Villain Profile: Lex Luthor

I think it’s time for another Theme Week. I seem to do a lot of these. But that’s to be expected with that whole “four weeks in a month” set up that we have. For this Theme Week I’ll be focusing on this phrase “Bring on the Bad Guys.” For the next seven posts I’ll be focusing on the biggest baddies of the DC universe. No, I will not be doing repeats, so we’re not seeing Joker again. The other major rule I’m enacting for this one is that only one supervillain per superhero. To do otherwise would pretty much guarantee that this thing would be dominated by Batman’s baddies. Let’s get to it.

Be wary when he smiles, he's usually plotting evil when he does.

I’ve mentioned this in my Batgirl and Supergirl profiles, but one of the hardest things about doing character profiles for DC is they have on more than one occasion completely rewritten characters. Sure, Marvel has done this a few times as well, but they do seem to try to keep the broadest strokes intact, (Spider-man being indirectly responsible for Uncle Ben’s death, Captain America freezing and being thawed in modern times, Daredevil getting chemical’s in his eyes that take his sight but enhance his other sense). The major rewrite are especially prevalent for Superman’s most well-known foe, Lex Luthor. He's been a crazed scientist, corrupt business man, a normal scientist turned evil genius, friend turned enemy of Superman, and various combinations of the previously mentioned origin stories. I’ll be going with the modern version, for simplicities sake.

Alexander “Lex” Luthor was born in Suicide Slum, the most poverty stricken district of Kansa’s version of New York, Metropolis. His parents were abusive and more than likely alcoholics. Lex put up with this until he was teenager. He took out a very large insurance policy out on his parents, and then blew up their apartment. Even at a young age Lex was one of those super genius types that could get away with murder. He made sure his sister was taken care of and took the rest of the insurance money to found his company, the o so humbly named LexCorp. LexCorp quickly became one of the largest multi-national corporations in the world, due in no small part to its founder’s brilliant minds and less than legal practices, and just as quickly formed a stranglehold on Metropolis. Lex, being well aware of the power of the press, bought out nearly all of the media corporations in Metropolis and used them to reinforce his public image as a wealthy benefactor and God’s gift to Metropolis. He basically turned crime in Metropolis into a well-oiled machine, he’d wreak havoc on the streets by selling weapons to local gangs (off the books of course), then sell better weapons and armor to the local police, and all the while having his media holdings churn out all the good works LexCorp was doing in Metropolis. He kept the major crime bosses from spilling the beans on his dirty deals with the help of very extensive blackmail files and a large group of female underlings that dealt with them. Hey, it might be sexist to point out, but it’s a pretty well-known fact that a beautiful woman is all that’s needed to make a smart man stupid. The one major holdout to Lex’s control of Metropolis was the Daily Planet newspaper and its outspoken Editor-In-Chief, Perry White. White was an outspoken critic of LexCorp and released an editorial condemning the company signed by White himself. Perry White is basically the polar opposite of Spider-Man’s big time Editor, J. Jonah Jameson. But, given Luthor’s pull in Metropolis, White’s newspaper was nearly bankrupt. Yep, things were looking pretty good for Lex Luthor; that is until a certain bespectacled reporter arrived at the Daily Planet, and a certain Big Blue Boy scout flew into town.

Would it kill them to show the War Suit
in a few live action versions?

Superman, in a span of a few months, took down several of Luthor’s off the books partners, and set about cleaning up Metropolis. Luthor was mildly annoyed by these setbacks, until a gala aboard one of his yachts. A terrorist group attacked the yacht, but were quickly dispatched by Superman. Lex approached Superman and offered him a very hefty sum for the Kryptonian’s services as bodyguard. He also let slip that he knew that this group was going to try something, but still let everything occur to see Superman in action. Superman was deputized by the Mayor, whom overheard the conversation, and arrested Luthor on the spot. Lex avoided jail thanks to a few legal technicalities, but the humiliation he’d felt from the event branded itself in his mind. He swore vengeance on Superman, for his hand in Luthor’s first public fall from grace. No, that’s not the right word, it’s more of a stumble from grace.

