Lex Luthor

Lex Luthor
File:Luthor.PNG Lex Luthor, from the cover to Action Comics #839, by Terry Dodson
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Historical: Action Comics #23 (May, 1940) Modern: Superman: The Man of Steel #4 (1986) Revised: Superman: Birthright #5 (2003)
Created by	Jerry Siegel Joe Shuster
In-story information
Alter ego	Alexander Joseph "Lex" Luthor
Team affiliations	Toyman, LexCorp, Injustice Gang, Injustice League, Darkseid, Executive branch of the United States government, Secret Six
Notable aliases	Mockingbird, The Face of all Evil
Abilities	Genius level intellect, Superb Machiavellian political genius, Multi-billionaire, Wields some political power, Skilled hand-to-hand combatant

Lex Luthor is a fictional character, a DC Comics supervillain and archenemy of Superman. Created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Luthor first appeared in Action Comics #23 (1940). His history has been retconned several times since then, with his current canonical origin being Mark Waid's 2004 limited series Birthright.

The (usually) bald-headed Luthor has been Superman's main foe for most of the superhero's existence and has unveiled countless plots to destroy him and take over the world. Originally Luthor was a mad scientist but has since been rewritten as a Machiavellian industrialist and white-collar criminal. For a brief period in the early 2000s, he was president of the United States.

Luthor is one of several Superman characters with the initials "LL," including Lois Lane, Lana Lang, Lori Lemaris, and several others.

There are several notable appearances of Luthor in most adaptations of Superman outside comic books. In the film series of the late 1970s and 1980s, Gene Hackman took a comical approach to the character. In the 2000s live-action series Smallville, Luthor as a young adult is played by Michael Rosenbaum. The role of Lex Luthor will be played by Kevin Spacey in the upcoming movie Superman Returns.

Character history

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The Silver Age Lex Luthor attacking Superman, from the cover of Superman (volume 1) #292, October 1975. Art by Curt Swan.

Original Luthor

When Luthor first appeared, he was portrayed with a full head of red hair; however, in 1941 Luthor came to be portrayed as completely bald after an artist's mistake in the Superman comic strip. Shuster preferred drawing bald villains anyway, so the more striking appearance was adopted and became a Luthor trademark. The change may also have been an attempt to echo a previous villain, the Ultra-Humanite, with whom Luthor shares many similarities. When the DC multiverse began to take hold in the 1960s, the red-haired Luthor was said to be the bald Luthor's Earth-Two counterpart, Alexei Luthor.

The original Luthor of the 1940s (who did not have a first name) was one of many pulps-inspired mad scientists who plotted to take over the world, or destroy it, through the use of various diabolical schemes. He donned disguises a few times, but generally he preferred to make himself known to the world as his master plans came to fruition... until he was foiled, time and time again, by the Man of Steel. He soon became Superman's greatest foe, the antithesis of everything Superman stood for; and even though his plans for world domination were repeatedly dashed, he always managed to get away (or escape from prison) to threaten the world time and time again.

Luthor's originally stated goals were to kill Superman and to take over Earth as a stepping stone to dominating the universe. Over the years, Luthor came up with every conceivable plan to destroy Superman: he has synthesized kryptonite; traveled back in time; summoned beings from the fourth dimension; created robots, clones, and genetic monstrosities; allied himself with the alien super-computer android Brainiac; animated kryptonite rocks; detonated H-bombs; and has masqueraded and taken on a number of aliases. Although none of his schemes worked permanently (though one classic non-canonical "imaginary story" from the 1960s called The Death of Superman has Luthor finally killing Superman with Kryptonite after lulling him by pretending to go straight), Luthor's persistence has made him Superman's most troublesome foe.

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Part of the Silver Age Luthor's origin, from Adventure Comics #271. Art by Al Pastino.

In Adventure Comics #271 in 1960 (written by Jerry Siegel), the Silver Age origin of Luthor is first revealed, along with Luthor finally gaining a first name, "Lex." It was revealed that when Luthor was a teenager, his family moved to Smallville, with Lex becoming a large fan of Superboy. In gratitude and to encourage Lex's scientific pursuits, Superboy built for Lex a fully stocked laboratory. There, Lex began an experiment in creating an artificial new form of life, along with a cure for kryptonite poisoning. However, when a fire caught in his lab, Superboy mistakenly used his super-breath to extinguish the flames. This rescue attempt spilled chemicals that caused Luthor to go prematurely bald and destroyed both his kryptonite cure and his artificial life form. Luthor attributed Superboy's actions to jealousy and vowed revenge. First, he tried to show Superboy up with grandiose technological projects to improve the life of Smallville's residents, which time and again went dangerously out of control and required Superboy's intervention. Unwilling to accept responsibility for these accidents, Lex rationalized that Superboy was out to humiliate him and vowed to spend the rest of his life proving to the world he was Superboy's (and later Superman's) superior by eliminating the hero.

