[Liberty Drive parade route, downtown Metropolis]
Lex noticed that his father looked away when the U.S. troops marched past the reviewing stand.
"What happened then, Dad," Lex asked. "I know you were there. Luthor Industries began its Far East expansion. Bruce Wayne made sure that the whole country knows about his father's work in Washington. Don't you want your side of the story to be told?"
"Thomas Wayne served his country by avoiding the draft and spin doctoring for the State Department," Lionel bristled. "I gave the Pentagon and the CIA the tools to win the war. Saigon would have been the capital of a free and democratic Vietnam, if Nixon and his cronies didn't botch it up!"
"Didn't you pour millions into the Nixon's 1968 electoral war chest?" Lex smirked. Lionel avoided the question with a timely cellphone call from a business associate.
Something must have happened, Lex wondered. Something that drove that final wedge between Lionel Luthor and Thomas Wayne. My father returned to the States in 1973, as the last U.S. troops pulled out of Indochina. With the Paris peace treaty's ink barely dry, work for an arms manufacturer would have dried up.
Perhaps that was when the final act of this rivalry played out ...
[Washington, D.C., 1975]
Thomas Wayne worked under a new president now ... Gerald Ford. The bloodletting of the Watergate scandal had claimed Richard Nixon and threatened to destroy the Republican party forever. Thomas' mentor, Frank, suffered a major heart attack mere days after the final pullout of American troops from Vietnam in March, 1973.
The Secretary of State had asked Thomas to join their Middle Eastern crisis centre. He turned it down. Pentagon number-crunchers were suggesting that between 40,000-50,000 U.S. soldiers died in Vietnam. If he tried hard enough, this peace treaty may finally make sense of this chaos.
As the weeks and months passed, news from Indochina became worse. Intelligence reports suggested that as many as 200,000 South Vietnamese troops had deserted the frontlines last year, returning to their families. All this, even though Congress had pumped $700 million into Saigon's forces. Hanoi was quiet these last few months.
Uncomfortably quiet.
The followers of Ho Chih Minh's vision had spent the past few months on tedious logistics work: roads, bridges. Even as the South Vietnamese violated the Paris treaty and attacked loyal Communist villages, they said and did little.
They would talk now. And the world would hear.
Frantic reports from American embassies in Hong Kong, Manila and Tokyo conveyed the disturbing news. The Communists were invading South Vietnam. From the Central Highlands northeast of Saigon they began. The dreaded Red wave that Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon had failed to contain.
South Vietnam could not hold back the flood. The imperial city of Hue fell in March. They overran Da Nang, the former U.S. Marine base soon after. The billions wasted on secret operations, weaponry ... the propping-up of a Saigon government that now complained of American betrayal. In a sense it was, since we didn't clean up the mess the French left for us two decades ago. Saigon fell in April.
Vietnam would be independent. Of colonial imperialism. And now, of American capitalism.
The shameful evacuation of the American embassy in Saigon left a bitter taste in Thomas' mouth. The Ford Administration was doomed. Oil crises and inflation were more difficult to combat than Communist guerrillas. Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon, effectively sealing his fate as a stop-gap president. Vietnam, Watergate, the pointless turf wars between the Pentagon, the CIA, the White House and the State Department. To what end ...
The lives of those poor and disadvantaged who had no choice but to fight a war that nobody wanted.
Nobody but the warhawks, the glory-hounds and the opportunists. Was this the America I wanted for my family? Martha had talked of returning to Gotham City soon. "Once I've cleared my plate here," he had answered.
Thomas descended the steps of Capitol Hill after updating the Congressional committee for Southeast Asia. Lionel Luthor, CEO of manufacturing juggernaut Luthor Industries, stood near a fountain in The Mall with his loyal cadre of senators and congressmen.
Lucius Fox, Wayne's college buddy and vice-president of Wayne Enterprises, had waged a lobbying campaign against Luthor Industries' arms trading excesses. Disturbing reports surfaced that Lionel Luthor was marketing his deadly wares in North Africa, the Eastern bloc and eager dictators in the Far East. Lionel had hoped that Wayne would at least put a lid on his entanglement with the Phoenix Program.
He would not. "My editors may print what they view as news," Thomas insisted, "This is America. We don't gag the press." The American economy was in shambles, thanks to inflation and climbing oil prices. Lionel Luthor was feeling the pinch and chose to blame the Waynes for everything.
Lionel noticed his mortal enemy alone. "Excuse me, gentlemen," Lionel graciously nodded, "We'll discuss strategy for the forthcoming presidential election tomorrow."
