Lex Luthor (animated DCU)
Title: Man and Superman
Author: bagheera_san
Character: Lex Luthor
Fandom: Justice League Unlimited, Superman: The Animated Series
Spoilers:: selected episodes of S:TAS, all of JLU
Author's Note: Many thanks to xparrot for beta-ing this!
Feedback, suggestions and criticism are all appreciated.
My Introduction to the Character
Before I got into the Justice League cartoons, I had already encountered versions of Lex Luthor's character in various other forms of media. As a child, I had seen the Superman movies, and later I became a fan of Smallville and DC comics. Until seeing Justice League, the Smallville version of Lex was by far my favourite: fleshed out, interesting, tragic and good-looking, he is definitely one of the most likeable interpretations of the character. Unlike comic and movie Luthor, Smallville Lex is an anti-hero on the way to become a villain, rather than simply a two-dimensional villain, and that appealed to me a lot more.
Since Justice League is a cartoon - supposedly for kids, although a lot of adults love it, too - I didn't expect much from their version of Lex Luthor. I assumed he'd be a stereotypical cartoon villain.
Well, he is. But he's one of the most fun villains I've ever seen on TV. And if you look at his character arc as a whole, then maybe he isn't quite so stereotypical as it at first seems.
Who is Lex Luthor?
Lex Luthor, obviously, is Superman's arch-enemy. The character has existed since the Golden Age of DC comics. A peculiarity of comics is that if they last long enough, they're written and drawn by vastly different people, and under vastly different editors. Comic characters don't have just one creator, like characters in a book or a movie, but many. This causes them to be both complex and often extremely inconsistent. In comics, Luthor has been a mad scientist, an industrialist, an all-out supervillain, even the President of the United States. He has been an utterly despicable and evil human being, and he has shown shades of being redeemable, or at least having a human side. There is no single comics Lex Luthor.
But there are a few things they all have in common. Most incarnations (except early Golden Age and post-Crisis Luthor) are bald. Luthor is always very intelligent, although this ranges from just cunning and smart to genius levels of intelligence. Luthor is extremely ambitious and usually ruthless. And, with the exception of Smallville's Lex, he is always human. Superman may be named after Nietzsche's Ubermensch, but Lex Luthor is the one who actually embodies the concept of Will to Power.
In the toonverse, as the combined continuity of the DC cartoons is sometimes called, not much is known about Lex Luthor's origins, except that he has built his company LexCorp from nothing. At the start of Superman: The Animated Series, he is the CEO of LexCorp. We don't know how old he is, but he used to date Lois Lane previous to S:TAS, so he is probably not that much older than Lois.
He's bald, usually wears a black suit with a white dress shirt and a white tie. In S:TAS, he avoids physical combat, letting his bodyguard Mercy fight for him, but in JL and JLU, he is shown to be a decent fighter and a good shot.
Luthor is smart, charming and shrewd. He knows how to manipulate people, and his first reaction when he's in a tight spot is usually to talk himself out of it or strike an alliance with someone more powerful than him. He's ruthless and corrupt, but unlike many cartoon villains, he's also very sane: deep down Luthor is a pragmatist. His hatred for Superman doesn't make it impossible for him to work together with the superhero on occasion.
His biggest fault is probably his arrogance. This attitude grows as the series progresses, until it becomes downright hubris in the last two seasons of Justice League Unlimited.
My first impression of Justice League Lex Luthor
The first time I saw toonverse Luthor, and the first time he appears on the Justice League cartoon, is the season one episode "Injustice For All". In the opening scene, we see him in his splendid penthouse office, wearing a suit and tie - the rich, successful businessman who rules Metropolis. He's carrying a chunk of kryptonite, the extraterrestrial mineral that makes Superman sick, and is, in fact, threatening Superman with it - the hero is lying powerless on a couch. Lex does his big villain speech. I was unsurprised, in fact a little bored, by this stereotypical villain performance.
And then it turns out that Superman isn't Superman, but the Martian Manhunter, a shapeshifter. The Justice League has tricked Lex into revealing his villainous intent to be able to arrest him.
Lex jumps out of the window and flees in a little jet plane. But one misfortune follows another, and Luthor has some kind of seizure and loses control over the plane. Superman brings him safely to ground and then to a hospital. It turns out Luthor has terminal cancer, induced by the kryptonite that was meant to kill his nemesis. Talk about irony!
But my first real surprise came when the next scene showed us Luthor in prison. So far, it seemed as if Superman was the point-of-view character - but actually, it's Luthor. And Luthor is miserable. He has lost everything he had, he is dying of cancer, and his cell neighbour is constantly listening to loud opera music.
Somehow, you can't help but sympathize with this guy.
Character history
Luthor appears in 19 episodes of S:TAS and 21 episodes of Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. Here I'll only briefly recount those episodes that are most important to his character development.