This origin first made Luthor's fight with Superman a personal one, giving him a dimension beyond his previous mad scientist archetype and suggesting that if events had unfolded differently, Luthor might have become a more noble person; these elements were played up in various stories in the 1970s and 1980s, particularly in Elliot S. Maggin's text novel Last Son of Krypton.

Though he was a noted villain and an evil mastermind on Earth, Luthor was revered as a hero on the alien world of Lexor, where he used his scientific genius to rediscover the planet's technology and rebuild society for the inhabitants. Luthor used the planet as a base for his operations to strike against Superman using equipment such as the distinctive and flight capable purple and green suit he took to wearing in stories starting in the 1970s. The last such attempt on Lexor destroyed the planet and killed all of its inhabitants, including his wife there. Though aggrieved, Lex refused to accept that he was responsible and blamed Superman.

In Action Comics #544 in 1983, Lex was given a makeover for Superman's 45th anniversary in comics, by gaining a purple-and-green colored battlesuit that gave him the ability to take on Superman singlehandedly.

Superman himself has acknowledged that Luthor is a man of his word who would honor promises he made. Luthor had a younger blond-haired sister, Lena Thorul (shamed by Lex's criminal acts, Lex's parents, Jules and Arlene, disowned him, moved away and changed their name to the anagram "Thorul"), an empath who grew up unaware of her familial connection with the noted villain. Protective of his sister, Luthor had strived to hide his connection and had been assisted towards this end by both Supergirl and Superman.

Modern Luthor

In 1986, John Byrne's "reboot" of Superman's mythos in the limited series The Man of Steel rewrote the character of Lex Luthor from scratch, intending to make him a villain that the 1980s would recognize: a corporate white-collar criminal (the idea was originally suggested by Marv Wolfman). Under other writers, he eventually became a master manipulator operating mainly behind the scenes.

Origins

In the post-Man of Steel mythos, Luthor was born in the Suicide Slum district of Metropolis. In his younger years, Alexander Joseph "Lex" Luthor grew up in a household where his cruel and short-tempered father abused Lex's mother and belittled his son's dreams of leaving the Suicide Slum district for a better life. His only friend was Perry White, who encouraged Lex's dreams of making something of himself.

Lex's big break would come in his early teens, when Lex's parents were killed in a car accident and left Lex with a rather large insurance policy that left the teen incredibly wealthy. Years later, an unauthorized biography would accuse Lex of not only causing the death of his parents but also of obtaining the insurance policy on his parents without their knowledge.

Lex was put into a foster home while he waited until he became of legal age to collect the insurance money. However, Lex found that his foster parents were even worse than his biological parents. Greedy and manipulative, they schemed to find out the location of Lex's money and steal it from him. Shortly after Lex turned the age in which he could have access to his money, he secretly put the money in a savings account with it explicitly stated that only he could withdraw money from the account. When his foster parents found bank documents Lex had hidden from them, Lex's foster father confronted his daughter Lena and demanded that she seduce Lex (who had fallen in love with Lena) into giving her parents the money under the lie that they would use the money to pay for their daughter's college education, which they had no plans on doing.

Lena, who had feelings for Lex, refused and for her trouble was beaten to death by her father. Lex was absent from the home at the time, having been talked into going to a football game by his friend Perry. When Lex returned home, he was heartbroken to find Lena murdered by her father. This event would serve as the turning point for Lex Luthor, who vowed to do whatever it took to gain power and to destroy anyone who got in his way.

Perry White was the first target of Lex's turn to evil. Lex blamed Perry for keeping him from being at the house when Lena died and got his revenge by seducing Perry's wife shortly after their marriage and getting her pregnant with Lex's child. The offspring Jerry White, would later learn of his true parentage during his late teens before being killed by a local streetgang that Jerry had associated with. Years later, Lex would on several occasions purchase ownership of the Daily Planet, much to Perry's shock, and attempt to kill the newspaper out of complete spite for Perry.

Rise to power

There are many stories, or "interpretations" of Lex's fame and fortune. In some instances he was a scientific genius and gained his power by intelligence. Others (more commonly) explain Lex as a rich tycoon.

In the comics series, Lex used his money and natural genius to create a multi-national corporation known as "LexCorp" that would ultimately come to dominate the city of Metropolis. One of his earliest projects was an experimental airplane and other similar technology themed enterprises would be the hallmark of LexCorp's output.

Lex became the most powerful man in Metropolis, both financially and in the world of organized crime. Lex would create havoc on the streets by selling weapons to the gangs of Metropolis and using his primarily female staff of underlings to keep blackmail files on all of the major organized crime groups in the city, so that Lex could use them to further any schemes he had planned. However, this all ended with the arrival of Superman.

Superman

Several months after Superman first appeared on the scene, terrorists attacked a society gala aboard Lex Luthor's yacht. Luthor observed Superman in action and then tried to hire him as a bodyguard after Superman defeated the terrorists. But when Luthor admitted that he'd not only anticipated the attack but also had allowed it to occur in order to witness Superman first hand, Mayor Berkowitz deputized Superman to arrest Luthor for reckless endangerment. Luthor vowed to destroy Superman for this humiliation, and he has since devoted much time and energy to that goal.

