| “ | I own Metropolis. My technology built it, my will keeps it going, and nearly two-thirds of its people work for me whether they know it or not. | „ |
| ~ Lex Luthor boasting to Superman about his money and power. |
| “ | I'm already more powerful than all of you put together. | „ |
| ~ Luthor burning Goldface's face to warn the Legion of Doom of what will happen to them if they turn against him or refuse to hear his authority. |
Lex Luthor is one of the main antagonists of the DC Animated Universe.
He is an industrialist billionaire and secret criminal mastermind from Metropolis who believes that he should rule the world, becoming Superman's archenemy in the process. Throughout his career as a supervillain, Luthor initially hides his true colors from the public by posing as the legitimate CEO of his LexCorp company, but becomes a full-fledged criminal once the Justice League outs him, going to form or join different evil organizations, like the Injustice Gang, Project Cadmus and, lastly, the Legion of Doom.
He was voiced by Clancy Brown, who also voiced Mr. Krabs in the SpongeBob SquarePants franchise and Dr. Neo Cortex in the Crash Bandicoot video game series.
What Makes Him Heinous?[]
Debated Validations[]
- Though he was responsible for building up half of Metropolis by donating millions to charities and investing in libraries, schools or hospitals, all these acts were likely done to stroke his own ego and to look better in his city's eyes. In fact, most of the money Luthor made with his company LexCorp came from his contributions to the arms industry.
- Claims that he misses Anthony Ivo and that he was one of his best friends, even like a brother for him, but it could be possible that he just said this to manipulate Amazo.
- When Luthor teams up with the Joker who captures Batman, he decides not to leave him alone with Batman, indicating that not even he wishes to leave Batman at the Joker’s mercy. However, he had previously shown that he wishes to leave Batman alive so long as he is useful to him.
- As per Word of God, his final fate was that of becoming part of the Source Wall for all eternity alongside Darkseid due to the two solving the Anti-Life Equation and such being the fate of all those who ever solved the equation, unable to interact with any reality ever again.
- However, it's exactly unknown if joining the Source Wall is that bad so it's hard to define if it's a fate worse than death or not plus the fact that, while he wasn't as bad as Darkseid, Luthor still committed several vile acts, so whether or not he counts as a scapegoat is debatable.
Superman: The Animated Series[]
- Hires the mercenary John Corben to steal his Lexo-Skel Suit 5000 combat exoskeleton so he can secretly sell it to the Regent of Kaznia, a conflicted European country embroiled in civil war, while inciting the U.S. government into paying his company to make a bigger and more powerful version for the U.S. military, all just for profit.
- Pits Superman against a mechanical dinosaur in a room with Kryptonite, weakening him and endangering The Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane in the process.
- Infects Corben with a deadly disease so he can manipulate him into using a metallic body LexCorp designed. This results in Corben becoming Metallo, but turns against Luthor once he finds out that Luthor arranged his infection and that he can't feel, eat or smell, not to mention he practically became immortal, arguably a fate worse than death.
- Arranges for his girlfriend Lana Lang to be killed by Mr. Eelan at a lead refinery upon finding out that Lana has been supplying information about his operations to Superman and that she kissed him, leading Lana to nearly drown in molten lead.
- Creates several yet unstable Superman clones, leading one of them, known as Bizarro, to cause disasters all over Metropolis in order to prove he was heroic as his template, leading Luthor to activate the self-destruct sequence of his laboratory just to get rid of all evidence, nearly killing Superman, Lois Lane and Bizarro.
- Leaves Mercy Graves, his loyal bodyguard/chauffeur, behind to die when a large computer terminal falls on her, even in spite that Mercy teamed up with Superman to rescue Lex from Brainiac's grasp, proving how he prioritizes saving his own skin first.
- Collaborates with Wayne Enterprises CEO Bruce Wayne to create the Wayne/Lex T-7, but instead of just producing them for space missions like Bruce thought, Luthor tries to convince him unsuccessfully to employ them for warfare, disgusting Bruce and straining his business relationship with LexCorp.