His first appearance is in the first episode of Superman: The Animated Series, "Last Son of Krypton", at a press conference covered by Lois Lane and Clark Kent, where he introduces a weapon prototype that is promptly stolen by terrorists. Kent changes into Superman and attempts to stop them but fails. Later on, Kent and Lane interview Luthor in his office. Kent points out that Luthor actually profits from the theft because now the government will buy the prototype for sure to keep up with the terrorists. Of course Luthor is working together with the terrorists, but he doesn't admit anything.
Superman thwarts the terrorists, and at the end of the episode, appears hovering in front of the windows of Luthor's office. He gives Luthor the silent treatment, and Luthor starts to rant, first mocking Superman, then bragging about his own achievements, but finally he calms down and invites Superman to rule the world with him. When the alien doesn't reply, he gets angry and throws a little model of the weapon prototype at him. Superman says: "I'll be watching you."
From then on they're enemies. Lex tries to kill and defeat Superman in various ways. Their next significant meeting, however, is in "Stolen Memories". Luthor receives a signal from an alien intelligence and strikes a deal with it to be able to trade technology. When the government and Superman learn of this, they're not happy.
Superman visits the alien's ship. It turns out to be Brainiac, an artificial intelligence from Krypton who is responsible for the destruction of Superman's homeworld. So Superman goes to LexCorp to warn Luthor that he doesn't trust Brainiac. At this point, most villains would probably have laughed in Superman's face, but Lex merely says "I'm listening." One long elevator ride later, Lex tells Superman, "I never trust anyone completely." He reveals to Superman that he has been preparing for an eventual betrayal by Brainiac, in what is an awfully civil conversation between two men who ostensibly hate each other. "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer," Superman guesses. Lex laughs and answers, "Precisely. Although in your case, I'll make an exception."
Brainiac does indeed betray them, and Superman fights him in his ship, giving Luthor the chance to fire missiles and take it out. Their combined efforts does in the end defeat Brainiac, but a tiny bit of his code remains in the LexCorp computers…
Then, in "Ghost in the Machine", Brainiac returns - now as a computer virus in LexCorp's systems, locking Lex in the basement of LexCorp tower to force him to build Brainiac a new body. In an uncharacteristic show of modesty, Lex claims not to be able to do that, but Brainiac threatens him. Eventually, just as Luthor has finished the body, Superman and Lex's bodyguard Mercy burst into the room to rescue him. In the fight, Brainiac is again destroyed, but not before he can fire an energy blast at Luthor which seemingly doesn't harm him at all. From then on, Lex carries Brainiac inside his body like a virus, unaware that he is slowly being subverted by the evil AI.
The next significant step in Luthor's character development is his first appearance in JL, "Injustice For All". He is diagnosed with cancer and ends up in prison. But there he strikes an alliance with his cell neighbour, the opera-loving genius albino gorilla Ultra-Humanite. They break out and Lex forms the first supervillain society of his career. His main objective, though, is to heal his cancer. In the end, the villains are defeated because the Ultra-Humanite betrays them to Batman, but Lex manages to build the powersuit that at least stalls his cancer. He returns to prison, still wearing it.
In "A Better World", the Justice League faces their counterparts from another dimension, the Justice Lords, who have turned into totalitarian overlords after their Superman killed their President Luthor. The Justice League cannot defeat the Justice Lords alone, so Superman goes to the imprisoned Luthor for help. Together, they build a de-powering ray and defeat the Justice Lords. In the end, Lex still holds the ray gun in his hands and could de-power the League as well. "This would be so easy," he says, but then hands it over to Superman in honour of their agreement: in exchange for his help, Luthor gets a full pardon. He leaves prison, pretends to be reformed and immediately announces his new-found political ambitions.
This story arc goes on for two seasons, with Luthor pretending to be reformed and constantly gaining political power. It culminates in the four episode finale of the second season of Justice League Unlimited.
In "Question Authority", the Question discovers files about the Justice Lords on the computers of the secret governmental organisation Cadmus Labs. Luthor is using them to discredit the Justice League. Question sees a recording of the Justice Lord Superman killing President Luthor and concludes that in order to prevent their own Superman from killing Luthor and going rogue, he must kill Luthor himself. He fails, though, and is captured by Cadmus. Luthor's doctor tells him that his cancer is miraculously healed.
Superman and Huntress rescue Question, but Luthor hacks into the Watchtower's systems to cause it to fire an energy weapon at Cadmus Labs, making it appear as if the League is retaliating for Question's imprisonment. The energy weapon destroys huge parts of Metropolis. Miraculously, no lives are lost. Eventually, the senior members of the League surrender themselves to the authorities, with the exception of Batman, who goes to investigate and eventually proves to Cadmus that Lex has manipulated them all.
Meanwhile, Luthor is building a superpowered android body to transplant his conscious into. Batman goes to stop him, but surprisingly, Lex defeats him in hand-to-hand combat - he already has superpowers! When the android body is destroyed and the League shows up to arrest him, Luthor suddenly has a seizure, and his body transforms into a monstrous combination of him and Brainiac.
Brainiac reveals to Luthor and the Justice League that he has inhabited Lex's body since he hit Lex with the energy blast in "Ghost In The Machine" and has manipulated him to build the android body for Brainiac. He was the one who healed Lex's cancer and gave him superhuman strength. The League tries to stop them but the merged Luthor and Brainiac escape, slightly damaged.