Luthor was a man driven to be the best, having fought his way up from lowly beginnings by his own (dubious) efforts, and was resentful of how Superman was given his powers by random fate of birth. Superman survived subsequent attempts Luthor made on his life, but had never been able to prove Luthor's role in the attacks.

Cancer and cloning

Cover art to Supergirl/Lex Luthor Special #1, by Kerry Gammill.

Luthor soon acquired the only sample of kryptonite on Earth from the Kryptonite-powered cyborg Metallo, whom LexCorp abducted just before Metallo could succeed in killing Superman. Fashioning a ring from the alien ore deadly to Superman, Luthor began wearing it constantly to ward off his enemy. Unfortunately, Luthor suffered from a severe cancer in the 1990s, caused by long-term radiation exposure to his kryptonite ring. (Before Man of Steel, kryptonite exposure had not been thought to be harmful to non-Kryptonian life forms).

Luthor's hand had to be amputated to prevent the cancer's spread, but unfortunately by then it had already metastasized; it was eventually determined that the disease was terminal. Luthor faked his own death shortly afterward by taking his personally designed jet, the Lexwing, on a proposed trip around the world and crashing it in some mountains, using this as cover for the transplant of his brain into a healthy clone of himself which he then passed off as his hitherto unknown, illegitimate Australian son and heir, Lex Luthor II; his deception helped by his new body having a full head of red hair and a beard.

Luthor used his new identity as his own son to seduce Supergirl and continue to torment Superman from the shadows. However everything quickly fell apart, when Luthor's new clone body began to deteriorate and age at a rapid rate (his being one of many clones that were becoming ill at the time). This caused Luthor to begin to slip, as Lois Lane discovered proof that Lex Luthor had years earlier murdered a female LexCorp employee and framed an innocent man for the murder. This led Lois to find out the truth about Lex faking his death and being his own son, which caused Luthor to systematically destroy Lois' life and have her fired from the Daily Planet. Lois fought back and with help from Superman, exposed the truth about Lex Luthor, his faked death, and his evil criminal activities to the public. Luthor, right before his body became so old that he couldn't move or communicate, activated a "Doomsday Plan" to destroy Metropolis. The city was burned to the ground and thousands killed as Luthor became a permanent prisoner in his cloned body. However, aid would come in the form of the demon Neron; Luthor promptly sold his soul in exchange for Neron restoring his body to perfect health. Returning to a rebuilt Metropolis, Luthor turned himself over to the police and was put on trial, where he was acquitted of all crimes when Luthor claimed to have been kidnapped by renegade scientists who replaced him with a clone, who was responsible for all the crimes he was charged with.

Philanthropist

Lex Luthor had cultivated a popular image as a great philanthropist. He had been instrumental in reverse-engineering alien technology for use in general consumer goods, upgrading Metropolis into a true "city of tomorrow." Luthor also played an instrumental role in assisting the Justice League in recharging the sun during the Final Night storyline. Later, when Gotham City was destroyed by an earthquake and then abandoned by the American government in the late 1990s, it was LexCorp that took up the massive task of rebuilding the city.

Love and marriage

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Lex Luthor and the Contessa. Art by Stuart Immonen.

Despite his hatred for Lois Lane for temporarily bringing down his evil criminal empire, Lex Luthor has an unspoken love for her. On several occasions Luthor has commented that had Superman not arrived in Metropolis, Lex would have used his time and energy instead to romantically pursue Lois and marry her.

The post-Crisis Lex Luthor has been married eight times, though the first seven marriages occurred off-panel in Luthor's past. While his previous seven marriages were hinted to have been based on love (or as close to the concept of love as Lex Luthor understands it) Luthor's eighth marriage to Contessa Erica Alexandra Del Portenza (or "The Contessa" as the characters call her) was a marriage that was based on mutual manipulation and greed.

The Contessa had bought controlling interest in LexCorp after Luthor was exposed as evil, forcing Lex into a marriage with her in order to regain control over the company. The marriage was doomed from the beginning as the two fought constantly and never loved each other. The Contessa quickly became pregnant with Lex's child and began using the unborn child to dominate Lex into doing her bidding. Luthor's response to Contessa's actions was to use her desire to be unconscious during child birth to lock her in the basement of his corporate headquarters in a permanently drugged unconscious state.

Luthor took over as a single father to his daughter (named Lena after his childhood sweetheart) and vowed never to marry again, stating that he wanted to never have to share his daughter's love with anyone else. Contessa later escaped, but Luthor had her killed with a barrage of missiles.

Cover to Lex 2000 #1, featuring Lex Luthor as president of the United States. Art by Glen Orbik.

President of the United States

Lex became the 43rd president of the United States in 2000, winning the election on a platform of promoting technological progress (his first action as president was to take a proposed moratorium on fossil-based fuels to U.S. Congress in hopes of putting "a flying car in every garage").