To see his vengeance through, Lex began engineering various means to destroy Superman. We’ll cover the big three. One, he developed the energy absorbing chemicals that transformed the hapless janitor Rudy Jones into the new Parasite. Two, he attempted to clone Superman to create the perfect match for the alien hero. Unfortunately for LexCorp, Kryptonian DNA is incredibly complex and very difficult for modern science and technology to break down and replicated. They did get a clone, but this copy suffered from several severe physical and mental deformities. Thus Bizarro Superman was born. Finally, Luthor commissioned the creation of the cyborg warrior Metallo. When it was discovered that the alien green rock that powered Metallo was kryptonite and thus detrimental to Superman’s health, Lex ripped the heart out of Metallo and had it fashioned into a signet ring that he wore at all times. Now, Lex is considered to be one of the smartest people in the DC Universe. Despite this intelligence, he can be incredibly stupid. Like how he ignores a computer analysis that determined the Clark Kent and Superman are in fact the same person, because he “knew” that someone as powerful as Superman wouldn’t be content living a normal life. Idiot.

The one Luthor I felt genuinely sorry for.

Another example of Lex Luthor’s more idiotic decisions was to wear a ring composed of an alien radioactive substance without properly testing its effects on humans. While Kryptonite’s radiation is initially believed to be benign to humans, it’s later discovered to induce cancer in individuals after long term exposure. And not a manageable, slow moving cancer, either. They needed to amputate his hand to try to keep the cancer from spreading, but it was already too late. Lex was terminally ill. Not being one to just give up when conventional medicine failed, Lex came up with a much more insane way to survive. He faked his death by crashing an experimental jet in the Andes Mountains. While the world thought him dead, Luthor had LexCorp scientists remove his brain from his cancer ridden body and clone a new body around it. It’s a comic book story, roll with it. After getting a new, younger body, Lex created fake documents, creating the identity of Alexander Luthor II, his illegitimate son that had been raised in secret in Australia. A faked accent, tan, and real hair helped sell the lie. So Lex inherited LexCorp from himself, and seduced a Supergirl. Not Clark’s cousin, this one is a clone of Superman’s first love Lana Lang that was enhanced with Kryptonian DNA. Again, Comic, Roll with it. Things were looking up again for Lex Luthor, until his new body kept aging. What, a rapidly grown artificial body ages much faster than a “natural” human body? Who knew? Literally every Science Fiction story that has used this plot point.

Lex ages to the point where he’s so incredibly old that he can’t even move his eyelids. He’s left a prisoner in his own body; that is until he has some demonic intervention. Neron, a powerful Demon Lord of the DC Universe, offers to heal Luthor and restore his youth in exchange for his soul. Lex agreed, because he doesn’t believe in souls. Okay, that’s just idiotic. I can understand someone not believing in a soul without proof, but you have an honest to God Demon standing in your hospital bed. That’s like someone denying the world is round after having orbited around the Earth. Just stupid. Luthor’s body is restored, he turns himself in, but is quickly acquitted of all charges. Apparently he blamed his evil actions on Cadmus Labs and an alleged clone that the lab created. I guess he failed to mention his actual brain was in the body.

Didn't mention him in here, but got to give props to the original
Lex Luthor, Gene Hackman.

Luthor goes onto run for and win the Presidency of the United States, but is later impeached after his many illegal actions are uncovered by Superman, Batman and their allies. He’s later instrumental in the Blackest Night story, where people around the world are being resurrected as zombie Black Lanterns. Fearing that all of the people he’d killed in his rise to power would be resurrected and come after him, Luthor sequester himself. This turned out to be the case, as a small army of Black Lanterns, led by his own father, attacked his safe house. He was saved after being deputized as an Orange Lantern. He joins with other deputized heroes and villains to fight off the Black Lanterns. This group consists of himself for the Orange light of Greed, Scarecrow for the Yellow light of Fear, Queen Mera of Atlantis’ for the Red light of Rage, Wonder Woman for the Violet light of Love, The Flash (Barry Allen) for the Blue light of Hope, and The Atom for the Indigo light of Compassion. They and the other surviving heroes beat back Nekron and the Black Lanterns. If only just barely. Lex did attempt to steal the other rings, but is thwarted. Can’t blame a crook for trying. Lex has been and continues to be one of the most dangerous men of the DC Universe.

Lex Luthor has proved over the years to be the smartest human of the DC Universe. He’s mastered just about every form of scientific knowledge, from biology to trans-dimensional travel. He considers his only intellectual equal to be Brainiac. The scary thing is, that’s probably true. He’s designed several incredibly powerful battlesuits, each using weaponized Kryptonite to give him an edge over Superman. He’s also used a kryptonite ring to give him a permanent field of protection against superman, though he abandoned this tactic after the whole cancer debacle.