On the run from the League, Lex asks Brainiac what will become of him. Brainiac says that he'll destroy Lex as soon as he doesn't need him anymore, and then proceed to destroy the rest of the universe to gather all its information, as his programming dictates. Lex realizes that if Brainiac possesses all information in the universe, he'll be a god. (It's not clear whether Brainiac destroys matter as he gathers the data, or whether he destroys it afterwards because it has ceased to be useful to him.) He convinces Brainiac that Brainiac needs Lex, because Lex has something the AI hasn't: imagination. They fully merge, mind and body, into one being that is as smart as Brainiac and as driven as Lex.
The Justice League confronts them. Superman appeals to what remains of Lex to fight Brainiac, but Lex reveals that he likes being merged with Brainiac because it gives him everything he ever wanted: power, absolute knowledge and immortality.
The League is nearly defeated, if not for the Flash. With his superspeed, he batters the merged Luthor-Brainiac until Brainiac is destroyed and only Lex's human body remains.
Lex once more ends up in prison, but in "I Am Legion", the first episode of season 5, he breaks out again. He appears to be talking to thin air from time to time. The police nearly manages to catch him, but he's rescued by another villain and taken to the secret headquarters of Gorilla Grodd's Legion of Doom. Grodd wants him to join the Legion. Lex claims that he's out of the game. After a brief moment of attaining absolute knowledge with Brainiac, he isn't interested in anything else anymore. But Grodd reveals that he has the last remaining piece of Brainiac in his possession and will give it to Lex if Lex joins the Legion. Suddenly, Luthor has a hallucination of Brainiac that tells him to work for Grodd in order to get the piece. Lex agrees.
It goes on like this, with Luthor working for the Legion and having visions of Brainiac that no one else can see, until "Dead Reckoning". In this episode, Grodd reveals that his master plan is to turn all humans into gorillas. Lex shoots him and becomes the de facto leader of the Legion of Doom.
But the piece of Brainiac Grodd possessed is worthless. In "Alive", the penultimate episode of JLU, Lex forces the witch Tala use her psychic powers on the piece and she traces the last remaining energy signature to a point in space near the planet Apokolips, which was ruled by the evil Lord Darkseid until the League killed him.
Luthor, who is still superhumanly smart after his merging with Brainiac, turns the Legion headquarters into a spaceship with hyperdrive and they fly to Apokolips. Part of the Legion rebels against him, but he has them killed, then uses Tala as a 'mystic conduit' to resurrect Brainiac. An entity called Metron suddenly shows up and warns Lex not to continue. He ignores the warning. Tala dies and a large figure emerges from the smoke - but it's not Brainiac. It's Darkseid.
In the series finale, "Destroyer", Lex and the surviving members of the Legion of Doom manage to escape and return to Earth, where they show up at the Justice League's doorstep. Lex warns Superman that Darkseid is coming to destroy Earth, and indeed, Darkseid does. The Legion demands to be allowed to help the League defend Earth.
Luthor goes with Superman and Batman and they fight Apokoliptian troops side by side until Darkseid shows up. The Daily Planet building and large parts of the city are trashed in the fight between Superman and Darkseid, and it's clear that Batman and Lex as mere humans don't stand a chance against Darkseid.
But then Metron shows up again. Lex asks why Metron doesn't help them, and Metron reveals that there is only one thing that might stop Darkseid: the Anti-Life Equation that is hidden inside the Source. Lex demands to be taken there. Metron warns him that only a "twelfth-level intellect" has the slightest chance of surviving within the Source. Lex replies that he's "overqualified", and enters it. In a sequence reminiscent of the Star Gate sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey, he attains absolute knowledge once more.
Cut to Metropolis. Superman is losing the fight against Darkseid. Darkseid uses a secret weapon to torture him with terrible agony. Then suddenly Lex shows up, having ditched his supervillain uniform for the old suit and tie. "Sorry it took me so long," he tells Darkseid. "I had to go get my power suit."
But he's not there to challenge Darkseid. Luthor reaches inside his suit jacket and pulls out the Anti-Life equation. He offers it to Darkseid. Darkseid can't resist. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" Darkseid asks as their hands close around the swirling light. "Yes," Lex replies.
Just as Batman manages to pull the beaten Superman into safety, Darkseid and Luthor vanish in a huge explosion of light and energy. Darkseid's troops surrender and leave Earth and the Justice League has won, thanks to Lex's sacrifice.
But as Batman points out, there are no bodies.
Relationships - Enemies and Allies
We know nothing about Lex's family, or whether he has any close personal relations, but considering his character, it is doubtful that he does.