Despite Luthor's more villainous traits, he was assisted by the extreme unpopularity of the previous administration due to its mishandling of the Gotham City earthquake crisis. Ironically, Batman would ultimately learn that Luthor was involved in the mishandling of the entire Gotham City rebuilding process, resulting with Bruce severing all military contract ties between the U.S. government and his company Wayne Enterprises in protest of Lex Luthor's election as President. Luthor responded in kind by ordering the murder of Wayne's lover Vesper Fairchild and framing Bruce Wayne for the murder (although the frame was only truly successful due to Luthor hiring, by sheer coincidence, the assassin David Cain, who was aware of Batman's true identity and thus made it appear to the Bat-family that Wayne had murdered Fairchild after she had discovered he was Batman).

An early triumph of his political career was the Our Worlds At War crisis, in which he coordinated the U.S. Army, Earth's superheroes and a number of untrustworthy alien forces to battle the story's villain, Imperiex. However, as it would later be revealed, Lex knew about the alien invasion in advance and did nothing to alert Earth's heroes to it.

Discovering Superman's secret identity

Lex Luthor finally figured out Superman's secret identity in 2002, when a lowly scientist was able to get a meeting with Lex and reveal top secret government documents showing the rocket containing baby Superman crashing near the farm of Martha and Jonathan Kent (Ironically, one of Luthor's employees had once managed to work out that Clark Kent and Superman were the same person shortly after their vendetta began, but Luthor rejected it at the time because he believed that someone as powerful as Superman would never pretend to be someone as insignificant as Clark). Killing the scientist, Lex surprisingly decided to keep the knowledge a secret even as Clark Kent took the fall for Lois publishing proof that Lex Luthor knew of the alien invasion of "Our Worlds At War" but had opted not to make any defensive plans to save the people of Kansas from attack. Clark was fired from the Daily Planet as a result of the flap, when another Superman villain Manchester Black used his telepathic powers on an unknowing Lex to allow him to pass an assortment of lie detector tests (including Wonder Woman's lasso of truth) to prove that Lois and Clark's story was a lie. When Manchester Black tried to kill Superman and his friends and family members, Luthor surprisingly came to Superman's aid when Black tried to kill Lois. In the end, Manchester Black was defeated and as revenge for Lex helping Superman defeat him, Black erased all knowledge that Clark Kent was Superman from Lex's mind before taking his own life.

Fall from power

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Cover to Superman/Batman #6, featuring Lex Luthor in an Apokoliptian battlesuit, reminiscent of his battlesuit from 1983's Action Comics #544. Art by Ed McGuinness.

In 2004, Luthor once again overplayed his hand, as his success at framing Bruce Wayne for the murder of Vesper Fairchild caused him to get arrogant. In an attempt to blame Superman for a kryptonite meteor approaching the Earth, he instead raised questions about himself as Superman and Batman uncovered a plot of Luthor's to further torment Batman that involved tricking Batman into thinking that the Superman villain Metallo was the man who killed Batman's parents. In desperation, he used a variant combination of the "super-steroid" Venom (a steroid mainly used by Batman villain Bane), liquid synthetic green kryptonite, and an Apokaliptian battlesuit to battle Superman directly. Unfortunately, the madness that is a side effect of Venom took hold, and he revealed his true colors during the battle. The final straw was the revelation that Talia Head, the acting CEO of LexCorp, had sold all the company assets to the Wayne Foundation. He has since gone underground, leaving the presidency to his vice president, Pete Ross. Ross later resigned, however, leaving the presidency to a man named Jonathan Horne.

Retcons and revisions

The 2004 12-issue limited series Superman: Birthright once again altered aspects of Luthor's history, such as Luthor's youth in Metropolis and his first encounter with Superman, in favor of introducing elements from the 2001 television series Smallville. Among the elements of Smallville introduced into the comics' canon include Lex's problematic relationship with his wealthy father, Lionel Luthor. Birthright also reintroduced the notion of Lex spending a portion of his youth in Smallville, as well as befriending Clark Kent.

These retcons were controversial, especially with series writer Mark Waid. According to Waid, the editorial staff at DC forced him to use the Smallville version of Luthor's origin. Waid, a longtime and extremely vocal critic of the 1986 Superman reboot, had originally planned to use Birthright to purge the Byrne version of Lex Luthor's origin from canon. DC, aware of the controversy involving Waid's outspoken criticism, opted instead to dictate to Waid that any changes made to Lex's character should be done to make him more in line with the Smallville version of Lex Luthor. It has been alleged that Waid initially refused to go along with such a compromise, resulting in DC Comics threatening to abort the entire project before Waid gave in into DC's requests. Although the changes in Lex's character and background were slow to appear in other titles, writers Geoff Johns and Mark Verheiden have referred to Lex's time in Smallville, reinforcing Birthright's canonical status.

