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Lex LuthorLex Luthor is a DC Comics supervillain and archenemy of Superman. Created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, he first appeared in Action Comics #23 (1940). The 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 has been featured 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 Smallville, a retelling of Superman's early years, a young adult Lex is played by Michael Rosenbaum. Origin of the character Luthor first appeared in Action Comics #23 (April, 1940) by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. His history has been retconned many times since then, with his current canonical origin being reinvented in 2003 and 2004 in the Birthright maxi-series by Mark Waid. He is one of several Superman characters with the initials "LL," including Lois Lane, Lana Lang, and Lori Lemaris the Mermaid. His father, Lionel Luthor, first appeared in the TV series Smallville. The original Luthor of the 1940s (who didn't 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 stated goals are 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; travelled back in time; summoned beings from the Fourth Dimension; created robots, clones, and genetic monstrosities; allied himself with the alien super-computer Brainiac; animated Kryptonite rocks; detonated H-bombs; and has masqueraded and taken on a number of aliases. During the 1980s, Luthor adopted a powersuit that allowed him to battle Superman physically. Although none of his schemes worked permanently (though one classic "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. Though originally portrayed with a full head of red hair, in 1941 Luthor came to be portrayed as completely bald after an artist's mistake in the Superman daily comic strip. Shuster preferred drawing bald villains anyway, so the more striking appearance was adopted and became a Luthor trademark. (When the DC "Multiverse" began to take hold, the red-haired Luthor was said to be his Earth-Two counterpart, Alexei Luthor.) Several years later, a back-story finally filled in how Luthor lost his hair and came to hate Superman. It stemmed from a childhood incident where a teenaged Superboy used his superbreath to extinguish a fire in Luthor's lab. This rescue attempt spilled chemicals that caused Luthor to go prematurely bald and destroyed his attempt to create life through chemistry (an experiment that might have also cured Superboy of his susceptibility to Kryptonite). Luthor attributed Superboy's acts to jealousy and vowed revenge. First, he tried to show Superboy up with grandiose technological projects, 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 tried to murder the superhero. 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. The last such attempt on Lexor destroyed the planet and its inhabitants. Though aggrieved, Lex refused to accept that he was responsible and blamed Superman. 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 (her last name an anagram of "Luthor"), 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. The 1985 revision of Luthor's history In 1985, John Byrne's famous "re-boot" of Superman re-wrote the character of Lex Luthor from scratch, bringing him to the modern world and making him a villain that the 1980s would recognize: a corporate white-collar criminal. (The idea was originally suggested by Marv Wolfman.) Born in the Suicide Slum district of Metropolis, Alexander Joseph Luthor put a large insurance policy on his parents and had them killed by a car accident. Using this money and his natural genius he designed and built an experimental airplane, which eventually led to the formation of a multi-national corporation. He became the CEO of LexCorp International, based out of Metropolis. He was the most powerful man in Metropolis until Superman arrived. When terrorists attacked a society gala aboard his yacht shortly after his arrival, Luthor observed Superman in action and then tried to hire him as a bodyguard. But when Luthor admitted that he'd anticipated the attack but 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. He is a man driven to be the best, having fought his way up from lowly beginnings by his own effort, and is resentful of how Superman was given his powers by random fate of birth. Superman survived every attempt but has never been able to prove Luthor's role in the attacks. Luthor acquired the only sample of Kryptonite on Earth from the Kryptonite-powered cyborg Metallo, whom Lexcorp abducted just before Metallo succeeded 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 the long-term radiation from his Kryptonite ring. Kryptonite exposure had not previously 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 metastatized; 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. Later, when his new body also grew terminally ill due to the instability of the cloning process that was used, he had his brain again transplanted into a new cloned body that resumed the identity of the original Luthor. Lex Luthor has cultivated a popular image as a great philanthropist. He has been instrumental in reverse-engineering alien technology for use in general consumer goods, upgrading Metropolis into a true "city of tomorrow." When Gotham City was destroyed by an earthquake and then abandoned by the American government, it was LexCorp that took up the massive task of rebuilding. Luthor also played an instrumental role in assisting the Justice League in recharging the sun during "The Final Night" crisis. 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"). He was assisted by the extreme unpopularity of the previous administration due to its mishandling of the Gotham City earthquake crisis; even given Luthor's tendency towards covert supervillainy, he could well prove to be a better choice for the office. An early triumph of his poltical career was the Our Worlds At War crisis, in which he coordinated the US Army, Earth's superheroes and a number of untrustworthy alien forces to battle Imperiex. In 2004, Luthor overplayed his hand. In an attempt to blame Superman for a Kryptonite meteor approaching the Earth, he instead raised questions about himself. In desperation, he used a variant of the "super-steroid" Venom, and an Apokaliptian battle-suit 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 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. Statements by writers further suggest that Lex will continue to return to a personality and stature similar to his Pre-Crisis incarnation. Some of this history, most notably Luthor's youth in Metropolis and his first encounter with Superman, were retconned in "Birthright" and now include some elements from the Silver Age, such as Luthor's scientific genius and a failed friendship with a younger Clark Kent. Most of Lex's life story, so far, remains intact. A Lex Luthor minseries is planned for 2005. Luthor is currently believed widowed, having apparently killed the mother of his infant daughter, Lena. Luthor in other media Luthor was revealed to be the master villain in the second Superman serial, Superman vs. Atom Man, though he never appeared on the classic 1950s Adventures of Superman TV series or in the original Paramount-Fleischer Superman cartoons. Actor Gene Hackman played the role of Lex Luthor in the 1978 movie Superman, and in two of its three sequels. Hackman's portrayal of Luthor is more lighthearted and comical and 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. Hackman's performance in the role is consistently strong, even when the screenplay is not. In the TV 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. In , Luthor is the evil businessman for the first time in other media, and 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 he was about to marry Lois Lane, the truth 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). In and the subsequent Justice League animated series Luthor was voiced by actor Clancy Brown of Highlander and Buckaroo Banzai fame. This show's Luthor was again a corrupt businessman, and again his hatred of Superman ultimately brought down his empire. After he was revealed as a criminal and lost his business empire (in the first season of Justice League), his characterisation turned more toward the original conception of the character as a criminal genius obsessed with destroying Superman. Later his character turned in an opposite way of his comics counterpart, getting pardoned after helping the Justice League on a certain ocassion and implying to the press that he was thinking of going into politics. The television series Smallville features a Lex Luthor, played by Michael Rosenbaum, whose history echoes many previous versions of the character. 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 explosion of baby Kal-el's rocket ship as it landed on Earth from Krypton. The explosion caused Lex to lose his hair (also as seen in the Silver Age, albeit it in a different way.) When Clark grew up, and was still learning how to deal with his super powers, he rescued Lex when Lex's car crashed through a bridge rail and went into the water. The two bonded, and Lex, living in Smallville as he runs his father's local business interests, considers Clark a "little brother." In addition, due to his exposure to either Kal-el's ship or to the abundant Kryptonite in the Smallville area, Lex has a superhuman immune system. 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. In the film Superman Returns, due for release in 2006, Luthor will be played by Kevin Spacey. Full Name? His 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 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. External links - Luthor Wins! - announcement of Lex Luthor's victory in the 2000 Presidential election, on the official DC Comics site
Luthor, Lex Luthor, Lex Luthor, Lex
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