"Thomas Wayne, as I live and breathe," Lionel smirked.
"We have nothing to discuss," Thomas stated curtly.
Lionel laughed. "Still bitter over the Phoenix Program? Come on, it's ancient history! This isn't Lexington-we're not on opposing sides here. You fought a valiant battle in the hallowed halls of the State Department, trying to make that little peace treaty fly. You should have known better than to trust Communists. They know nothing of the true value of things. Unlike you and I."
"I'm nothing like you," Thomas stated, "Thanks to you and your warhawk buddies, Laos and Cambodia have run to the Reds."
"Communist. Capitalist. They're merely labels," Lionel scoffed, "Money is the true 'shot heard round the world'. We, the captains of industry, are the true patriots. There's no right or wrong. Only winners and losers ..."
"I've been to Arlington Cemetary. I've seen the crosses. I've been to CIA HQ in Langley ... and stars of honour with no names. I know your handiwork. You're a profiteer. You think of nothing but your own self-aggrandizement! Don't pretend to identify yourself with me."
"You bastard," Lionel snarled, "That's the problem with you Waynes. Always putting yourselves on a pedestal. Edward Wayne, the great patriot who took Fort Gotham. You forget to remind people that your forefather's men fired upon his own brother, a redcoat on the other side. And your father, the federal G-man who took down the Atlantic City gangsters ... and did FBI Director Hoover's dirty work ..."
"That's a lie!" Thomas declared. "Your trashy tabloids don't bother me. You know full well I could bankrupt your media empire with one libel suit."
"But you won't," Lionel grinned, "because the Waynes are what America would like to believe is the ideal. Wayne, the legendary star-spangled family. Who knows what true skeletons I would uncover if you dared to pick a fight with me. That your daddy was trading secrets to the Communists. And your friend, the charge d'affaires in Tokyo. Verrry attractive. I'm sure Martha would think she was ..."
"Go to hell!" Thomas barked. "If anyone places himself in the spotlight, it's you. Unlike you, I know your skeletons. I'm sure Hoover's file on your family would make great summer reading. Bootlegging during Prohibition. Questionable investments in Vegas casinos. And that trip you took to Istanbul? Contacts in Iran ... I'm sure your friends on Capitol Hill would prefer not to know that, lest you cut their campaign lines of credit ..."
"So we are at a check, a personal cold war as it were," Lionel pulled out a cigarrette. "We both have enough half-truths and suspicions to bury each other's reputations forever. A light?" Thomas lit his rival's cigarrette, then lit one for himself.
Two enemies sharing a smoke. How surreal.
"I remember Concord," Lionel puffed, "My ancestor Elijah spared Edward's life that day ... and he lived to see Cornwallis surrender at Yorkton. Washington sent Elijah to Fort Orange ..."
"... and live to see his glory snatched away in the peace treaty," Thomas continued, "never to taste the destiny that should be his. You've been harping about this 'robbed' fate for years. Learn a new tune."
"The Luthors are what America truly is," Lionel stated, "forever in pursuit of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We have no delusions about this fantasyland America you seem to harbour. Surely after Bobby Kennedy, King and Kent State, you know that!"
"But you don't want to do anything about it," Thomas snapped back, "even though you have the power to do so. You collect antiquities of great conquerors. Alexander the Great. Julius Caesar. Napoleon Bonaparte. Hoping that their glory will rub off on you. You have more power now than any of them could imagine. You do nothing. Goddamn coward."
Lionel flicked his cigarrette butt onto the pavement. "Thanks for the light. This cold war is just that. A war. Open the door just a little, and I'll destroy you. Bury your father. Poor Martha. Maybe you truly are faithful to her. If and when you're not, my people will hear about it."
"Throw down the gauntlet and see what happens," Thomas challenged, "I don't forget either. Whenever you want to play this game to its conclusion, you know where to find me."
Lionel hailed a cab, and left to build his international corporate empire. That night, Thomas received a call from Jimmy Carter. Several days later, Thomas agreed to work with him should the Democrats take the White House ...
January, 1977. Jimmy Carter took his oath as 39th President of the United States ...
[Metropolis, 2002]
An aide interrupted Lionel's concentration. The official Luthor Corp. float, ablaze with purple, passed by the reviewing stand.
"Sir, it's Wayne Enterprises. An urgent call, it seems," the aide remarked.
"Tell Wayne to go to hell!" Lionel sneered. "I'm watching my history unfold here!"
Lex shook his head in disgust. This feud ran deeper than blood, it seemed.