It was recently revealed that as a result of Superboy-Prime's attempts to escape reality, his assault on the border between worlds created ripples that rewrote history, causing various revisions of events to occur; one of these revisions was the changing of Luthor's origin from the Man of Steel version to the Birthright version.

2005 saw the release of the limited series Lex Luthor: Man of Steel, which showed the motivation behind Luthor's distrust of Superman. (Events in this series that contradict current comics, particularly Lex Luthor's position as a legitimate businessman, make it difficult to place in context of recent continuity.)

Infinite Crisis

The Insiders

Recently the situation involving Lex Luthor has taken a shocking twist. Lex Luthor has recently gone into hiding, preparing to try and activate mind control programming inside the brain of the current Superboy Conner Kent (created using Lex's DNA) to help him gain revenge against Earth's mightiest heroes. He also was revealed to have orchestrated, with help from the newly created robotic Brainiac, the murder of Teen Titan member Donna Troy, who was later reborn as one of the Titans of Myth, and is destined to play a critical role in the Infinite Crisis. He's also been carefully surveilling the new Supergirl, but when he tried to split her personalities using Black Kryptonite, the "evil" incarnation of Kara Zor-el rebelled and Luthor's plans backfired.

The New Secret Society

With the real Lex Luthor acting in secret, the return of the son of the Earth-Three Lex Luthor, Alexander Luthor, Jr. has created havoc for the DC Universe. Assuming the Post-Crisis Lex Luthor's identity, Alexander has recently begun an elaborate scheme with help from the Earth-Prime Superboy. Alexander told Kal-L, the Earth-Two Superman that he wishes to restore his original universe (the world of DC Comics' Golden Age), but his intentions seem much more sinister, as he told Superboy-Prime would help them "whether [he] likes it or not".

As one of the premier reformers of "The Society", Alex Luthor has recruited Black Adam, Doctor Psycho, Calculator, Talia Head, and Deathstroke as his inner circle. With the new knowledge of Doctor Light's brainwashing, the new Society exploited the villain community's fear of similar mind-wipes at the hands of the Justice League to recruit a literal army of villains under the guise of creating their own "mind-wipe" device designed to erase the memories of Earth's heroes as payback. However, this is just another cover for his even darker scheme involving the kidnapping heroes, each representing alternate earths, to power the giant tower being used to perform a major act of alteration to reality. It is not yet clear whether Alex's goal is the restoration of the entire multiverse, the transformation of the DC Universe into a single universe resembling one of the pre-Crisis Earths (as he told the Golden Age Superman), or something else even more complex or dangerous entirely.

Not one to sit back and watch his identity be usurped, Lex Luthor took the identity of Mockingbird and formed a super-villain version of the Secret Six, whose purpose was to subvert the Society. He swore vengeance against the impostor for taking his place.

Crisis

Main article: Infinite Crisis

In Infinite Crisis #3, Lex confronted Alex Luthor after tailing him for several months. Alex's identity was exposed to Lex during the following fight. Alex and Superboy-Prime managed to destroy his battlesuit, but Lex escaped via short-range teleporter. Lex also discovered that close proximity with Alex's theta brainwaves disrupted his thought process.

Luthor returned in the pages of Infinite Crisis #5, where he visited Conner Kent (in recovery at Titans Tower). Luthor gave words of vengeance against Alex Luthor and Superboy-Prime, and slipped into Conner's pants a crystal shard (collected in Infinite Crisis #3) showing the location of Alexander's Arctic Fortress. Conner later went to Nightwing and the two agreed to stop Alexander. At the end of Infinite Crisis #7, Lex Luthor oversees the Joker's execution of Alexander.

Lex had shown a great deal—at least by his standards—of compassion for Conner Kent; it seemed by watching Superboy throughout the course of his short life, Lex came to see Conner as his son. When Conner died during the Crisis, Lex visited his memorial statue in Metropolis and placed flowers there.

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Luthor, from Action Comics #837 (May 2006). Art by Peter Woods.

One Year Later

One year after the events of Infinite Crisis, Luthor has just been cleared from over 120 criminal counts ranging from malfeasance to first-degree murder, only to find that he's now unpopular with the public and, thanks to the machinations of Doctor Sivana, is being bought out of LexCorp. He blames Clark Kent for writing articles chronicling his downfall, and pledges vengeance on Metropolis. This series of events seem to be bringing him closer to his "wealthy evil scientist" roots. He is operating out of underground labs in the lead-lined sewer system installed by Lexcorp. He has allied himself with the mysterious new Toyman and has apparently killed Metallo by ripping out his Kryptonite heart. After the destruction of Superman's arctic Fortress, he recovered the sunstone, which has the word "doomsday" engraved upon it in the Kryptonian language. Luthor has recently taken the Kryptonite Man hostage and is using him as a power source.

Earth-Three

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Alexander Luthor of Earth-Three, reacting to the death of Superwoman, from Crisis on Infinite Earths #1 (April 1985). Art by George Perez.

