Plus, what does he think happened at the end of that season 4 premiere?
“I’m 60 now, so that’s a lot of comic books.”
He has the nerd knowledge to prove it, too.
Titus Welliver as Lex Luthor on ‘Titans.'.HBO Max
Check out EW’s conversation with Welliver about Luthor and all thingsTitansbelow.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What first got you interested in the Teen Titans?
I had always read the comics.
Lex Luthor (Titus Welliver) and Starfire (Anna Diop) on ‘Titans.'.HBO MAX
I mean, I have all the omnibuses, plus I still have all of my original collection.
The immediate answer is yes.
Because the interesting thing about Lex Luthor is he doesn’t have superpowers.
Superboy (Joshua Orpin) meets his “father” Lex Luthor (Titus Welliver) on ‘Titans.'.HBO MAX
I didn’t want to do that.
What I really wanted to do was to make him formidable with his stillness.
That unflappability is scary!
‘The New Teen Titans’ by Marv Wolfman and George Perez.Amazon
And also the fact that he’s a gentleman.
He doesn’t flinch.
He treats her like we’re just two people having a conversation.
He doesn’t have any fear.
Now, why doesn’t he have that fear?
Well, look, we all have an imagination.
He’s the master of slipping out of stuff.
So those scenes were really fun to play.
Bang!It was a gas.
What kind of impact do you think that’s going to have on Superboy?
Well, I think they are both surprised in their meeting.
He’s very resistant to Luthor.
In an interesting way, despite who Lex Luthor is, that stings a bit.
I think it’s a surprising thing for Lex Luthor because he doesn’t have attachment to people.
What he has is an obsessive relationship with Superman.
It’s an Ahab thing.
And look, the big thing people will ask me is, can he come back?
Of course he can come back.
I mean, was that the real Lex Luthor?
Or was that one of his many clones that he has?
So there’s that.
But there’s also the undeniable part of it that it’s supernatural, so who knows.
Look,Titansis a sophisticated adult show.
It scratches a bunch of itches.
These characters are representative of all different parts of life.
I’d watched the previous seasons multiple times before I ever even got the call.
I mean, it’s just hundreds of them.
And he went, “Okay, got it.
You’re not just making s— up.”
And I went, “No, no, no, no.
Not at all!”
I love the Wolfman/Perez stuff.
It’s great because, first of all, it brought in a lot of new characters.
And also, it was a different time, so it could be dirty and it could be funky.
People got hurt more than just getting hit by some kind of cosmic ray or punched across a room.
There was a depth of peril.
Plus, the artwork is just fantastic.
And the stories are great.
I always say there’s always kind of an ebb and flow with comics.
I wasn’t liking a lot of the artists that were drawing a lot of my favorite books.
I felt like the books were just being rushed out.
And thenDark Knight Returnscame out and raised the bar.
Everybody went, “Uh-oh.
This is a game-changer.”
It inspired comic publishers to up the ante.
Without being too cliche, they truly were a dynamic duo.
And that stuff was game-changing for people who are serious about being into it.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