Lex noticed that his father looked away when the U.S. troops marched past the reviewing stand.
"What happened then, Dad," Lex asked. "I know you were there. Luthor Industries began its Far East expansion. Bruce Wayne made sure that the whole country knows about his father's work in Washington. Don't you want your side of the story to be told?"
"Thomas Wayne served his country by avoiding the draft and spin doctoring for the State Department," Lionel bristled. "I gave the Pentagon and the CIA the tools to win the war. Saigon would have been the capital of a free and democratic Vietnam, if Nixon and his cronies didn't botch it up!"
"Didn't you pour millions into the Nixon's 1968 electoral war chest?" Lex smirked. Lionel avoided the question with a timely cellphone call from a business associate.
Something must have happened, Lex wondered. Something that drove that final wedge between Lionel Luthor and Thomas Wayne. My father returned to the States in 1973, as the last U.S. troops pulled out of Indochina. With the Paris peace treaty's ink barely dry, work for an arms manufacturer would have dried up.
Perhaps that was when the final act of this rivalry played out ...
[Washington, D.C., 1975]
Thomas Wayne worked under a new president now ... Gerald Ford. The bloodletting of the Watergate scandal had claimed Richard Nixon and threatened to destroy the Republican party forever. Thomas' mentor, Frank, suffered a major heart attack mere days after the final pullout of American troops from Vietnam in March, 1973.
The Secretary of State had asked Thomas to join their Middle Eastern crisis centre. He turned it down. Pentagon number-crunchers were suggesting that between 40,000-50,000 U.S. soldiers died in Vietnam. If he tried hard enough, this peace treaty may finally make sense of this chaos.
As the weeks and months passed, news from Indochina became worse. Intelligence reports suggested that as many as 200,000 South Vietnamese troops had deserted the frontlines last year, returning to their families. All this, even though Congress had pumped $700 million into Saigon's forces. Hanoi was quiet these last few months.
Uncomfortably quiet.
The followers of Ho Chih Minh's vision had spent the past few months on tedious logistics work: roads, bridges. Even as the South Vietnamese violated the Paris treaty and attacked loyal Communist villages, they said and did little.
They would talk now. And the world would hear.
Frantic reports from American embassies in Hong Kong, Manila and Tokyo conveyed the disturbing news. The Communists were invading South Vietnam. From the Central Highlands northeast of Saigon they began. The dreaded Red wave that Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon had failed to contain.
South Vietnam could not hold back the flood. The imperial city of Hue fell in March. They overran Da Nang, the former U.S. Marine base soon after. The billions wasted on secret operations, weaponry ... the propping-up of a Saigon government that now complained of American betrayal. In a sense it was, since we didn't clean up the mess the French left for us two decades ago. Saigon fell in April.
Vietnam would be independent. Of colonial imperialism. And now, of American capitalism.
The shameful evacuation of the American embassy in Saigon left a bitter taste in Thomas' mouth. The Ford Administration was doomed. Oil crises and inflation were more difficult to combat than Communist guerrillas. Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon, effectively sealing his fate as a stop-gap president. Vietnam, Watergate, the pointless turf wars between the Pentagon, the CIA, the White House and the State Department. To what end ...
The lives of those poor and disadvantaged who had no choice but to fight a war that nobody wanted.
Nobody but the warhawks, the glory-hounds and the opportunists. Was this the America I wanted for my family? Martha had talked of returning to Gotham City soon. "Once I've cleared my plate here," he had answered.
Thomas descended the steps of Capitol Hill after updating the Congressional committee for Southeast Asia. Lionel Luthor, CEO of manufacturing juggernaut Luthor Industries, stood near a fountain in The Mall with his loyal cadre of senators and congressmen.
Lucius Fox, Wayne's college buddy and vice-president of Wayne Enterprises, had waged a lobbying campaign against Luthor Industries' arms trading excesses. Disturbing reports surfaced that Lionel Luthor was marketing his deadly wares in North Africa, the Eastern bloc and eager dictators in the Far East. Lionel had hoped that Wayne would at least put a lid on his entanglement with the Phoenix Program.
He would not. "My editors may print what they view as news," Thomas insisted, "This is America. We don't gag the press." The American economy was in shambles, thanks to inflation and climbing oil prices. Lionel Luthor was feeling the pinch and chose to blame the Waynes for everything.
Lionel noticed his mortal enemy alone. "Excuse me, gentlemen," Lionel graciously nodded, "We'll discuss strategy for the forthcoming presidential election tomorrow."