Lex Luthor is Superman’s most well-known and recurring supervillain. Since his creation, I believe that he’s appeared in just about every Superman related series. As such, I’ll only cover the ones I know really well in this post.

It'll be interesting to see how this goes.

Lex Luthor was one of the primary, and most recurring, antagonists of Superman: The Animated Series. He’s voiced by Clancy Brown, the chief guard from the Shawshank Redemption, who holds the record for portraying Lex. He’s introduced in the second episode of the series, where he orchestrates the theft of his prototype Lex-o-suit. (Think any generic big scary robot suit). By the end of the episode Superman knows Lex was behind it, but didn’t have proof. Which sets up their relationship for the rest of the series, Lex does something illegal, Superman stops it, but can never personally connect Luthor to the caper. He continues on into the Justice League cartoons, which cover both his bid for presidency, and his joining the Secret Society. For the final season of Justice League Unlimited it becomes his ambition to resurrect and again fuse with Brainiac. This, instead, leads to the rebirth of Darkseid. While the heroes and villains of the world fight Darkseid’s army Luthor travels to “The Source” with an alien known as Metron. In the Source, he gets his hands on the Anti-Life Equation. Luthor then uses said equation to seemingly destroy himself and Darkseid. But had the series continued, they’d probably be back.

He was portrayed by Michael Rosenbaum in Smallville. Considering he was a primary character for the first seven seasons, I’ll just give you the big picture. Lex Luthor is introduced as the son of wealthy industrialist Lionel Luthor. He was sent to the failing Smallville LuthorCorp plant by his father. While there, he drives too fast down a stretch of high way and collides with a young Clark Kent who was walking by. Clark, using his super strength, saves them both. The two form a friendship after this, but it deteriorates as the show goes on. Lex’s distrustful nature and obsession with Clark Kent’s secrets eventually turns the two of them into enemies.

This entire scene was just...odd. Especially with that
"Why did you leave me?" line.

He appeared as one of the Light in Young Justice. He uses his criminal connections with the light in the episode “Targets” to manipulate warring nations. On the surface, he convinces them to go into peace talks, but it’s implied they were also interested in his robotic body guard Mercy. He recruits Superboy in the episode “Agendas” to search Project Cadmus for missing experiments. Specifically another clone of Superman. While searching the Labs, Superboy learns of Luthor’s connection to his past, and the reason behind his lack of full Kryptonian powers. The first clone, later named Match, was created using pure Kryptonian DNA. The scientists did a lot of guess work, and the end result was a raging monster that was impossible to control. The second attempt used human DNA to bridge certain sequences, resulting in a weaker but controllable Superboy. Who’s DNA did they use? Why Lex Luthor’s of course. In the series finale he’s named Secretary General of The United Nations.

Jesse Eisenberg is set to play Lex in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Odd choice, not going to lie, but it should be interesting.

The last one I’ll mention is Superman: Doomsday. In this movie, Lex inadvertently releases the Doomsday monster from its prison beneath the Earth. After Superman is killed, Lex takes it as a personal affront, feeling that he was cheated out of his ultimate victory by this cruel twist of fate. He manufactures Superman clones, to do his bidding. The movie also has this rather weird scene where Lex beats the hell out of his Superman using Kryptonite Gauntlets in a red light room. It gets a little…adult. Don’t give me that look, Lex beat Superman to the floor (without a shirt on I might add) before picking him up by the hair and whispering “Why did you leave me?” How else am I to take that scene? His Superman finally goes rogue and nearly kills Lex. He survives, however, and vows continued vengeance after Superman is discovered to be alive.

Luthor is one of those archetype villains. Think of any evil business types and odds are they bare at least a small resemblance to Lex Luthor. While he doesn’t have superpowers, he uses his immense intellect to match the supremely powerful Superman. That being said, I do hope that Warner Bros remembers for this latest Luthor outing that he does get his hands dirty every now and then. Dude builds battlesuits, he can fight Superman hand-to-hand at least once. He’s that evil business man that is completely untouchable because he’s paid up with the right people. He’s the supremely evil corrupt corporate tycoon, Lex Luthor. Next time, the Great One, Ra’s Al Ghul. 

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 http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Lex_Luthor%27s_Warsuit

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 http://www.ew.com/article/2015/03/25/jesse-eisenberg-lex-luthor-batman-v-superman-dawn-justice

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