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Plenty of people want to kill Lex Luthor but obviously, he pays people to do that for him – a fact that just doomed one Arrowverse hero.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Human Target #1. on sale now from DC Comics.
A lot of people hate Lex Luthor. As the nemesis of Superman, he is despised by the superhero community, and his “legitimate” business practices are only just tolerated by them too. As such, that puts a big target on Luthor’s back. Though most heroes have sworn never to kill, not all of them are so altruistic. And it isn’t just heroes that hate the shady industrialist, he’s made a lot of enemies throughout his life that are more than willing to commit murder.
That’s why the evil billionaire calls on Christopher Chance in The Human Target #1 by Tom King, Greg Smallwood, and Clayton Cowles. The renowned bodyguard, detective, and master impersonator has taken on the unsavory job of being Lex Luthor, to protect him from any attempts on his life. Though Chance succeeds in taking a bullet for his client on stage, he soon finds out that some of Luthor’s enemies are smarter than most of the other foes he’s faced.
Before the more public attempt on his life, someone else had tried to assassinate Luthor in a far more subtle way. Chance took some coffee before going out on stage and noted how much it tasted like tin. At first, he believed it was simply bad coffee, however, when the tin started to coat his throat, he realized it wasn’t the coffee he tasted – it was poison. If the bullet he was hit with hadn’t made him throw up, the poison would have acted much quicker and killed him on stage. Though there’s an irony in one killer’s actions messing up another, that doesn’t change the fact that the poison is still going to kill Chance. It’s just that now it will take 12 days to do so rather than a matter of minutes.
Recklessly throwing himself into harm’s way like this is exactly what the Human Target does. Created by Len Wein and Carmine Infantino, Christopher Chance first appeared as this unconventional force of justice in 1972’s Action Comics #419. He isn’t the first individual to take up the role, with the original briefly appearing in the 50s, but he is the most prominent version of the character. So much so that he’s had two TV shows of his own and has appeared multiple times on the CW’s Arrow.
After he saw his father murdered in front of him, Christopher Chance vowed that no one would ever be a helpless target like his father was. Though he tries to make his services affordable for those who need them, sometimes he takes on unsavory clients like Luthor to pay the bills. This usually involves taking a bullet, for which he has specialized armor, however, this most recent job has revealed a huge flaw in his already risky profession.
Chance fully assumes the identity of whoever he is protecting so as not to arouse suspicion. As witnessed here, the only noticeable differences are out-of-place mannerisms, like “Luthor” saying thank you, which surprises his assistant. Something the real Luthor points out later is that Chance’s protection is not complete, at least not for himself. To be the Human Target, his armor must remain hidden, leaving his head completely exposed. If he was shot there then he really would be dead.
Chance’s protection is against bullets and any other sort of physical harm. He has absolutely no defense against poison, as shown here. That’s the biggest flaw in his style of protection. One of the more well-known forms of assassination and one of the hardest to detect as well and the Human Target has absolutely no way to defend himself from it. This is a deadly oversight – a grave truth he just learned the hard way.
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