In Superman: TAS, his closest associate is Mercy Graves, his chauffeur/bodyguard/henchwoman. She idolizes him and appears to have a little crush on him, but for the most part, Lex treats her callously. In "Ghost In The Machine", Lex is perfectly willing to sacrifice her in order to save his own hide. She's disappointed by his behaviour, but stays loyal to him until he is imprisoned in "Injustice For All." Mercy ditches the chauffeur uniform and becomes LexCorp's manager. In the episode "Tabula Rasa", Lex escapes from prison once more and goes to her for help. It shows how willing Lex is to use anything he's got to get what he wants: he appeals to her pity, then threatens her, then charms her, well aware of her attraction to him. But ultimately Mercy realizes that he is using her and deserts him.
Lex repeats the pattern of seducing a woman in a more powerful position than him to get what he wants with the witch Tala, Grodd's girlfriend. She, too, eventually realizes that he's using her, but he kills her in the attempt to resurrect Brainiac.
Lex also dated Lois Lane before the start of S:TAS. But she doesn't reveal how or why the relationship ended.
Since Lex is terribly arrogant and has a tendency to make snide comments about everything, not a lot of people get along with him. The Ultra-Humanite seems to, for a while, but he betrays Lex to the Batman. Gorilla Grodd and Lex hate each other. The Joker, on the other hand, loves to annoy Lex and mess up his plans. One person who successfully manages to work with Lex and even seems to like him a bit is the scientist and Justice League member the Atom, with whom he works together in "The Return" to defeat the android A.M.A.Z.O.
The most important relationship in Lex's life, however, is with his arch-enemy Superman. For the entire run of S:TAS, Lex is obsessed with Superman, and attempts to kill him. This obsession lessens somewhat in JLU as Luthor's focus widens and he considers all members of the League his enemies. After his merging with Brainiac, the old obsession seems completely forgotten. Still, their dynamic is more complex than mere enmity. In the episode "Brave New Metropolis", we see an alternative universe where Lois Lane has died and Lex and Superman rule Metropolis together as totalitarian overlords. They peacefully and successfully work together in "Stolen Memories", "A Better World" and "Destroyer". In "Injustice For All", Superman shows great concern for Luthor when he falls ill, and in "Hereafter", when Superman appears to have died, Lex shows up at his funeral to pay his respects. I think that what Lex truly wants from Superman is what he proposes in their very first meeting: an alliance. What makes him so furious at Superman is that he's rejected. Superman on the other hand knows that Lex could just as easily have been an ally instead of an enemy. Part of his frustration with Luthor is probably that Luthor wastes all his talent and ambition on evil purposes.
Why do I like the character so much?
Well, as I said, Lex is a fun villain. He's smart, unapologetically evil, and snarky and competent. Of course the nature of the show dictates that he can't win against the heroes, but when he fights other villains or teams up with the heroes, he usually comes out on top. He's the evil version of Batman: a mere human who still fights in the big leagues with all the super-powered beings and wins thanks to his brains, his ambition and his money.
Another reason I like Lex is due to the way the series treats the character. Even though he's a villain, he's also a protagonist, and in many cases, we're clearly supposed to sympathize with him. "Alive", for example, is an entire episode where the League doesn't even show up - it's all Lex's story. When half of the Legion rebels against him, it's Lex's side you root for. In the episode "The Return", Lex and the Atom are cornered by the android A.M.A.Z.O. and Lex saves them by delivering the episode's inspirational speech to A.M.A.Z.O. - a privilege usually reserved for the heroes of a cartoon show. He teams up with the good guys nearly as often as he teams up with bad guys. Lex straddles the fence between villain and anti-hero. Don't get me wrong, I don't think toonverse Lex is redeemable. He doesn't want to be redeemed.
But what I like most is the surprising ending of his tale. Lex is a typical Faustian anti-hero, a man who in his ambition and quest for knowledge constantly overreaches himself to the point of hubris and who is willing to make a pact with the devil to get what he wants. Before he meets Superman, he merely wants money and fame. But as soon as he is faced with this super-human, powerful being, he sets his ambitions higher. He has nothing but disdain for other people because he set his own standard so impossibly high: he wants to be as powerful, if not as good as Superman. After Brainiac, this goes even further: he wants absolute knowledge and immortality, he wants to be a god. Every tradition of Western story-telling, from the Greek tragedies onwards, dooms such behaviour to failure.
And Lex fails, many times. He end up powerless and defeated time and again, and still he gets up again and continues to strive for his goals. And in the end, he achieves them. And what's even better: absolute power doesn't corrupt him absolutely. It makes him save the world.
After watching Lex Luthor try and fail and be evil in every other incarnation of the character, that's just plain uplifting.
Some meta on Lex by other people:
(Links provided by attaccabottoni, thanks for your help!)
Comparison of toon!Lex and movie!Lex by toddalcott
Comparison of Smallville!Lex and toon!Lex by lyra_sena, discussion in comments
An essay about Lex with images, character analysis and quotes from the creators of the cartoons (by jl.toonzone.net)
Fanfic
All these stories come highly reccommended. If anyone has more recs, please, please tell me :)
Gen:
Philosophy_20 challenge entries by __marcelo (20 short ficlets about Lex)
Superman/Lex
Every Third Sunday by Sarah T.
Grief Shapes by Lyra Sena (slash with hints of Lex/Lois)
Lex/Bruce Wayne
Fallback Positions by Sarah T.
