When was lex luthor introduced

With the arrival of Superman, Luthor's world was turned upside-down. Superman openly accused Lex of his criminal behavior, shattering the humanitarian image Lex had created.

Luthor was unable or unwilling to link the "meddling alien" with the boy he knew years before. Luthor tried many times to end the "alien menace", but was thwarted by Superman every time.

Lex even fashioned a ring from Kryptonite to use. The constant exposure to Kryptonite radiation gave Lex cancer. It was so bad that Lex had his hand removed and replaced with a robotic prosthetic. Things got so bad for Lex that he eventually faked his death and had his brain transferred to a healthy clone body.

He assumed the role of his own, hitherto unknown, heir going by the name Lex Luthor II. He even talked with an Australian accent and had a full beard and long red hair. As the younger Lex he convinced the world that he was a different man and not capable of the kind of crimes his father was accused of. Lex later convinced the Supergirl Matrix to be a hero of Metropolis and a personal body guard.

He also would resume his battle with Superman with the same lack of success. In the aftermath of Superman's apparent death, Lex planned on replacing Superman with a clone. Unable to clone all of Superman's DNA he used some of his own and gave the clone powers that mimicked Superman's. Unfortunately for Lex the clone was released as a teenager by the Newsboy Legion. The clone would take up the mantle of Superman until the real Superman returns, when he then adopts the name of Superboy.

When Lois Lane would eventually expose Luthor's criminal dealings, He then showed his true colors when he triggered explosive devices throughout the city. Metropolis was virtually destroyed by the explosions. Superman and his fellow heroes helped in the reconstruction and the battle between them continued. Realizing the need to silence his detractors in the fourth estate, Luthor bought the Daily Planet and sold it to Perry White. The sale came with a string, that Lois killed one story of his choosing.

Feeling safe from exposure, Luthor ran for President of the United States to gain the power to bring Superman down. He served the U. However, unknown to the public and probably most of his administration, Lex also forged ties to Apokolips which had been outlawed on a UN level. As a payment for Darkseid siding with Earth during the Imperiex war Luthor had the Joker unleash Doomsday for Superman to fight and detain as a product demonstration before handing him over to Darkseid. The tenacious Lois found out that Luthor had known about the threat from Imperiex much earlier than stated.

This was the article Luthor tried to kill, however Lois gave her notes to Clark who produced a scathing report. Luthor once again overplayed his hand, as his success at framing Bruce Wayne for the murder of Vesper Fairchild caused him to get arrogant. Even with his Presidential power, Luthor could not bring an end to Superman. When a Kryptonite asteroid was discovered headed towards Earth, Luthor tried to use that to turn the public against Superman.

With the help of Batman , the scheme was thwarted. 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 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.

He has since gone underground, leaving the presidency to his vice president, Pete Ross. During his time underground, Luthor contacted Robin over the internet under the alias Snapdragon and sent a Cadmus genetic file on Superboy, revealing for the first time that Superboy was a hybrid clone of Superman's DNA and Luthor's. One year after the events of Infinite Crisis, Luthor has been cleared of over criminal counts ranging from malfeasance to first-degree murder relating to the New Year's Eve massacre from However, his role in the massacre has permanently ruined his public image and thanks to the machinations of Doctor Sivana , he has lost most of his wealth and all of his control over his newly reformed LexCorp, which is now being run by Lana Lang.

He blames Clark Kent for writing several articles unraveling his schemes and pledges vengeance on Metropolis after an angry mob jeers him on the courthouse steps. After amassing large quantities of Kryptonite, including kidnapping the supervillains Metallo and the Kryptonite Man , Lex uses it to power a Kryptonian battleship controlled through a "sunstone" crystal. Superman manages to destroy the Kryptonite-powered ship and recover the crystal, but Lex manages to escape custody yet again.

Lex later sends Bizarro after the newly arrived "Superboy" only for the creature to be defeated by Superman. In JLA, Luthor alongside Joker and Cheetah III gathers together a new " Injustice League " and, outfitted in a new version of his warsuit although still green and purple, it no longer has clear design derivations from the pre-Crisis warsuit as the McGuinness design did , sets out to destroy the Justice League with them. On a related note during this section, he was responsible for creating the third Shaggy Man and the third Blockbuster.