"Thomas Wayne, as I live and breathe," Lionel smirked.
"We have nothing to discuss," Thomas stated curtly.
Lionel laughed. "Still bitter over the Phoenix Program? Come on, it's ancient history! This isn't Lexington-we're not on opposing sides here. You fought a valiant battle in the hallowed halls of the State Department, trying to make that little peace treaty fly. You should have known better than to trust Communists. They know nothing of the true value of things. Unlike you and I."
"I'm nothing like you," Thomas stated, "Thanks to you and your warhawk buddies, Laos and Cambodia have run to the Reds."
"Communist. Capitalist. They're merely labels," Lionel scoffed, "Money is the true 'shot heard round the world'. We, the captains of industry, are the true patriots. There's no right or wrong. Only winners and losers ..."
"I've been to Arlington Cemetary. I've seen the crosses. I've been to CIA HQ in Langley ... and stars of honour with no names. I know your handiwork. You're a profiteer. You think of nothing but your own self-aggrandizement! Don't pretend to identify yourself with me."
"You bastard," Lionel snarled, "That's the problem with you Waynes. Always putting yourselves on a pedestal. Edward Wayne, the great patriot who took Fort Gotham. You forget to remind people that your forefather's men fired upon his own brother, a redcoat on the other side. And your father, the federal G-man who took down the Atlantic City gangsters ... and did FBI Director Hoover's dirty work ..."
"That's a lie!" Thomas declared. "Your trashy tabloids don't bother me. You know full well I could bankrupt your media empire with one libel suit."
"But you won't," Lionel grinned, "because the Waynes are what America would like to believe is the ideal. Wayne, the legendary star-spangled family. Who knows what true skeletons I would uncover if you dared to pick a fight with me. That your daddy was trading secrets to the Communists. And your friend, the charge d'affaires in Tokyo. Verrry attractive. I'm sure Martha would think she was ..."
"Go to hell!" Thomas barked. "If anyone places himself in the spotlight, it's you. Unlike you, I know your skeletons. I'm sure Hoover's file on your family would make great summer reading. Bootlegging during Prohibition. Questionable investments in Vegas casinos. And that trip you took to Istanbul? Contacts in Iran ... I'm sure your friends on Capitol Hill would prefer not to know that, lest you cut their campaign lines of credit ..."
"So we are at a check, a personal cold war as it were," Lionel pulled out a cigarrette. "We both have enough half-truths and suspicions to bury each other's reputations forever. A light?" Thomas lit his rival's cigarrette, then lit one for himself.
Two enemies sharing a smoke. How surreal.
"I remember Concord," Lionel puffed, "My ancestor Elijah spared Edward's life that day ... and he lived to see Cornwallis surrender at Yorkton. Washington sent Elijah to Fort Orange ..."
"... and live to see his glory snatched away in the peace treaty," Thomas continued, "never to taste the destiny that should be his. You've been harping about this 'robbed' fate for years. Learn a new tune."
"The Luthors are what America truly is," Lionel stated, "forever in pursuit of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We have no delusions about this fantasyland America you seem to harbour. Surely after Bobby Kennedy, King and Kent State, you know that!"
"But you don't want to do anything about it," Thomas snapped back, "even though you have the power to do so. You collect antiquities of great conquerors. Alexander the Great. Julius Caesar. Napoleon Bonaparte. Hoping that their glory will rub off on you. You have more power now than any of them could imagine. You do nothing. Goddamn coward."
Lionel flicked his cigarrette butt onto the pavement. "Thanks for the light. This cold war is just that. A war. Open the door just a little, and I'll destroy you. Bury your father. Poor Martha. Maybe you truly are faithful to her. If and when you're not, my people will hear about it."
"Throw down the gauntlet and see what happens," Thomas challenged, "I don't forget either. Whenever you want to play this game to its conclusion, you know where to find me."
Lionel hailed a cab, and left to build his international corporate empire. That night, Thomas received a call from Jimmy Carter. Several days later, Thomas agreed to work with him should the Democrats take the White House ...
January, 1977. Jimmy Carter took his oath as 39th President of the United States ...
[Metropolis, 2002]
An aide interrupted Lionel's concentration. The official Luthor Corp. float, ablaze with purple, passed by the reviewing stand.
"Sir, it's Wayne Enterprises. An urgent call, it seems," the aide remarked.
"Tell Wayne to go to hell!" Lionel sneered. "I'm watching my history unfold here!"
Lex shook his head in disgust. This feud ran deeper than blood, it seemed.