- Hires the Joker and Harley Quinn to kill Superman with the Laughing Dragon statuette of Kryptonite, leading the Joker to try to kill Lois, Superman and Batman.
- Once he starts getting concerned at the Joker using his facilities as hideouts or using his technology to try to kill Batman, Lex decides to have Mercy execute the two Gothamite criminals, which backfires. The Joker then uses his Lexwing airship to bomb Metropolis and a restrained Luthor helps him to try to shoot Batman down if only just so the Joker spares his life.
- Takes advantage of Superman's brainwashing at the hands of Darkseid and Granny Goodness to convince the xenophobic General Hardcastle to try to execute Superman and Supergirl with Kryptonite injections once the former comes back to his senses.
Justice League[]
- Tries to have Superman (actually Martian Manhunter in disguise) killed when he gathers all the necessary information to expose his illegal activities, which involved smuggling of weapons.
- Decides to become a full-fledged supervillain once he finds out that he is suffering from Kryptonite poisoning after being close to Kryptonite for several years, for which he hypocritically blames Superman for, resolving to spend his last days targeting Superman and the Justice League.
- Forms the Injustice Gang with Solomon Grundy, Shade, Copperhead, Star Shappire, Cheetah, Ultra-Humanite and the Joker (the latter he only accepted into because of his knowledge on Batman's actions) to defeat the Justice League, abducting Batman and planning to dispose of him once he learned how to put a bomb on the Justice League's Watchtower to kill Superman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, the Flash, Hawkgirl and Green Lantern.
- When Ultra-Humanity secretly betrays the team, Luthor quickly assumes that the traitor was Cheetah because of a recording of her kissing Batman and orders Grundy to punish her with death, not hearing her pleads that she was innocent, though Cheetah is fortunately able to survive through unknown reasons (see Trivia below).
- Most members of the Injustice Gang would later come to work for Aresia (minus Luthor, Ultra-Humanite and Cheetah), making Luthor a bit responsible for making them acquaintanced with each other, leading them to collaborate in Aresia's plot to purge the world from all men.
- Attacks the Justice League with a giant robot, whose destruction endangers all Leaguers minus Superman and Batman that causes the Flash to send everyone to another universe with his high speed to prevent Luthor's robot from crashing them, where they come across the dangerous Ray Thompson.
- Used to employ John Dee until he got caught in a LexCorp smuggling operation, leading Dee to eventually become Doctor Destiny and target the Justice League with his mind-breaking nightmares to be admired by Luthor and the rest of the supervillain community, making Luthor partially responsible for his villainy due to not trying to help him with his stay in prison like he did with Corben once.
- Tries to kill Hawkgirl and Superman, fleeing when he fails and destroying part of a cruiser to force them to stay behind to save its occupants.
- Nearly chokes Mercy for refusing to help him, getting angered upon learning she fired Professor Anthony Ivo.
- Manipulates Amazo to see him as his father after Professor Anthony Ivo's death so he can use him against the Justice League, telling him that Ivo would have wished for him to protect him rom "sleeping and never wake up", putting a detonator inside his head just in case to destroy Amazo if he betrays him, which finally disgusted Mercy enough to ignore him for a while after Amazo's departure from the Earth.
Justice League Unlimited[]
- Even after helping the Justice League to defeat the Justice Lords by de-powering them and earning a full pardon from the U.S. government, Luthor declines to go straight and formulates a new plot to destroy the League by funding Project Cadmus, a government division formed to counter superheroes led by Amanda Waller, while making it look that he is running for President of the United States of America just to distract the League of his true intentions.
- Worst of all is that Luthor runs for president not because of interest of using his presidency to actually serve his country well or to use the powers to commit more crimes, but because of his knowledge that his alternate counterpart from the Justice Lords' universe did the same and pushed his Superman over the edge, which leads Luthor to go into politics to both distract the League and to spite Superman.
