So, Lex Luthor from Trinity War #033 has the following text:

The Syndicate is Bad for Business: Lex Luthor can use Leadership and Outwit. When he uses Leadership and succeeds, he may instead remove the action token from a friendly character with the Injustice League keyword within 3 squares and regardless of point value.

This is one of those situations where I know what they mean, but it isn't what it says. My problem lies with the word "instead". Instead of what? Obviously, it's supposed to mean instead of the usual rule about removing tokens, but it just says "instead". As written, shouldn't it mean instead of everything Leadership normally grants, including the extra action? Is there a justification for reading it in the more restrictive "obvious" sense?

it says "the action token" not "an action token" so it's referring specifically to the action token part of Leadership.

his power is altering the conditions of the action token removal.

Agreed. Instead of having to take it off an adjacent figure that is a lower point value, he may "instead" remove it from a friendly (insert the rest of his power here).
The way it's worded, it looks like he could even remove the token from himself so I'm looking forward to trying that out.

Also, speaking of Lex and "loose wording," what about his Subterfuge tokens? The "When Lex Luthor targets an opposing character with an attack..." part is what I'm looking at as a question was raised in the Units section. PW targets figures as part of that Area-of-Effect, doesn't it? Or can he PW around and keep his token?

I agree with this.

I'd also agree with this. If the intent was to exclude him, the wording would have been "from another friendly character"

Pulse Wave results in figures being targeted by an attack. The targets are determined through area-of-effect. He won't keep the token.

I believe it's been ruled in the past that drawing a line of fire makes a character a target.

Also, we know that when used with Pulse Wave, Energy Explosion would only affect characters not within range of the pulse wave (but adjacent to a character that was), which means all characters attacked by pulse wave are targets of the attack.

Yep. Drawing a line of fire to something means you are targeting it. But once PW draws a line, it then ignores everything. His power would have to say "can't have a line of fire drawn" to block PW.

And since PW draws lines to things, it is targeting, so he would lose his token if he used PW.

That's what I thought, eMouse, but I wanted to make sure I was understanding AoE correctly... I know it's a more confusing topic for many players so I wanted to be sure I understood it right before commenting.
Rep to you both!

eMouse, I had to look this up, but I believe "area of effect" does not draw a line of fire. Plus, check this out:

"When a character is attacked exclusively as a result of being in an area of effect, it is not considered a target of the attack" sure sounds like characters hit by a Pulse Wave are not considered to be a target of the attack.

Those are the general rules for Area of Effect. It's better to look at the actual power in question here:

Pulse Wave
Give this character a ranged combat action even if it is adjacent to an opposing character; the area of effect for this attack is half the character’s range. Draw lines of fire to all other characters within the area of effect, including at least one opposing character; these lines of fire ignore all game effects except for walls, blocking and elevated terrain. Game effects possessed or used by characters with a line of fire drawn to them are ignored until the action has been resolved. If a line of fire is drawn to more than 1 character, this character’s damage value becomes 1 and is locked. Each character hit is dealt damage.

And add a little bit of general knowledge from the Player's Guide:

Any game effect that has a line of fire drawn to it is considered a target.

So yeah, Pulse Wave does target.

What VanisherPunisher said. The Area of Effect rules don't target characters on their own, but Pulse Wave, the way it's worded, creates an area of effect, and then targets all characters within that area of effect.

Since Pulsewave draws lines, that's why it targets. EE is an aoe, but since it doesn't draw lines, the attacked characters are not targeted.

Ooh, that reminds me of an interesting question that came up during a game that I forgot about (man, are we tangenting on this thread or WHAT? LOL!)... if I use EE on a figure in hindering, do those in the "splash" also get the hindering modifier (since the LOF has crossed hindering)? Does it matter if the "splashed" figures are in hindering or not?

You are not drawing line of fire to the splashed characters, so the hindering terrain modifier should not apply.

Quebbster is right. The hindering modifier requires a lof to be drawn.
ES/D on the other hand says "Modify defense by +2 against ranged attacks". Since EE is part of a ranged attack, they get that bonus.
IIRC ES/D used to say "when targeted".

If ever it did, it was prior to Universe.

Yea, that was a total "i think I seem to remember" statement. That I should know better than to say here.