My Dream Pandemic Bunker Is Lex Luthor’s Lair From 1978’s ‘Superman’

It’s the perfect end-of-the-world hideout

Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman): “Miss Teschmacher, how many girls do you know who have a Park Avenue address like this one?”

Miss Teschmacher (Valerie Perrine): “A Park Avenue address? Two hundred feet below?”

I am self-isolating in a 500-square-foot one-bedroom apartment in Harlem that I rent. I do not have a country home or a beach house. I frequently fantasize about being rich and being able to afford a fancy luxury bunker. I am a good little capitalist, raised from birth to consume and covet.

In fact, one of my favorite things to do is read articles about billionaires fleeing to private islands or hermetically-sealed pleasure tombs where they can wait out the end of the world in comfort.

There was a time I use to make fun of doomsday preppers, but no more. To be fair, I could have planned for the apocalypse a little better. I have one too many cans of New England Clam Chowder.

But preppers don’t usually have the budgets the size of a small nation’s GDP. They’re mostly people with modest incomes who just have a really intense distrust of those in power. A subculture of humble Noahs. Well, now the super-wealthy have joined their ranks. I don’t know if we want billionaires and their broods re-populating the Earth. America is a slot machine and those who win the jackpot aren’t always the, uh, best.

Anyway, I am neither a prepper nor affluent. I’m just an average person praying that his elderly mother in Texas doesn’t get sick. So I spend a lot of time sitting on my couch, listening to nonstop ambulance sirens outside my window, and dreaming about my ideal pandemic bunker. My pre-pandemic ‘what if’ daydreams use to be “Where would I travel is money was no object” and now they’re mostly “What high-end survivalist shelter do I want?”

My friends, I have an answer. I want to spend the duration of this pandemic living in Lex Luthor’s underground lair from 1978’s Superman.

The first big-budget Hollywood Superman movie is special for multiple reasons, one of which is its optimism during a time of deep national cynicism.

Post-Nixon America was broken — crime was high, cities were ruins, people were broke. The country was still traumatized from the decade-long war in Vietnam. And then Christopher Reeves’ soared into theaters as the Man of Steel. His Superman was corny, friendly, honest. He could save buses full of people or cats stuck in trees. A hero who cared about all of humanity, no matter their race or class or religion.

The Superman movie poster tagline was “You’ll believe a man can fly.” I’d still want to believe that.

The movie loves everything the original comic books loved: feisty big city newspaper reporters, midwestern family values, truth, justice, and the American way, an empty couple of words but I like to think ‘the American way’ is a mix of hard work and compassion. Please don’t correct me on that. It’s just how I feel.

Superman was directed by Richard Donner, who just treated the story of a nice alien with laser-beam eyes who wears red shorts over blue tights as if it were The Godfather. This is a serious movie about a kind man with the power of a god. The special effects are mostly okay. Cutting edge blue screen technology circa 1978. But the flying scenes work because Reeves really sells it. It is also John Williams’ most underrated score. It’s both noble and melancholy. I’d say it’s his third best, right after Jurassic Park and my personal number one: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

I can’t recommend this cheesy ’70s superhero blockbuster more. I know Zach Snyder’s Man of Steel movie has passionate fans — — they love his dark and wounded Superman. But 1978’s Supes is still special, at least to me. I imagine he’d be busy right now flying the sick to emergency hospital rooms as fast as he could.

Oh, the other reason I loved Superman is archnemesis Lex Luthor, the greatest criminal mastermind of his time. Gene Hackman plays Luthor as a growling, book smart, megalomaniac with a sense of humor. But he’s never a clown. Hackman’s Luthor is a threat to Superman and the free world. And I want to live in his lair, where he plots get-rich schemes and mass murder.

In Superman, Luthor lives under the bustling streets of Manhattan. In order to get there, you have to walk through a subway tunnel to a secret passage and a hidden door. Once inside, the hideout has everything a supervillain could want. There’s excellent lighting. Marble staircases. A library with a rolling ladder. And there’s a pool.

Lex Luthor’s lair is a refurbished abandoned underground train station far away from people. It is secure. In fact, the only way to bust into it is if you spin your bulletproof body like a corkscrew and drill down through concrete like Superman.

It is the perfect bunker. My dream bunker. Vaulted ceilings. Plenty of space. A very, very strong NYC vibe. And most of all: it’s secret. If I were rich right now instead of a blogger — the opposite of rich —I wouldn’t want anyone to know where I was riding out the pandemic. I’ve read multiple news stories about influencers and the upper-middle-class escaping New York City for expensive rentals on coasts and in mountains. Here’s a little free PR advice: never tell the press that you have lots of money.

But back to my pipe dream where I am loaded and able to save my ass in style. So while all my fellow robber barons took helicopters to their Long Island mansions I would sneak down to my palace in the belly of New York City. There, I would scheme, swim, and read as the world sorted out the pandemic, no matter how long it took.

I have never met a billionaire, really. I have also never met any brilliant scoundrels bent on world domination. I’m betting, however, both have very high-self esteem. Also, I’m pretty certain making rambling speeches is something Elon Musk and Dr. Doom probably have in common. Billionaires have armies of lawyers and supervillains have endless henchmen and they’re the same thing. And both are obsessed with real estate. Mansions, penthouses, fortresses inside inactive volcanos. A subterranean sanctuary, safe from viruses and the humans who carry them.

In Superman, Lex’s master plan is to trigger a massive earthquake in Southern California with a stolen nuke. Once the old coast sinks into the ocean Lex will be ready to sell formerly worthless desert land he snapped at for nothing. After grandiloquently explaining his brilliant plot, as evildoers are wont to do, he then quotes his father:

“Son, stocks may rise and fall, utilities and transportation systems may collapse. People are no damn good, but they will always need land and they’ll pay through the nose to get it!”

America’s greatest assholes are landlords.