- Teams up with the Atom to stop Amazo, but secretly did it to memorize Amazo's blueprints for his further plans, in addition that Amazo wouldn't have endangered the Earth had Luthor not backstabbed him beforehand. Even when Amazo corners him and Atom, rather than genuinely apologizing to appease Amazo, Luthor mocks him on his face and nearly gets him and Atom killed due to his arrogance.
- Organizes the construction of Lexor City to "house" the poor, but secretly installs a Kryptonite-fuelled power generator at its core to trick Superman, whom he invited to the city's inauguration, into thinking it was a bomb so the Man of Steel would dig desperately to find the "bomb", which led Captain Marvel, whom Luthor also invited to the event, to fight with him, wreck the city, endanger all its inhabitants (including the children Luthor had told to go to play in the playgrounds), make the population discredit the Justice League by leaving them in a negative light and causing a disillusioned Marvel to quit the League for not believing that Luthor was actually "reformed".
- Stops the Question from trying to kill him when the Question comes to the conclusion that if Luthor becomes president, he will have the Flash executed and the catastrophic events that happened with the Justice Lords will also happen in the main universe, savagely beating him up and giving him to Cadmus operative Doctor Moon to torture him for over a week.
- Hacks the Watchtower to make it shoot the Justice League's Binary Fusion Generator to destroy the headquarters of Project Cadmus, endangering several people in the process (though no casualties were confirmed, there were several injured and several buildings were destroyed) leading the Justice League to be seen as the ones responsible for the terrorist attack in front of the people.
- Even though, as noted by Batman and Waller, the project's facilities had been evacuated beforehand, Luthor still did this to turn his Cadmus allies against the League even though the destruction likely cost the American government several millions and resources.
- Dispatches Galatea and the Ultimen clones Project Cadmus has to attack the Watchtower so Cadmus can destroy it and kill the rest of the Justice League while six of the seven founding members of the League surrended to the authorities while Batman investigated and discovered Luthor's responsibility behind all the attacks.
- Builds an Amazo-like android body to pass his consciousness into so he can spend all eternity inside it and get superpowers of his own, planning to finally kill Superman so humanity will see him as a hero due to Superman currently being in a negative light.
- Confronts Batman as he finds out his true agenda and throws him out of his laboratory's window after Batman tries to destroy his suit, though Batman is saved by his teammates.
- Teams up with Brainiac, as he suddenly reveals himself to have been hiding inside Luthor's body thanks to a nanotech copy of himself he shot inside Luthor during their first meeting years ago, to attack the Justice League and Amanda Waller for coming to stop him.
- He then convinces Brainiac to merge with him with the Cadmus' confiscated Dark Heart technology so they can both become a god by collecting all information in the universe, destroy everything in accordance to Brainiac's programming and then remake reality in their own image.
- Creates a machine to absorb all information of the Earth and the galaxy so he could reshape the universe to his will and duplicates of the Justice Lords so they could hold off the Justice League before trying to subdue them all, only for the Flash to foil his plans with the Speed Force to destroy all of Brainiac's pieces inside Luthor, nearly at the cost of his own life.
- Taunts Superman and the League after the Flash is temporarily presumed dead for his sacrifice to stop Luthor/Brainiac from achieving godhood, nearly driving Superman to kill Luthor out of rage and possibly undergo the same corruption his Justice Lord counterpart went through.
- Joins Gorilla Grodd's Legion of Doom just to take back the Brainiac piece Grodd has on his possession, gaining membership at the Legion after helping Doctor Polaris and The Key to steal the Spear of Destiny for Grodd from the Blackhawk Island, uncaring of the historial significance of the facility if that meant recovering his Brainiac piece to become a god again, planning to usurp Grodd once it suited him.
- Assists in several of Grodd's operations by doing things such as powering up other Legioneers like Devil Ray until succeeding at turning the Legion of Doom against him when Grodd reveals his intentions to transform all of humanity into apes with the Heart of Nanda Parbat during the invasion to Gorilla City, overthrowing Grodd and becoming the Legion's leader.
