DC’s Villains: Lex Luthor
Lex Luthor, Superman’s archenemy and ally (when the need arises) is another well-known supervillain and sometimes hero in the DC universe.
He is a well-known public figure, owner of the LexCorp conglomerate, a bald-power-mad American business magnate, a philanthropist to the city of Metropolis and last but not least, an intelligent engineer.
As a matter of fact, Lex was ranked at 4th position on IGN’s list of Top 100 Comic Book Villains of All Time.
Known for his mantra, “end justifies the means”, his single-minded and quite often reptilian and brutal way of thinking puts him at odds with the Man of Steel.
Lex is the kind of villain who is willing to use all means to do what ever it takes to beat Superman without caring about those he hurts.
I think this also makes him to be arguably DC’s most iconic villain, in that he’s a normal human being with no superhuman abilities but he goes head to head with Superman; more of a “mind-over-muscle” dynamic duo.
So how did the man of Metropolis come to be, why is he bald and what are his abilities and his motives? I’ll start this off with his origin together with the etymology of his name, which is pretty interesting.
Alexander Joseph Luthor (Lex is short for Alexander) is the son of Lionel Luthor (whose was notably seen in Smallville).
He made his first appearance in April 1940, (roughly the same time as that of the Joker) in Action Comics (these were the American comic book series that introduced Superman, before taking on the current name of DC Comics).
As for his name, Lex Luthor turns out to have a deeper meaning than I expected. As with most villains, their names are depictions of who they are, their personalities, abilities or who they will become.
A good example is Edward Nygma as the Riddler (the name Nygma can be derived from the word enigmatic, which describes his puzzling character).
In the case of Lex Luthor, Lex as previously mentioned, short for Alexander, which is derived from the Greek Alexandros (αλεχανδροσ) meaning “defender of men”.
As for Luthor, this is a variation of Luther, which is derived from a Germanic name compounded from the names liut (people) and heri (army).
Putting these translations together, Lex Luthor roughly means, Defender of the People, Soldier of Men.
This sounds a bit contradictory since Lex is the bad guy and yet his name describes him as the protagonist, the savior, the white knight. I’ll explain this later as we explore his motives.
Lex Luthor was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (the creators of Superman). He was initially depicted as a diabolical genius with red hair and was referred only by his surname, Luthor.
His motives were that of megalomaniacal characteristics (taking over the world and all that shit).
These have changed as his incarnations over the years have fleshed out his character.
As for his boldness, what really happened?
In his first appearance in the comics, he had red hair. The origin to his baldness was explained in the Adventure Comics in the 1960s that was about Lex meeting Superboy (young Clark Kent). Lex was a big fan of Superboy and both were buddies.
Luthor was working on a Kryptonite cure for Superboy in his lab, after a Kryptonite meteor crashed and injured Superboy. Unfortunately things go wrong in Lex’s lab and a fire starts. Superboy comes to the rescue and uses his super-breath to put out the fire but in the process knocks off one of the chemicals in the lab. This resulted to toxic fumes that makes Lex’s hair fall off, making him bald.
Lex blames Superboy for his carelessness that led to the destruction of his work and his hair. Although Superboy apologizes, Lex declines this saying that he was jealous of his genius and he vows that he will destroy him.
Lex Luthor doesn’t have superhuman abilities but he has, what he considers, the most dangerous mind in the world. He is depicted as the most intelligent human being in the DC universe.
With the exception of the extraterrestrial being called Brainiac, Luthor does not view any other being worthy of being his intellectual peer.
He possesses an eidetic memory (visual imagery of almost photographic accuracy) and has mastered seemingly every known form of science:
He is also a brilliant businessman, skilled in finance and politics and has been elected as the President of the US in his first attempt to run for the office.
Through his intellectual prowess, Lex has made liberal use of kryptonite weapons capable of killing Superman and in some situations, capable of injuring other Kryptonians.
In the case of the comic book Superman: Last Son of Krypton, Lex uses these weapons he invented together with Superman and other guys (Bizarro, Parasite and Metallo) to stop General Zod and his army of Kryptonians from destroying Metropolis.
From the etymology of the name Lex Luthor, that means Soldier of Men, Defender of the People, Lex’s reasons for hating Superman can be justified. And this is one of his motives for seeking means of destroying Superman is that:
Being the Defender of the People, he fights this alien being. He believes that with a being with so much power, it’s only a matter of time before he conquers over humanity. With that, we should be skeptical about Superman and we should destroy him before he destroys us.
But with Lex Luthor, there’s a selfish intention behind his logical motive. Other than just destroying Superman because he can destroy humanity, he believes that his pedestal as the true savior of humanity has been taken by Superman.
People see Superman as the beacon of hope instead of him and that pisses him off. He believes that he not only wants to be seen as a god, but as the only one the world needs, not Superman.
And that takes us to his second motive……
He’s an absolute narcissist. For self-made billionaires like Lex, they tend to feel that they’re the definition of awesomeness over to everybody else. He knows that he’s more intelligent than others and he deserves more than what others deserve.
In short, he deserves to be seen as the pinnacle of humanity.
In the 1980s incarnation of Lex, he’s seen as an industrialist who brought jobs to Metropolis (built museums and massive philharmonic orchestras) and all it mattered was that everyone knew that he was the best. He wants power and control and this makes him happy.
And then there comes Superman who flies over him. This, for the first time in his life, makes him small and that’s something he can’t deal with at all.
In the events of the Blackest Night comic book, where the rising of the dead was led by a villain named Black Hand, Lex he hides himself in his safehouse out of fear that all of the people he killed would come for him.
The zombie-victims, including his deceased father, break into his safehouse, seeking to feast on his greed-filled heart.
Lex manages to escape after receiving an orange power ring that’s fueled by the orange light of avarice/greed. Lex however gets overwhelmed by this power ring of avarice then seeks to get all other power rings for himself.
In the process, he gets into a fight with Wonder Woman who uses the Lasso of Truth to restrain him, which later reveals Lex’s secret, he wanted to be like Superman. He wanted to be as powerful as Superman.
And to finish off, here are some quick facts about Lex Luthor:
And that’s all about the Lex Luthor. Hope you enjoyed it, clap and drop a comment. Cheers!!!
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