Having been sent to the prison planet after his Injustice League was defeated, Lex quickly assumes control of the amassed villains, receiving competition only from Joker and Gorilla Grodd , who convince half of the villains to join them. He does fight the Joker until the battle was interrupted by an attack by Desaad 's Parademons.

After the attack, Luthor manages to get the villains off the planet with a makeshift teleporter, secretly powered by Neutron , Heatmonger , Plasmus , Warp and Thunder and Lightning. When called a "monster" by Thunder, Luthor claims it is the ones who sent them there who are the real monsters, and that he is the hero. He later sets the teleporter to self-destruct after he uses it, killing the attacking Parademons, and his living batteries. As Lex attempts to ambush Libra after learning that he is a prophet of Darkseid, Lex soon ends up surrounded by Justifiers.

Libra tells Lex to make a final choice In Final Crisis 5 , Lex Luthor is seen when Libra blames Calculator for cracking the computer codes that will help the resistance. He assumes it's an honor, but he doesn't look very pleased. Luthor, in league with Doctor Sivana , seemingly destroys Libra and overturns the Anti-Life Equation being broadcast into the Justifiers' helmets. Luthor ended up imprisoned for his crimes, but rather than going to jail, General Sam Lane had him serve out his sentence working for the secretive Project While still forced to wear chains, Luthor was assigned the job of accessing the knowledge stored within the captured Brainiac who had recently been defeated by Superman as seen during the Brainiac storyline.

Luthor later manages to use Brainiac's connection to his ship to kill the soldiers assigned to watch him. Brainiac manages to free himself from Luthor's control, forcing him on board the ship, and the two make their escape.

The two are later shown to have entered into an alliance, with Brainiac promising Luthor the Earth when he is done with it. While reading newspapers to catch up on what happened during his imprisonment, Luthor learns of the resurrection of Superboy. With the ring saying that he wants it all, Lex Luthor becomes an Orange Lantern. Although Lex does prove a good fighter in the Blackest Night , the orange light of avarice gets the better of him on many occasions and he even steals Scarecrow's Yellow Power Ring so that he may use it himself.

Whilst under the Lasso's influence, Lex admits a secret of his, saying that ultimately, all he's ever wanted was to be Superman. After the Black Lanterns are defeated, and the deceased Black Lantern superhumans come back to life, Larfleeze manages to remove Lex's Orange Power Ring and render him back to his human self. In Brightest Day , Lex Luthor is given the orange power ring by Larfleeze after Luthor tells him that every person on Earth wants power and land.

When Deathstroke's Titans attack Luthor, he and Nava go to the sewers but moments after that is shown that Nava is shot and after that is even revealed that Luthor paid the Titans for a fake attempt against him. After that is seen that Nava's wounds have been healed and actually she has been replaced by a shapeshifter called Facade.

Her mission has been to be close to Luthor so she can kill him. After a fight against her, Deathstroke and Osiris are able to defeat her and after that is shown how Lex makes some experiments with her. While searching for the energy of the Black Lantern simultaneously dispatching various Doomsday 'clones' created from the original to distract Earth's heroes by sending them after the other members of the Superman family with the aid of a robotic duplicate of Lois Lane created to give him an honest opinion on his actions, Luthor encountered Brainiac in space while attempting to alter the last of the Black Lantern energy, acting upon an unspoken theory of his.

Brainiac revealed that Loisbot was an unwilling pawn in his bid to hijack Luthor's quest. Luthor then replied that he had anticipated this for some time, and he then attacked Brainiac and snapped his neck, temporarily incapacitating him. Loisbot pleaded for Lex's forgiveness, and he accepted her apology. However, after he altered the four remaining black spheres, he opened a Phantom Zone portal which unleashed an extremely powerful, monstrously large being which prepared to kill all life in the universe, because the negative emotions of sentient creatures hurt it.

Luthor promptly impaled Loisbot's head, allowing himself to be infected with Kryptontian technology which he used to engage the monster on a mental plane of existence.

Grappling with the creature, Luthor's body and mental essence suddenly fused with it, learning that it evolved in the Phantom Zone and now seeks to escape from the grief and anger of the Zone prisoners.

Using his new power, Luthor draws Superman to him, attempting to drive Superman mad by forcing him to experience the human emotions that he believes the alien merely fakes to blend in. However, Luthor is outraged when he learns that Superman's defining moment of tragedy is the loss of his father.