- To ensure all of the Legion's members stay loyal to him, when Luthor successfully enhance many of the Legion's powers Luthor also installs fail-safes on their suits, using them to neutralize Doctor Polaris and to burn Goldface's face when they challenge him respectively.
- Compare to Grodd's failsafe Luthor's is actually harmless as Goldface turns out to be ok before Killer Frost froze him along with Grodd's followers.
- Even though Tala, Grodd's right-hand, quickly switches her allegiances to him, Luthor never reciprocates her affections and treats her horribly, both physically and psychologically, eventually and slowly turning Tala against him and seek a captive Grodd to mutiny against Luthor.
- To ensure all of the Legion's members stay loyal to him, when Luthor successfully enhance many of the Legion's powers Luthor also installs fail-safes on their suits, using them to neutralize Doctor Polaris and to burn Goldface's face when they challenge him respectively.
- Accepts to assist Roulette with new Meta-Brawl fighting performances by supplying her with Grodd's mind-controlling technology to force some of the Justice League's female members to wrestle in Roulette's Glamor Slam fights.
- Transforms the Hall of Doom into a rocket and takes all of the Legion into outer space to seek Brainiac's remains from the time he and Darkseid fought against the Justice League for the control of Apokolips so he can become a god once more and have his faithful legionnaires as his henchmen in the new order he is gonna found.
- Fights against Grodd's faction during the Legion mutiny and ultimately tricks Grodd into letting himself being mind-controlled and getting inside an airlock, which Luthor uses to ejects the primate into space (though it's not like Grodd didn't deserve it for all his cruelty, plus a tie-in comic book reveals he actually survived, yet that doesn't diminish Luthor's actions as he evidently intended to kill Grodd).
- Sacrifices Tala to drain her of all her magic to resurrect Brainiac, even revealing that he planned to use her before she even betrayed him. He still proceeds to do so despite the New God Metron warning him to think about it twice, resulting in Tala reviving Darkseid instead, who in turn blows up the Hall of Doom (with Luthor and his faction barely managing to survive thanks to the power rings of Star Shappire and Sinestro) before going back to Apokolips and organizing a new invasion to Earth.
- Ungratefully attacks the New God Lightray behind his back when he finds him and his legionnaires trekking over the space even though Lightray was willing to help them.
- Despite ultimately helping the Justice League into defeating Darkseid and his forces to save the Earth, Luthor explicitly states that he only does so to get back at Darkseid for absorbing all of Brainiac's remains still on space and deprive him from restoring his underserved godhood, not to mention that Darkseid only returned thanks to his own mistake. Even before he gives up his life to remove Darkseid's threat for good, Luthor does mention that he would like to see how Darkseid planned to sadistically kill the Man of Steel.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- Shows some honor and gratefulness occasionally: when John Corben refuses to give away his identity upon being arrested, Luthor is apparently responsible to make Corben's stay at Stryker's Island Prison comfortable, genuinely thanks Superman for saving Lana Lang before she turns against him and surrenders his power disruptor to the Justice League after defeating the Justice Lords even though he could have it on them to deprive them from their powers, constantly proving himself as a man of his word.
- He's disgusted by Joker's actions as well as his lunacy, meaning he has some standards.
- Has a few "Pet the Dog" moments throughout his DCAU appearances:
- Attends Commissioner Dan Turpin's funeral, during which he looks genuinely sad. While one can say he was just acting up for the sake of publicity, Turpin died facing off Darkseid, and given Luthor's hatred for aliens, he may have respected Turpin's valiant effort to defend their home planet from outside forces.
- Consoles Lois Lane during Superman's "funeral" after he was supposedly killed during a fight against the Superman Revenge Squad, seemingly telling her in a sincere way that he would miss Superman too, which makes sense considering how he considered the Man of Steel a worthy rival and how Superman had gotten him pardoned a few episodes ago.