Author: bagheera_san
Character: Lex Luthor
Fandom: Justice League Unlimited, Superman: The Animated Series
Spoilers:: selected episodes of S:TAS, all of JLU
Author's Note: Many thanks to xparrot for beta-ing this!
Feedback, suggestions and criticism are all appreciated.
My Introduction to the Character
Before I got into the Justice League cartoons, I had already encountered versions of Lex Luthor's character in various other forms of media. As a child, I had seen the Superman movies, and later I became a fan of Smallville and DC comics. Until seeing Justice League, the Smallville version of Lex was by far my favourite: fleshed out, interesting, tragic and good-looking, he is definitely one of the most likeable interpretations of the character. Unlike comic and movie Luthor, Smallville Lex is an anti-hero on the way to become a villain, rather than simply a two-dimensional villain, and that appealed to me a lot more.
Since Justice League is a cartoon - supposedly for kids, although a lot of adults love it, too - I didn't expect much from their version of Lex Luthor. I assumed he'd be a stereotypical cartoon villain.
Well, he is. But he's one of the most fun villains I've ever seen on TV. And if you look at his character arc as a whole, then maybe he isn't quite so stereotypical as it at first seems.
Who is Lex Luthor?
Lex Luthor, obviously, is Superman's arch-enemy. The character has existed since the Golden Age of DC comics. A peculiarity of comics is that if they last long enough, they're written and drawn by vastly different people, and under vastly different editors. Comic characters don't have just one creator, like characters in a book or a movie, but many. This causes them to be both complex and often extremely inconsistent. In comics, Luthor has been a mad scientist, an industrialist, an all-out supervillain, even the President of the United States. He has been an utterly despicable and evil human being, and he has shown shades of being redeemable, or at least having a human side. There is no single comics Lex Luthor.
But there are a few things they all have in common. Most incarnations (except early Golden Age and post-Crisis Luthor) are bald. Luthor is always very intelligent, although this ranges from just cunning and smart to genius levels of intelligence. Luthor is extremely ambitious and usually ruthless. And, with the exception of Smallville's Lex, he is always human. Superman may be named after Nietzsche's Ubermensch, but Lex Luthor is the one who actually embodies the concept of Will to Power.
In the toonverse, as the combined continuity of the DC cartoons is sometimes called, not much is known about Lex Luthor's origins, except that he has built his company LexCorp from nothing. At the start of Superman: The Animated Series, he is the CEO of LexCorp. We don't know how old he is, but he used to date Lois Lane previous to S:TAS, so he is probably not that much older than Lois.
He's bald, usually wears a black suit with a white dress shirt and a white tie. In S:TAS, he avoids physical combat, letting his bodyguard Mercy fight for him, but in JL and JLU, he is shown to be a decent fighter and a good shot.
Luthor is smart, charming and shrewd. He knows how to manipulate people, and his first reaction when he's in a tight spot is usually to talk himself out of it or strike an alliance with someone more powerful than him. He's ruthless and corrupt, but unlike many cartoon villains, he's also very sane: deep down Luthor is a pragmatist. His hatred for Superman doesn't make it impossible for him to work together with the superhero on occasion.
His biggest fault is probably his arrogance. This attitude grows as the series progresses, until it becomes downright hubris in the last two seasons of Justice League Unlimited.
My first impression of Justice League Lex Luthor
The first time I saw toonverse Luthor, and the first time he appears on the Justice League cartoon, is the season one episode "Injustice For All". In the opening scene, we see him in his splendid penthouse office, wearing a suit and tie - the rich, successful businessman who rules Metropolis. He's carrying a chunk of kryptonite, the extraterrestrial mineral that makes Superman sick, and is, in fact, threatening Superman with it - the hero is lying powerless on a couch. Lex does his big villain speech. I was unsurprised, in fact a little bored, by this stereotypical villain performance.
And then it turns out that Superman isn't Superman, but the Martian Manhunter, a shapeshifter. The Justice League has tricked Lex into revealing his villainous intent to be able to arrest him.
Lex jumps out of the window and flees in a little jet plane. But one misfortune follows another, and Luthor has some kind of seizure and loses control over the plane. Superman brings him safely to ground and then to a hospital. It turns out Luthor has terminal cancer, induced by the kryptonite that was meant to kill his nemesis. Talk about irony!
But my first real surprise came when the next scene showed us Luthor in prison. So far, it seemed as if Superman was the point-of-view character - but actually, it's Luthor. And Luthor is miserable. He has lost everything he had, he is dying of cancer, and his cell neighbour is constantly listening to loud opera music.
Somehow, you can't help but sympathize with this guy.
Character history
Luthor appears in 19 episodes of S:TAS and 21 episodes of Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. Here I'll only briefly recount those episodes that are most important to his character development.
His first appearance is in the first episode of Superman: The Animated Series, "Last Son of Krypton", at a press conference covered by Lois Lane and Clark Kent, where he introduces a weapon prototype that is promptly stolen by terrorists. Kent changes into Superman and attempts to stop them but fails. Later on, Kent and Lane interview Luthor in his office. Kent points out that Luthor actually profits from the theft because now the government will buy the prototype for sure to keep up with the terrorists. Of course Luthor is working together with the terrorists, but he doesn't admit anything.
