'differently motivated'.

But I answered other, given the wording of the question. I prefer fics with original characters as villains. Not sure why. I tried writing a fic with Trask as a villain once but he wouldn't co-operate.

c.

I voted Luthor for several reasons. For one, he's the go-to villain when you think "Superman". Because of how well known he is, I believe that makes him both easy to write for and easy to... empathize with, I suppose. We know what he does and what he's capable of doing, and because of that knowledge we will always react to him. Plus, I like that he plays mind games and he's actually a very smart man (no dumb villains for me, thank you). Trask, on the other hand- while painting an interesting picture of government involvment and paranoia- is more psychotic and delusional than anything else. Sure, he's done his homework and knows what's what, but to me he'll always just be kind of evil in comparison to someone the proportion of Lex...

Though of course, I almost chose "other" because as much as I utterly despise Tempus, I love the whole time-travel angle and its ensuing paradoxes, and therefore begrudgingly like him... But not Ross. Definite no-no.

Luthor definitely.

He's smart and well connected, as well as wealthy. Which makes him very, very dangerous. He does what he does in order to gain power, wealth, and for pleasure. He's all about making Superman suffer just because Superman is the good guy.

Trask, on the other hand, is just a big bully who thinks that he's protecting the world.

Luthor - Trask isn't wrong, he's just focused on the wrong Kryptonian, he'd have been a hero if the New Kryptonians had landed before Superman went public.

I think Trask is scarier than S1 Luthor and maybe even S2 Luthor. After all, Trask was smart enough to figure out Superman's connection to Lois and Clark and then to realize the Kryptonite would hurt him. He's not practical, exactly, but he's somewhat cunning, and also completely unreasonable, which is why he's scarier than the Luthor that could, theoretically, be reasoned with.

However, I think S3 Luthor is much more frightening than Trask because he is smarter than him and by that point, he was completely insane. As Lois said in TaGD, '...worst case scenario...a really smart madman.'

Extrapolating from what Marcus said...

If Trask had succeeded in killing Superman, there would have been no reason for the New Kryptonians to even come to earth. Once Zara,and Ching, found out her 'betrothed' was dead, they would have left to deal with their problems themselves.

That would have saved all those hurt or killed in the NK 'invasion'.

Tank (who does think Luthor is scarier because his evil isn't really quite so focused)

I chose Trask because he is representative of a government willing to break any rule and commit any evil to reach it's goal. Remember they used the EPA to take over the area where they thought the kryptonite fell, and they cleared out a whole warehouse to cover up having found alien spacecraft.

The government is infamous for covering up scandals and using the media to redirect people's attention. Big government may work with powermongers like Luthor now and again to achieve its goals, but it uses its own bureacracy to trample the rights of Smallville landowners when it's on the hunt for a weapon to kill someone who's just trying to fight for TRUTH, Justice, and the American Way.

I can't answer your question because each of them has the potential to be very scary.

Luthor is very scary because he is acting without anyone noticing. He has a seemingly endless amount of money. He can buy anyone and anything he wants. He can set up a secret Lab and hire every scientist he wants to invent what he needs for his plans. At the same time he plays the wealthy philantropist to everyone else. In addition to that he seems pretty intelligent AND he has Nigel and Mrs Cox who are very skilled and willing to do everything as long they are paid well enough.

Trask on the other hand is evil and mad. Using him as the bad guy you could use every conspiracy theory ever invented.
It seems he can use every government agency to achieve his goals.

Both of them are scary because they are willing to use and sacrifice everyone and everything to get what they want.
In my opinion both would dissect Clark like a frog if they could. Luthors intentions could be gaining money and power.
Trask would do it to find out about any weaknesses against the upcoming invasion. He also would torture Clark to find out everything Clark knows about said invasion.

All this can happen to Superman at the hands Luthor or Trask even scarier is when one of them would find out about the connection between Clark Kent and Superman...
What would they do to Perry and Jimmy? Martha and Jonathan? Lois? Pregnant Lois? Possible Children?
"Missing Lois" gave us a little insight what could happen to a pregnant Lois at the hands of Bureau 39 ... very scary ...

Sorry I couldn't vote for one or the other but either has certain attributes to make them excellent and very scary villains.

Now if you really want a scary thought: What would happen if Trask and Luthor collaborated?

I'll admit it would take some fancy plotting to make it believable that these two alpha males would actually work together; but if they had sufficient motivation to do so...

Joy,
Lynn

There are a few stories where Luthor and Trask work together but that's not a stable connection.

Cause and Effect

- fine line between Trask and Fox Muldar

- fine line between Luther and Lucifer

so.... redemption is possible for one but not the other. Gotta love destiny

c.

Luthor - because, on the surface, he seems so normal. One onversation with Trask and you know he's looney toons.