Luthor is unable to cope with the fact that not only was his greatest enemy raised by humans, but he also had a father he would actually mourn rather than the anguish Luthor endured in his own relationship with his father. As Luthor becomes one with the creature, Superman and Mr. Mind who has been aiding Luthor's search realize that the creature allows Luthor to create a feeling of peace and bliss throughout the entire universe, at the cost of never allowing him to cause any harm to another being at the same time.

Superman attempts to appeal to Luthor about the potential of doing something even he never accomplished, but Luthor is unable to let go of his hate for Superman, costing him control of the entity as well as his memory of everything he learned or did while he was merged with it and it departs for another part of the universe. Luthor is ultimately defeated when he falls into one of the Phantom Zone holes created by the creature, seemingly forever.

After Flashpoint Lex Luthor is hired by the government to take down Superman. LexCorp also exists. He is hired by General Sam Lane to capture Superman in his early years. He sets up a trap for Superman with a train. Superman barely stops it and is left unconscious. Lex collects him and puts him through a lot of tests and experiments. Lex Luthor is later revealed to have obtained contact with the Collector through unknown means and was told to say the word "Krypton" to Superman.

He later appears when the Collector abducts New Troy as one of the residents in the area. He along with Lois and Jimmy go into Glen Glenmorgan's hotel where Lex calls the Collector and it is revealed that Lex had made a deal with him. It is later revealed that Lex Luthor was the secret caller named "Icarus" that was giving information on Glen Glenmorgan to Clark Kent.

After he gets fired from General Sam Lane he creates his own project with the two stolen kryptonite rocks. He creates the Kryptonite Man but that also doesn't work as well as planned. He had been instrumental in reverse-engineering alien technology for use in general consumer goods, upgrading Metropolis into a true "city of tomorrow. Later, Luthor also played an instrumental role in assisting the Justice League in recharging the sun during the Final Night storyline.

Love and Marriage Despite his hatred for Lois Lane for temporarily bringing down his evil criminal empire, Lex Luthor has an unspoken love for Lois Lane. 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 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 permanantly 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.

It was later implied that Lex killed the Contessa months afterword, though no body was ever found. President of the United States Lex became the 43rd president of the United States in , 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.

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 in Bruce to sever all military contract ties between the U. Luthor responded in kind by ordering the murder of Batman's lover Vesper Fairchild and framing Bruce Wayne for the murder. An early triumph of his political career was the Our Worlds At War crisis, in which he coordinated the U.

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 , 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. 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 In , 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. He has since gone underground, leaving the presidency to his vice president, Pete Ross. Ross later abdicated, however, leaving the presidency to a man named Jonathan Horne.

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 Superman reboot, had originally planned to use Birthright to purge the Byrne version of Lex Luthor's origin from canon.

Lexor was a planet where the citizens worshipped Luthor as a hero, and the red sun prevented Superman from interfering. Imperious Lex. When the Man of Steel arrived on Lexor to confront Luthor, the ensuing battle accidentally set off a chain reaction that destroyed the planet, killing all of its citizens, including Lex Jr.

Until now, I always thought I hated you as much as any one being could hate another! But I was wrong. After the reality-altering events of Crisis on Infinite Earths reshaped the DCU, Lex Luthor was transformed from a criminal scientist into a corrupt businessman.

To this day, almost every media depiction of Luthor has drawn from this version, a testament to how effective this revamp was. A disgraced reporter named Peter Sands tries to revive his career by writing a salacious biography about Lex Luthor, but every discovery he makes leaves him more unsettled. Even if you thought Lex Luthor was a depraved sociopath before, this book finds new depths to his twisted and evil mind.

Consider the scene where Sands interviews Luthor. I control human lives, instead of being controlled. I can destroy someone with a phone call.

There is only room for one god on this planet. Have you ever flipped through The Death of Superman and wondered why Lex Luthor looks kinda like a lion? Everyone went through a weird phase in the nineties. Some people grew mullets, others based their entire personality around the Macarena and Lex pretended to be his own red-headed Australian son.

Look, the nineties was an insane period for comics and you really just had to be there. The world met Lex Luthor II in Action Comics and his Australian accent created just enough uncertainty about his identity that everyone decided to just go with it. Lois and Superman remained skeptical of the new Luthor, but they had no clue he was the original until a whistleblower exposed the entire operation in Action Comics 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 [15] 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 a criminal, forcing Lex into a marriage with her in order to regain control over the company. The marriage was seemingly doomed from the beginning; The Contessa became pregnant by Lex [16] and began using the unborn child to dominate Lex into doing her bidding. Luthor's response to imprison her while she was drugged during childbirth and lock her up, keeping her in a permanently drugged unconscious state.