In much the same way that Superman and other heroes have evil analogs on the parallel world of Earth-Three, Luthor had a heroic counterpart there. Alexander Luthor was the only superhero in that world's history, and reluctantly decided to adopt a heroic identity to combat his world's analog of the Justice League, the evil Crime Syndicate of America. This version, who eventually married the Lois Lane of Earth-Three, died in Crisis on Infinite Earths, but was survived by their son, Alexander Luthor, Jr.

In the late 1990s JLA: Earth 2 graphic novel, an updated version of Earth-Three and its version of Luthor were reintroduced to the post-Crisis DC Universe. The physical appearance of this Lex resembles the Pre-Crisis Earth-One version from 1983s Action Comics (down to the battlesuit he wears). In this version of events, the heroic Luthor travelled from his Earth (located in an anti-matter universe rather than an alternate positive one) to the mainstream DC Earth, and asked the Justice League to help him rebuild his world. However, since "evil always wins" in this alternate world, the attempt failed, and Luthor resigned himself to being the only noble character on his Earth until he formed the Justice Underground.

In other media

Atom Man Vs. Superman

Luthor was revealed to be the master villain in the second Superman serial, 1950's Atom Man Vs. Superman. Luthor was played by Lyle Talbot.

Christopher Reeve's Superman films

Actor Gene Hackman played the role of Lex Luthor in the 1978 movie Superman, and in two of its three sequels (Superman II and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace). Hackman's portrayal of Luthor is more lighthearted and comical. More of a conman hustler than a scientific genius, his depiction borrows significantly from another DC Comics character, Funky Flashman. This is evident by the fact that this Luthor had a dim-witted sidekick named Otis (much like Flashman's Houseroy), wears a hairpiece to cover his baldness, promotes himself with hyperbole, and is somewhat cowardly when he can't talk his way out of trouble.

Superboy

In the late 1980s and early 1990s syndicated television show Superboy, Luthor began as merely a scheming super-intelligent college student, played by Scott Wells. At the beginning of the second season, Luthor's personality took a dark turn as he killed a businessman and tried, unsuccessfully, to take his place via plastic surgery. This version was played by Sherman Howard. Howard's portrayal of Luthor harkened back to the mad scientist Luthor of the comics. It was later revealed that Luthor murdered his abusive parents in order to protect his sister Lena, whom he loved more than anything in the world. Her apparent death caused him to go insane and plan the destruction of all life, with only robot duplicates of himself and his sister remaining. It turned out that she had faked her death because she was ashamed of Luthor's notoriety as an evil criminal and wanted to be free of him. This caused him to reject her, although the robot duplicate of himself tried desperately to right everything in Lena's eyes.

Ruby-Spears animated series

In the short-lived 1988 animated series produced by Ruby-Spears Enterprises, Luthor was shown as an evil businessman for the first time in other media. He is voiced by Michael Bell.

Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman

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John Shea as Lex Luthor in the 1990s series Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.

In the television series Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993–1997), Lex Luthor is played by actor John Shea. Clark Kent/Superman spent a good deal of the first season trying to prove that Luthor was corrupt, while Luthor tried to find Superman's weakness. At the end of season 1, just as Lex was about to marry Lois Lane, the truth about Luthor's evil nature was revealed and Luthor took his own life to avoid going to jail. Later in the series, Luthor was brought back from the dead by a devoted scientist (played by Denise Crosby). As a side effect of his resurrection, Luthor lost his hair, thus bringing him in line with the other incarnations of the always-bald Lex Luthor. This time, Superman prevented Lex from "avoiding justice" by taking his own life again, and sent him to prison. He later escaped through a complicated plot involving a clone of the President of the United States, discovered Superman's secret identity, and was killed (for good this time).

"DC Animated Universe"

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Luthor, in the 1990s cartoon Superman: The Animated Series.

Superman: The Animated Series

In the 1990s cartoon Superman: The Animated Series and the subsequent Justice League animated series, Luthor was voiced by actor Clancy Brown of Highlander and Buckaroo Banzai fame (Brown originally auditioned for the role of Superman/Clark Kent, but that part went to Tim Daly instead). Luthor in this version was again a corrupt businessman, and again his hatred of Superman ultimately brought down his empire. This version of Luthor was reportedly inspired by Telly Savalas's interpretation of Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

Justice League

After he was revealed as a criminal and lost his business empire (in the first season of Justice League), his characterization turned more toward the original conception of the character as a criminal genius obsessed with destroying Superman. Later, Luthor's character turned in an opposite way of his comics counterpart; he was pardoned after helping the Justice League defeat their alternate evil counterparts, the Justice Lords, with a power disruptor and implied to the press that he was thinking of going into politics.