Superman thwarts the terrorists, and at the end of the episode, appears hovering in front of the windows of Luthor's office. He gives Luthor the silent treatment, and Luthor starts to rant, first mocking Superman, then bragging about his own achievements, but finally he calms down and invites Superman to rule the world with him. When the alien doesn't reply, he gets angry and throws a little model of the weapon prototype at him. Superman says: "I'll be watching you."
From then on they're enemies. Lex tries to kill and defeat Superman in various ways. Their next significant meeting, however, is in "Stolen Memories". Luthor receives a signal from an alien intelligence and strikes a deal with it to be able to trade technology. When the government and Superman learn of this, they're not happy.
Superman visits the alien's ship. It turns out to be Brainiac, an artificial intelligence from Krypton who is responsible for the destruction of Superman's homeworld. So Superman goes to LexCorp to warn Luthor that he doesn't trust Brainiac. At this point, most villains would probably have laughed in Superman's face, but Lex merely says "I'm listening." One long elevator ride later, Lex tells Superman, "I never trust anyone completely." He reveals to Superman that he has been preparing for an eventual betrayal by Brainiac, in what is an awfully civil conversation between two men who ostensibly hate each other. "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer," Superman guesses. Lex laughs and answers, "Precisely. Although in your case, I'll make an exception."
Brainiac does indeed betray them, and Superman fights him in his ship, giving Luthor the chance to fire missiles and take it out. Their combined efforts does in the end defeat Brainiac, but a tiny bit of his code remains in the LexCorp computers…
Then, in "Ghost in the Machine", Brainiac returns - now as a computer virus in LexCorp's systems, locking Lex in the basement of LexCorp tower to force him to build Brainiac a new body. In an uncharacteristic show of modesty, Lex claims not to be able to do that, but Brainiac threatens him. Eventually, just as Luthor has finished the body, Superman and Lex's bodyguard Mercy burst into the room to rescue him. In the fight, Brainiac is again destroyed, but not before he can fire an energy blast at Luthor which seemingly doesn't harm him at all. From then on, Lex carries Brainiac inside his body like a virus, unaware that he is slowly being subverted by the evil AI.
The next significant step in Luthor's character development is his first appearance in JL, "Injustice For All". He is diagnosed with cancer and ends up in prison. But there he strikes an alliance with his cell neighbour, the opera-loving genius albino gorilla Ultra-Humanite. They break out and Lex forms the first supervillain society of his career. His main objective, though, is to heal his cancer. In the end, the villains are defeated because the Ultra-Humanite betrays them to Batman, but Lex manages to build the powersuit that at least stalls his cancer. He returns to prison, still wearing it.
In "A Better World", the Justice League faces their counterparts from another dimension, the Justice Lords, who have turned into totalitarian overlords after their Superman killed their President Luthor. The Justice League cannot defeat the Justice Lords alone, so Superman goes to the imprisoned Luthor for help. Together, they build a de-powering ray and defeat the Justice Lords. In the end, Lex still holds the ray gun in his hands and could de-power the League as well. "This would be so easy," he says, but then hands it over to Superman in honour of their agreement: in exchange for his help, Luthor gets a full pardon. He leaves prison, pretends to be reformed and immediately announces his new-found political ambitions.
This story arc goes on for two seasons, with Luthor pretending to be reformed and constantly gaining political power. It culminates in the four episode finale of the second season of Justice League Unlimited.
In "Question Authority", the Question discovers files about the Justice Lords on the computers of the secret governmental organisation Cadmus Labs. Luthor is using them to discredit the Justice League. Question sees a recording of the Justice Lord Superman killing President Luthor and concludes that in order to prevent their own Superman from killing Luthor and going rogue, he must kill Luthor himself. He fails, though, and is captured by Cadmus. Luthor's doctor tells him that his cancer is miraculously healed.
Superman and Huntress rescue Question, but Luthor hacks into the Watchtower's systems to cause it to fire an energy weapon at Cadmus Labs, making it appear as if the League is retaliating for Question's imprisonment. The energy weapon destroys huge parts of Metropolis. Miraculously, no lives are lost. Eventually, the senior members of the League surrender themselves to the authorities, with the exception of Batman, who goes to investigate and eventually proves to Cadmus that Lex has manipulated them all.
Meanwhile, Luthor is building a superpowered android body to transplant his conscious into. Batman goes to stop him, but surprisingly, Lex defeats him in hand-to-hand combat - he already has superpowers! When the android body is destroyed and the League shows up to arrest him, Luthor suddenly has a seizure, and his body transforms into a monstrous combination of him and Brainiac.
Brainiac reveals to Luthor and the Justice League that he has inhabited Lex's body since he hit Lex with the energy blast in "Ghost In The Machine" and has manipulated him to build the android body for Brainiac. He was the one who healed Lex's cancer and gave him superhuman strength. The League tries to stop them but the merged Luthor and Brainiac escape, slightly damaged.
