Lex Luthor Took Forty Cakes

About

Lex Luthor Took Forty Cakes is a popular comic book illustration from the 1978 children’s dictionary The Super Dictionary featuring illustrations of heroes and villains from DC comics. One of the illustrations in the book depicts Lex Luthor, the super-villain character and arch enemy of Superman, running away with a cart filled with 40 cakes.

Origin

The Super Dictionary was published by Holt, Rinehart & Winston in July 1978. The book features more than 4,000 alphabetically arranged words, each defined within story sentences involving various DC comic book characters like Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Flash among others.

While the illustrations were meant to educate children through popular DC superheroes, some of the more absurd and campy situations portrayed in the book became a subject of internet mockeries. One of the most memorable instances involves the supervillain character Lex Luthor:

When no one was looking, Lex Luthor
took forty cakes. He took 40 cakes.
That’s as many as four tens.
And that’s terrible.

Spread

One of the first online references to Lex Luthor’s 40 cakes may have appeared in a YTMND^[1] uploaded on September 8th, 2005.

Throughout 2006 and 2007, the image has made its way to other sites including Digg^[2], Collegehumor^[3], Nextround^[4], 4chan^[5] (Post 1249916), and YTMND.^[6]

The image and the book have been frequently discussed and referenced in various forums including SuperheroHeroHype^[7], World of Warcraft^[8], Ebaum’s World^[9], and Comic Book Resource.^[10]

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Canonicity

The popularity of Forty Cakes has led it to be introduced into the DC Comics canon. Superman #709 released on March 16, 2011, features a flashback where Clark Kent has been placed in detention during his high school years for skipping class. During his detention he has one of his first encounters with a young Lex Luthor:

Derivatives

External Links

^[1]YTMND – Luthor

^[2]Digg – Oh No Lex Luthor stole 40 cakes

^[3]College Humor – This time you’ve gone too far Luthor!

^[4]Nextround – Lex Luthor Stole Forty Cakes

^[5]4chan – /co/

^[6]YTMND – lex luthor cake

^[7]Superhero Hype – Lex Luthor’s devious forty cakes scheem!

^[8]World of Warcraft Forums – Going Old School

^[9]Ebaumsworld Forums – When no one was looking, Lex Luthor took forty cakes.

^[10]Comic Book Resource Forums – Lex Luthor stealing forty cakes vs. the Joker stealing a kid’s report card