Justice League Unlimited

In the second season of Justice League Unlimited, Luthor announced he was running for President of the United States. It was later revealed to be a ruse to enrage Superman. Luthor was later revealed to be financially backing Project Cadmus, a shadow government organization devoted to stopping the League if they ever turned on the earth. Luthor later betrayed them, attempting to hi-jack the League's space-based laser to take out Cadmus. While trying to place his mind in a duplicate of A.M.A.Z.O., he was thwarted by the League. At this point, it was revealed that Brainiac had possessed Luthor, secretly controlling his actions. After the two merged into a more complete being using alien nanotechnology, Luthor and Brainiac attempted to destroy the world but were stopped by The Flash.

Luthor returned later to join the Legion of Doom, but, ironically, not as the leader (Gorilla Grodd was the leader). Luthor agreed to join in order to obtain the last remaining piece of Brainiac, which Grodd has in his possession. Luthor is obsessed with rebuilding Brainiac, as what is left of him is inhabiting Luthor's mind, giving him a sort of dissociative identity disorder. It is unclear to the viewer, however, if Brainiac really exists and inhabits his mind or if he is simply a mad figment of his imagination. Later on, using the failure of Grodd's silly masterplan to turn all humans into apes as pretext, Lex Luthor shot Gorilla Grodd and took over as leader, and imprisons Grodd.

After taking over as leader of the Legion, Luthor went back to obsession of trying resurrect Brainiac. Using the power of the Legion headquarters, Luthor spent tireless hours trying to bring a fragment of Brainiac back online. After nearly destroying the power supply, Luthor had Tala use her magic to garner any information from the fragment. Tala shows Luthor a vision of Brainiac's base (seen in the episode "Twilight") before its destruction and Luthor reconfigures the Legion base into a spaceship with hyperspace capability.

During the journey to the remnants of Brainiac's base, Tala frees Gorilla Grodd and he mounts an insurrection against Luthor with fellow Legion members. The battle caps off with Luthor fighting Grodd in hand-to-hand combat. Just as Grodd moves to use is his telepathic power on Luthor, Luthor uses his belt to take over Grodd's mind. Afterwards, Luthor forces Grood into an airlock and jettisons him into space.

The Legion, back under Luthor's power, returns to their task of resurrecting Brainiac. Luthor hooks Tala up to a machine, reminiscent of Brainiac's machine used against Superman, to transmutate remnants of Brainiac's base back into a working body of Brainiac. Before Luthor begins the process, Metron stops time and appears to him warning that he may be unleashing something that will affect the past, present and future. Luthor, still obsessed with becoming a god, ignores him and the process begins.

However, although the process is successful, Luthor ends up resurrecting Darkseid, who attempts to destroy the Legion. The remnants of the Legion, under Luthor, return to the Watchtower and appeal to the Justice League for aid. With the aid of the New God Metron, Luthor manages to acquire the Anti-Life Equation long sought by Darkseid, and uses it on the lord of Apokolips, sacrificing his own life in the process. However, as Batman is skeptical of his death, and Luthor is not known for his altruism, it is likely that he is still very much alive.

Luthor is set to make his return to the DCAU in the upcomming direct to video release Superman: Brainiac Attacks which may resolve the Brainiac/Lex story arc started in JLU.

The Life and Times of Juniper Lee

A villain named Lex Luthor, also voiced by Clancy Brown, appeared on The Life and Times of Juniper Lee. Show creator Judd Winick is a DC Comics writer so the name is assumed not to be a coincidence.

Smallville

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Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor in the 2000s series Smallville.

The 2000s television series Smallville features a Lex Luthor, played by Michael Rosenbaum, whose history echoes many previous versions of the character, though this version of Lex has not yet (as of December 2005) become a bona fide villain. In this series, the character's full name is Alexander Luthor. In episodes having to do with Lex's childhood, it has been noticed that the women that raised Lex called him Alexander, including his mother Lillian Luthor (in the season 3 episode "Memoria") and his nanny (who appeared, dying of cancer, late in the first season). As in the Silver Age, Lex is one of teenaged Clark Kent's closest friends. This Lex, however, is heir to his father's fortune, once again invoking the corrupt businessman version of the character. (Much about the father, Lionel Luthor, is clearly based on the actions and life of the comic-book Lex Luthor.) As a young boy, Lex was caught up in the meteor shower which brought baby Kal-El's rocket ship to Earth from Krypton. The meteor's impact caused Lex to lose his hair. (Clark being indirectly responsible for Lex's hair loss is similar to the Silver Age comic mythos.) When Clark was a teenager, and still learning how to deal with his emerging superpowers, he rescued Lex when Lex's car crashed through a bridge rail and plunged into water below. The two bonded, and Lex, living in Smallville as he ran his father's local business interests, considered Clark a "little brother." However, Lex also developed a particular interest in Clark's mysterious background and began looking into it, which has often caused rifts in his relationship with Clark. More recently, the series has emphasized Lex's dark side as he slowly descends to evil. The depiction of the inevitable corruption of Lex and the development of his future enmity with Clark is a major plot arc of the series. It has also been revealed that due to his exposure to either Kal-El's ship or to the abundant kryptonite in the Smallville area, Lex possesses a preternatualy strong immune system.
Smallville also established a new reason for Lex's (future) hatred of Superman, which has been to some extent adopted into comics continuity. In the series, there is a Native American legend that a man with superhuman powers named Naman (Superman) would protect the Earth, and that his arch-nemesis Sageeth would start out as his friend (Luthor). In one episode, Lex gave his version of the story, and explained that Sageeth would have to be brave to confront someone like Naman, who if left unchecked could become a tyrant and enslave the world. Brian Azzarello's comic limited series Lex Luthor: Man of Steel subsequently incorporated a similar motivation for Luthor. Some fans consider this motivation (in which Luthor sees his opposition to Superman as heroic) to be more logical and three-dimensional than the explanations given in the original comics (both pre- and post-Crisis).

