Marshals Villain Actor Michael Cudlitz Played One Of DC's Most Terrifying Bad Guys

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Michael Cudlitz is one of those reliable character actors who not everyone knows by name, but they probably recognize him from a great performance. His work as Abraham on "The Walking Dead" concluded with one of the show's most upsetting deaths, and he also had a small but memorable role on "Lost" quite some time ago. In the world of television, he's been just about everywhere, with over 120 credits to his name according to IMDb.

Most recently, he entered the "Yellowstone" universe in episode 3 of "Marshals" as Randall Clegg, a rival of the Dutton family. Given that the "Yellowstone" fanbase is quite sizable and that this is one of the biggest new shows of the season, it's likely to put Cudlitz on a lot of people's radar. In this case, he's in full bad guy mode, something we're sure to see more of as the show's first season continues to unfold. But this is far from the first time that he's played a baddie on a big TV show.

Back when The CW was still a haven for DC fans before the Arrowverse came to an end in 2023, Cudlitz played one of the most legendary villains from the pages of DC Comics. Namely, Lex Luthor, Superman's arch-nemesis, in the series "Superman & Lois." Though not technically part of the Arrowverse, it was one of the last DC shows to air on the network before Warner Bros. and The CW pulled the plug on the whole enterprise.

Cudlitz had a memorable part to play in the proceedings, making his debut in season 3 and sticking with the show  until the end in season 4.

Lex Luthor is a character with a long history extending well beyond the pages of the comics, and the villain has been portrayed on screen many times, both in live-action and in animation, over the years. That said, Michael Cudlitz's portrayal in "Superman & Lois" has been regarded as one of the better live-action Lex Luthor performances we've ever seen.

Cudlitz was sort of fighting an uphill battle when he made his entry into "Superman & Lois" in 2023. Jon Cryer played Lex Luthor in the Arrowverse, making his debut in "Supergirl" before appearing later in several of the crossover events. He was a big part of the universe and left his mark on it. But "Superman & Lois," which starred Tyler Hoechlin as Clark Kent/Superman and Elizabeth Tulloch as Lois Lane, takes place on an adjacent Earth, setting it outside the Arrowverse.

That being the case, Cryer wasn't the Lex Luthor to Hoechlin's Superman. So, Cudlitz had the chance to make his own mark, doing his best to make the role his own. There's a pretty wide variance in what actors have done with the part. Jesse Eisenberg believes "Batman v Superman" might have hurt his career, but he undoubtedly did something pretty unique with Lex in that movie.

As for Cudlitz, even visually, when he joined the show, he had Lex's signature bald head, but he was a bigger fella with a big beard. It wasn't what fans were used to, but that was all part of helping him stand out.

Every actor brings something unique to this particular villain. Nicholas Hoult not being cast as Superman kind of made him the perfect Lex Luthor in James Gunn's "Superman," for example. Cudlitz was naturally operating in a very different universe, in a smaller-budget, episodic environment. All the same, he made peace with what he brought to it, understanding that comic book fans are passionate.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly in November 2024, as the show's final season was airing, the actor touched on the larger DC fanbase, understanding that not everyone is going to vibe with his version of Lex. Here's what he had to say about it at the time:

"It's an incredibly large fanbase because of the amount of time that this property has spanned, the generations this property spans, you have your traditionalists and people who love certain comics and certain worlds or certain universes. Or in the live action, they love Smallville, they love the Snyderverse or the Arrowverse. There's these camps within, but they all have the same thing in common: They love Superman. So there are going to be people who just do not care for what we are doing or, more specifically, what I'm doing with Lex."

"I'm 100 percent fine with that. We're telling our story the best way that we can, and we feel very strongly about what we are telling," Cudlitz concluded.

You can grab "Superman & Lois: The Complete Series" on Blu-ray or DVD from Amazon.