Lex Luthor

Lena Luthor (Adoptive Sister)

Luthor Corp (Formerly)

**Lex Luthor**, Superman's arch-nemesis, is one of the most gifted beings alive, whose hatred of "interfering aliens" pushes him down the path of a sociopath. Known for his "ends justifies the means" approach to life, his single-minded and often brutal focus puts him at odds with The Man of Steel.

## Biography

### Early Life

**Lex Luthor** was born and raised in the poverty stricken area of Metropolis known as Suicide Slum, the child of abusive parents, with a fierce desire to better himself. As a teenager, young Lex engineered the deaths of his parents in order to profit from a large life insurance policy he had taken out in their names, and went on to found his own company LexCorp.

### In Business Across Metropolis

Lex turned the company into a multi-national corporation that would ultimately come to dominate the city of Metropolis. With it he owns every media corporation in the city and uses them to reinforce his public image as a wealthy benefactor. The one paper outlet that had always stood free was the Daily Planet. One such critic was the young reporter, and Editor In Chief, Perry White. Luthor detested White, due to his outspoken attitudes and a release by the Planet condemning his actions with an outrageous editorial signed by White himself.

As a result, when Clark Kent is first inducted into the Planet, the newspaper is almost bankrupt, dilapidated, and unable to afford new reporters. Luthor made many criminal connections and industries, anything to help him rise to be the unchallenged master of Metropolis. His legitimate businesses attached to LexCorp cover a variety of enterprises ranging from telephone companies to personal gaming devices.

As part of his image, Lex created the illusion of being a caring philanthropist. He 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. Lex could use them to further any schemes he had planned. However, this all ended with the arrival of Superman.

### **Imprisonment**

In his war against Superman, committed a number of unspeakable crimes on a global scale, before finally being arrested and brought in by Superman himself. He was given a prison sentence of 37 consecutive life sentences. Even though in prison, Luthor still continued his evil plots, one of which was hiring assassin John Corben to kill his adoptive sister Lena Luthor. This attempt was however a failure resulting in Corben nearly being killed and Lena finally taking her place as CEO of Lex's company.

Lex's genius was recognized by many including General Sam Lane of the United States military. Lane arranged for Luthor to extracted from prison

Luthor faked his own death shortly afterward by taking his personally designed jet, the Lexwing, on a proposed trip around the world. He crashed it in the Andes of Peru as a cover for the transplant of his brain into a healthy clone of himself which he passed off as his hitherto unknown son and heir by Dr. Gretchen Kelley, Lex Luthor II. The young Luthor had apparently been secretly raised by foster parents in Australia to protect him from his father's enemies. This deception was bolstered by his new body having a full head of red hair and a beard, as well as the appropriate Australian accent created through use of audio teaching tapes.

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 7734. While still forced to wear chains, Luthor was assigned the job of accessing the knowledge stored within the capturedBrainiac who had recently been defeated by Superman (as seen during the Brainiac storyline). Luthor successfully accessed Brainiac’s brain and after Metallo and Reactron were taken to Kandor as prisoners of the Kryptonians who had now settled on Earth, he used Brainiac to reactivate the Coluan’s ship that was also being held in Kandor. Brainiac’s robots attacked the Kryptonians, providing a distraction as Metallo and Reactron used their Kryptonite hearts to kill their captors and murder Zor-El.

## Abilities

**Genius Level Intellect**: Luthor's intelligence is nearly unrivaled, making one of the smartest minds on Earth. His many plans and plots to attack, maim, and generally bring ill will towards Superman were all subjects to a major plan to find a way to end the idea of Superman as well as the Kryptonian himself. Luthor has solved complicated equations in a few minutes and holds a myriad of masters and degrees. He's found cures for diseases in deep thought and found ways to better mankind while still profiting from its destruction.

* **Business Management**: Lex Luthor is one of the most shrewd businessmen in the world, a trait that has earned him an immense fortune second only to entrepreneurs like Bruce Wayne and Steve Dayton. Unlike Wayne however, Luthor is not above using cutthroat tactics, unethical practices and illegal operations to maintain the success of his business empire. At the height of Lexcorp's power, Lex Luthor virtually owned every business enterprise in the city of Metropolis.
* **Political Science**: Lex Luthor's corporate skills applied just as sharply in the political arena as they did in the boardroom. As President of the United States, he groomed the best candidates to serve as his cabinet members and knew the intricacies of bureaucratic politicking as well as any other former Chief Executive.
* **Leadership**: Although Luthor's tenure as president ended in scandal, he successfully guided the nation during the massive alien invasion. He's led a large amount of super villain teams and done so quite effectively.
* **Science**: Lex has solved complicated chemical equations in seconds. He understands the variety of powers associated with the human metagene and manipulated it for his own purposes. He claims he found a cure for cancer as well as AIDS but holds them in his personal notes to better bank on it's research.

**Hand-to-Hand Combat (Basic)**: Lex Luthor is also trained in hand-to-hand combat, though his personal Amazon fighting instructors consider him a sub-par combatant with poor form.