On the run from the League, Lex asks Brainiac what will become of him. Brainiac says that he'll destroy Lex as soon as he doesn't need him anymore, and then proceed to destroy the rest of the universe to gather all its information, as his programming dictates. Lex realizes that if Brainiac possesses all information in the universe, he'll be a god. (It's not clear whether Brainiac destroys matter as he gathers the data, or whether he destroys it afterwards because it has ceased to be useful to him.) He convinces Brainiac that Brainiac needs Lex, because Lex has something the AI hasn't: imagination. They fully merge, mind and body, into one being that is as smart as Brainiac and as driven as Lex.
The Justice League confronts them. Superman appeals to what remains of Lex to fight Brainiac, but Lex reveals that he likes being merged with Brainiac because it gives him everything he ever wanted: power, absolute knowledge and immortality.
The League is nearly defeated, if not for the Flash. With his superspeed, he batters the merged Luthor-Brainiac until Brainiac is destroyed and only Lex's human body remains.
Lex once more ends up in prison, but in "I Am Legion", the first episode of season 5, he breaks out again. He appears to be talking to thin air from time to time. The police nearly manages to catch him, but he's rescued by another villain and taken to the secret headquarters of Gorilla Grodd's Legion of Doom. Grodd wants him to join the Legion. Lex claims that he's out of the game. After a brief moment of attaining absolute knowledge with Brainiac, he isn't interested in anything else anymore. But Grodd reveals that he has the last remaining piece of Brainiac in his possession and will give it to Lex if Lex joins the Legion. Suddenly, Luthor has a hallucination of Brainiac that tells him to work for Grodd in order to get the piece. Lex agrees.
It goes on like this, with Luthor working for the Legion and having visions of Brainiac that no one else can see, until "Dead Reckoning". In this episode, Grodd reveals that his master plan is to turn all humans into gorillas. Lex shoots him and becomes the de facto leader of the Legion of Doom.
But the piece of Brainiac Grodd possessed is worthless. In "Alive", the penultimate episode of JLU, Lex forces the witch Tala use her psychic powers on the piece and she traces the last remaining energy signature to a point in space near the planet Apokolips, which was ruled by the evil Lord Darkseid until the League killed him.
Luthor, who is still superhumanly smart after his merging with Brainiac, turns the Legion headquarters into a spaceship with hyperdrive and they fly to Apokolips. Part of the Legion rebels against him, but he has them killed, then uses Tala as a 'mystic conduit' to resurrect Brainiac. An entity called Metron suddenly shows up and warns Lex not to continue. He ignores the warning. Tala dies and a large figure emerges from the smoke - but it's not Brainiac. It's Darkseid.
In the series finale, "Destroyer", Lex and the surviving members of the Legion of Doom manage to escape and return to Earth, where they show up at the Justice League's doorstep. Lex warns Superman that Darkseid is coming to destroy Earth, and indeed, Darkseid does. The Legion demands to be allowed to help the League defend Earth.
Luthor goes with Superman and Batman and they fight Apokoliptian troops side by side until Darkseid shows up. The Daily Planet building and large parts of the city are trashed in the fight between Superman and Darkseid, and it's clear that Batman and Lex as mere humans don't stand a chance against Darkseid.
But then Metron shows up again. Lex asks why Metron doesn't help them, and Metron reveals that there is only one thing that might stop Darkseid: the Anti-Life Equation that is hidden inside the Source. Lex demands to be taken there. Metron warns him that only a "twelfth-level intellect" has the slightest chance of surviving within the Source. Lex replies that he's "overqualified", and enters it. In a sequence reminiscent of the Star Gate sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey, he attains absolute knowledge once more.
Cut to Metropolis. Superman is losing the fight against Darkseid. Darkseid uses a secret weapon to torture him with terrible agony. Then suddenly Lex shows up, having ditched his supervillain uniform for the old suit and tie. "Sorry it took me so long," he tells Darkseid. "I had to go get my power suit."
But he's not there to challenge Darkseid. Luthor reaches inside his suit jacket and pulls out the Anti-Life equation. He offers it to Darkseid. Darkseid can't resist. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" Darkseid asks as their hands close around the swirling light. "Yes," Lex replies.
Just as Batman manages to pull the beaten Superman into safety, Darkseid and Luthor vanish in a huge explosion of light and energy. Darkseid's troops surrender and leave Earth and the Justice League has won, thanks to Lex's sacrifice.
But as Batman points out, there are no bodies.
Relationships - Enemies and Allies
We know nothing about Lex's family, or whether he has any close personal relations, but considering his character, it is doubtful that he does.
In Superman: TAS, his closest associate is Mercy Graves, his chauffeur/bodyguard/henchwoman. She idolizes him and appears to have a little crush on him, but for the most part, Lex treats her callously. In "Ghost In The Machine", Lex is perfectly willing to sacrifice her in order to save his own hide. She's disappointed by his behaviour, but stays loyal to him until he is imprisoned in "Injustice For All." Mercy ditches the chauffeur uniform and becomes LexCorp's manager. In the episode "Tabula Rasa", Lex escapes from prison once more and goes to her for help. It shows how willing Lex is to use anything he's got to get what he wants: he appeals to her pity, then threatens her, then charms her, well aware of her attraction to him. But ultimately Mercy realizes that he is using her and deserts him.