- He decides to rescue his comrades when the Justice League interrupt his robbery, though he views them as pathetic.
- He offered one of his pistols to Batman during the final fight after the latter ran out of weapons so he could defend himself from Darkseid's army.
- Has several comedic moments that don't take him seriously, such as the Joker and Harley Quinn making fun of him, his frustration at Ultra-Humanite's favorite music shows when they live together at prison and how he acts when he temporarily swaps bodies with the Flash.
- Is genuinely loyal to Brainiac, as he is able to get along with him perfectly well when fighting the Justice League, tells the Legion of Doom to welcome him as their new lord and master when he thinks he's resurrected him and the main reason he teams up with the Justice League is to take down Darkseid for destroying the last of Brainiac and ruining his chance at being revived.
- Is on & off due to actually helping the Justice League in at least three occasions: helping them to deprive the Justice Lords from their powers so they can no longer harm anyone, stopping Amazo from destroying the world and saving the world from Darkseid and his forces.
- Even if he doesn't straight-up redeem himself, Lex still sacrifices himself to stop Darkseid from killing Superman and destroying Metropolis and his last words highly suggest that he felt Metropolis and by extension the Earth were far more beautiful than the Anti-Life Equation, achieving partial redemption as he saves the entire universe. Even Martian Manhunter lampshades this by noting that while Luthor represented the worst mankind has to offer, he died saving everyone from Darkseid, indicating that even Luthor wasn't devoid of any redeeming qualities, which coupled with Superman's attempt to save him before vanishing, it may suggest that his ultimate fate was played for mild sympathy.
Trivia[]
- During production of Justice League Unlimited, it was originally considered by the showrunners to conclude the show (and the DC Animated Universe overall) with the second season and later to have a totally different series finale after the show was renewed for one more season. Had either of these two concepts been used, it's possible that Lex Luthor wouldn't have qualified as Inconsistently Heinous but as Near Pure Evil or Pure Evil.
- If the show had been concluded in its second season, the whole Legion of Doom arc would have never been produced due to the showrunners not making the third season and the franchise would have ended with Lex Luthor unredeemed after trying to remake reality on his image alongside Brainiac.
- Once the third season started development, the showrunners intended for Lex to team up with the Legion of Doom member known as The Key and merge together, as The Key was meant to be one of Brainiac's constructs, but it was ultimately opted to resurrect Darkseid instead and have Luthor and his surviving legionnaires team up with the Justice League to stop him.
- In the Justice League two-parter episode "Injustice For All", Cheetah was originally meant to be executed offscreen by Solomon Grundy after Lex Luthor orders her to be killed for supposedly assisting the Justice League. However, an animation mistake had Cheetah appear at the end of the episode in the prison van and the showrunners decided that she managed to escape somehow. If Cheetah had been killed off as originally planned, it would have made Luthor even worse.
- According to the DVD Pop-Up Trivia of the Superman: The Animated Series episode "A Little Piece of Home" in its home media release, the DC Animated Universe version of Lex Luthor was inspired in Telly Savalas' version of Ernst Stavro Blofeld from the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service, even though Blofeld is Pure Evil instead.
- To highlight his Inconsistently Heinous status, Lex Luthor was described by Batman Beyond writer Paul Dini in an interview with the AnimeFantastique magazine that compared to Derek Powers, Luthor is less overtly evil than Powers as, in spite of his faults and his evil nature, Luthor at least has the degree of honor that Powers lacks.
- Lex Luthor is, alongside Ray Thompson, Lord Superman and Hro Talak, one of the four Inconsistently Heinous characters from the DC Animated Universe to never redeem himself.
External Links[]
- Lex Luthor on the Villains Wiki
- Lex Luthor on the DC Animated Universe Wiki
- Lex Luthor on the DC Database Wiki
- Lex Luthor on the Magnificent Baddie Wiki
- Lex Luthor on the Inconsistently Admirable Wiki
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