Luthor took over as single parent to his daughter named Lena after his childhood sweetheart and vowed never to marry again, stating that he refused to share his daughter's affection with anyone else. The Contessa later escaped to an island mansion, [17] but upon being elected President, Luthor ordered her home targeted by missiles and destroyed.

Lex became the president of the United States in , 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. Despite Luthor's more unsavory 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 the mishandling of the entire Gotham City rebuilding process was the fault of Luthor alone, resulting with Bruce Wayne severing all military contract ties between the U.

Luthor responded in turn by ordering the murder of Wayne's lover Vesper Fairchild and framing Bruce Wayne for the murder. An early triumph of his political career was the Our Worlds At War crisis, in which he coordinated the U. 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.

Clark Kent took the fall for Lois when she published proof of President Luthor's unwillingness to provide advance warning, which led to Kansas being burned to the ground. In , 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. Superman and Batman were able to gain evidence by Luthor, via a mad confession during the battle on recorded to video, that Lex had traded arms with Darkseid on Apokolips, giving them the creature Doomsday in return for his aid during the "Our Worlds At War" crisis.

Luthor 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.

The 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 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, who shares his interest in astronomy.

Birthright emphasizes Luthor's wasted talents, as well as his ill-fated friendship with Clark Kent. Despite being poised for greatness, Lex is fundamentally disturbed and alienated from people. During a failed experiment to communicate with a lost alien civilization Krypton , an explosion erupts which singes off Lex's hair and kills his father. Lex refuses to take responsibility for the blaze and leaves Smallville forever, erasing any trace that he was ever there.

By the time Clark meets him again in Metropolis, Lex has launched a billion-dollar business and is the foremost astrobiologist in the world, but has also become a corrupt sadist bent on acquiring power.

The changes in Lex's character and background were initially controversial among fans given contradictions with established Luthor history, but were quickly accepted when it was made public by Mark Waid that editorial had forced him to craft a new origin for Luthor that incorporated aspects from the Smallville television series.

Waid has gone on the record as stating that his original outline for "Birthright" had Waid restoring Luthor's pre-crisis background as a mad scientist, jettisoning the entire notion of Luthor being a respected but evil businessman. In the retrospective section of the published " Birthright " graphic novel, Waid describes his view that Luthor operating free and unchallenged in Metropolis for years makes Superman look ineffectual.

Waid's disdain for the Post-Crisis Lex Luthor is well-known amongst comic fans, as was his opposition to the original post-crisis reboot. Unfortunately for Waid, he was overruled by DC Editors, who ordered that any changes made to Lex Luthor's history must resemble his Smallville incarnation, due to the popularity of the show. It was recently revealed that as a result of Superboy-Prime 's attempts to escape reality, his hammering on the border between worlds created ripples that rewrote history, causing various revisions of events to occur; one of these was the changing of Luthor's origin from the Man of Steel version to the Birthright version.

Luthor has also been carefully surveilling the new Supergirl , but his attempt to split her personalities using Black Kryptonite backfired when the "evil" incarnation of Kara Zor-El rebelled against Luthor and nearly killed him. Alexander Luthor, Jr. The real Lex Luthor took on the identity of Mockingbird and formed a super-villain version of the Secret Six , whose purpose was to subvert the new Secret Society created by Alexander.

Lex swore vengeance against the impostor for taking his place. Alex's identity was exposed to Lex during the following fight.

He and Superboy-Prime managed to destroy his battlesuit, but Lex escaped via short-range teleporter. Luthor then visited Conner Kent in recovery at Titans Tower. Lex gave words of vengeance against Alex Luthor and Superboy-Prime, and slipped onto Conner's person a crystal shard collected during his fight with Alex showing the location of Alexander's Arctic Fortress.

Conner later went to Nightwing and the two agreed to stop Alexander. Luthor has shown an unusual at least by his standards compassion for Conner Kent ; it seems that by watching Superboy throughout the course of his short life, Lex came to see Conner as his son. At one point, Luthor is shown visiting a memorial statue of Superboy in Metropolis and placed flowers there.

John Henry Irons examines the body at S. Labs and notices that contact lenses were inserted postmortem to make the blue eyes appear green, like Lex's.