Lex repeats the pattern of seducing a woman in a more powerful position than him to get what he wants with the witch Tala, Grodd's girlfriend. She, too, eventually realizes that he's using her, but he kills her in the attempt to resurrect Brainiac.
Lex also dated Lois Lane before the start of S:TAS. But she doesn't reveal how or why the relationship ended.
Since Lex is terribly arrogant and has a tendency to make snide comments about everything, not a lot of people get along with him. The Ultra-Humanite seems to, for a while, but he betrays Lex to the Batman. Gorilla Grodd and Lex hate each other. The Joker, on the other hand, loves to annoy Lex and mess up his plans. One person who successfully manages to work with Lex and even seems to like him a bit is the scientist and Justice League member the Atom, with whom he works together in "The Return" to defeat the android A.M.A.Z.O.
The most important relationship in Lex's life, however, is with his arch-enemy Superman. For the entire run of S:TAS, Lex is obsessed with Superman, and attempts to kill him. This obsession lessens somewhat in JLU as Luthor's focus widens and he considers all members of the League his enemies. After his merging with Brainiac, the old obsession seems completely forgotten. Still, their dynamic is more complex than mere enmity. In the episode "Brave New Metropolis", we see an alternative universe where Lois Lane has died and Lex and Superman rule Metropolis together as totalitarian overlords. They peacefully and successfully work together in "Stolen Memories", "A Better World" and "Destroyer". In "Injustice For All", Superman shows great concern for Luthor when he falls ill, and in "Hereafter", when Superman appears to have died, Lex shows up at his funeral to pay his respects. I think that what Lex truly wants from Superman is what he proposes in their very first meeting: an alliance. What makes him so furious at Superman is that he's rejected. Superman on the other hand knows that Lex could just as easily have been an ally instead of an enemy. Part of his frustration with Luthor is probably that Luthor wastes all his talent and ambition on evil purposes.
Why do I like the character so much?
Well, as I said, Lex is a fun villain. He's smart, unapologetically evil, and snarky and competent. Of course the nature of the show dictates that he can't win against the heroes, but when he fights other villains or teams up with the heroes, he usually comes out on top. He's the evil version of Batman: a mere human who still fights in the big leagues with all the super-powered beings and wins thanks to his brains, his ambition and his money.
Another reason I like Lex is due to the way the series treats the character. Even though he's a villain, he's also a protagonist, and in many cases, we're clearly supposed to sympathize with him. "Alive", for example, is an entire episode where the League doesn't even show up - it's all Lex's story. When half of the Legion rebels against him, it's Lex's side you root for. In the episode "The Return", Lex and the Atom are cornered by the android A.M.A.Z.O. and Lex saves them by delivering the episode's inspirational speech to A.M.A.Z.O. - a privilege usually reserved for the heroes of a cartoon show. He teams up with the good guys nearly as often as he teams up with bad guys. Lex straddles the fence between villain and anti-hero. Don't get me wrong, I don't think toonverse Lex is redeemable. He doesn't want to be redeemed.
But what I like most is the surprising ending of his tale. Lex is a typical Faustian anti-hero, a man who in his ambition and quest for knowledge constantly overreaches himself to the point of hubris and who is willing to make a pact with the devil to get what he wants. Before he meets Superman, he merely wants money and fame. But as soon as he is faced with this super-human, powerful being, he sets his ambitions higher. He has nothing but disdain for other people because he set his own standard so impossibly high: he wants to be as powerful, if not as good as Superman. After Brainiac, this goes even further: he wants absolute knowledge and immortality, he wants to be a god. Every tradition of Western story-telling, from the Greek tragedies onwards, dooms such behaviour to failure.
And Lex fails, many times. He end up powerless and defeated time and again, and still he gets up again and continues to strive for his goals. And in the end, he achieves them. And what's even better: absolute power doesn't corrupt him absolutely. It makes him save the world.
After watching Lex Luthor try and fail and be evil in every other incarnation of the character, that's just plain uplifting.
Some meta on Lex by other people:
(Links provided by attaccabottoni, thanks for your help!)
Comparison of toon!Lex and movie!Lex by toddalcott
Comparison of Smallville!Lex and toon!Lex by lyra_sena, discussion in comments
An essay about Lex with images, character analysis and quotes from the creators of the cartoons (by jl.toonzone.net)
Fanfic
All these stories come highly reccommended. If anyone has more recs, please, please tell me :)
Gen:
Philosophy_20 challenge entries by __marcelo (20 short ficlets about Lex)
Superman/Lex
Every Third Sunday by Sarah T.
Grief Shapes by Lyra Sena (slash with hints of Lex/Lois)
Lex/Bruce Wayne
Fallback Positions by Sarah T.