In season 5, Lex Luthor was in the race to be a Kansas state senator, competing for the seat against Jonathan Kent. After Jonathan won the seat, he died shortly thereafter in a confrontation with Lex's father, Lionel. The senate seat was offered to Jonathan's wife, Martha Kent who has taken the senate spot. It has also been revealed (through a dream Lex has when in a coma and subtly built up throughtout all five seasons) that Lex is in love with Clark's current love interest, Lana Lang. Now that Clark and Lana have separated, it is possible Lex may pursue her and this could lead to another explanation of a future final rift between Lex and Clark. Recently, Lex's romantic feelings for Lana were returned. The two shared a passionate kiss by the fire in the Luthor mansion, to the shock of many viewers. They are currently dating, much to Clark's alarm.

Lex entered into a brief alliance with Brainiac. Believing he was helping the US Government to create a cure for an alien virus, Lex and LuthorCorp were instead making a chemical that would allow near superhuman abilities to be transferred into a human. After it's creation, Brainiac injected Lex with the chemical compound and he started developing Kryptonian powers similar to Clark. He was taken aboard Brainiac's ship and reborn to serve as the vessel for General Zod's consciousness. After a battle with Clark in the Kent's Barn, Lex's body was taken from him and his mind was replaced by that of General Zod.
He can also speak fluent Japanese.

Superman Returns

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Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor in the upcoming 2006 film Superman Returns.

In the film Superman Returns, due for release in 2006, Luthor will be played by two-time Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey. The movie will be set after Superman II. Spacey's characterization will be a Lex Luthor looking for revenge on Superman for putting him in jail. Spacey described his Luthor as a very dark and bitter man.

Full name

Luthor's full first name has over the years been variously spelled as Alexis, Alexei, and Alexander (currently his official first name), but originally "Lex" was not intended to be short for anything. In Latin, the name "Lex" translates roughly to "law."

In Smallville, his full name is Alexander, after Alexander the Great, the historical general whom Lionel Luthor most admires and encourages his son to pattern himself after.

Cultural references

• In the sitcom Seinfeld, a "Luthor" designates a person's rival or nemesis, in one of the many references to the Superman mythos in the series. For instance, Jerry’s neighbor Newman was his "Luthor".

• On the television series Robot Chicken, which uses action figures and other toys to create stop motion animation shorts, a Lex Luthor figure (customized to resemble the "businessman" incarnation of Luthor) was featured as part of a carpool of villains (along with 1980's toy/cartoon villains Skeletor, Cobra Commander, and Mumm-Ra the Ever-Living). All the villains were frustrated by their being trapped in slow-moving rush hour traffic, Luthor complaining in particular that he "has a teleporter" and doesn't need to ride in a carpool; Mumm-Ra, sitting next to Luthor in the back seat, points out, "And yet, you're still here", and the others in the car groan and act as if they've heard Luthor's "teleporter" claim many times before. Luthor then notices a pair of children in an adjacent car who are making faces at him; he responds by returning the favor, and after a few exchanges, the children duck out of sight. Luthor smugly assumes that he had frightened the children off, only to see them pop back up with a handwritten sign reading, "You Smell". Luthor angrily responds by drawing a handgun and firing at their car; fortunately for the children, either Luthor's aim is poor or he had an inexplicable moment of mercy--he only shot the tires of the children's car (causing Mumm-Ra to comment, "You missed the kids"). In the end, Luthor's frustration causes him to actually use his teleporter (to the surprise of his travelling companions), only to find himself transported into the car with the aforementioned children, who taunt him relentlessly about his baldness.

• Professional Wrestler Kurt Angle has stated in many interviews he based his performance as Evil General Manager on Lex Luthor.

External links

• Luthor Wins! - announcement of Lex Luthor's victory in the 2000 Presidential election, on the official DC Comics site
• The Captain's Unofficial Justice League Homepage:Lex Luthor
• Supermanica: Lex Luthor Supermanica entry on the Pre-Crisis Lex Luthor
• Newsarama: Journey into Comics In Defense of Luthor
• The Remaking of Lex Luthor From the Quarter Bin
• Secret Files Entry for Lex Luthor from the official DC Comics website. (Requires Adobe Acrobat)