Characters / DCAU: Lex Luthor

Superman: The Animated Series character index
Main Characters (Superman) | Allies (The Flash) | Earth Antagonists (Lex Luthor) | Apokolips | Alien Antagonists

Justice League character index
(Founding Members [Superman, Batman, The Flash]) | Allies & Friends of the Justice League | Project Cadmus | The Secret Society (Lex Luthor) | Other Villains

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Lex Luthor

"I have a luncheon to attend, but I expect to hear the tragic news about him just before dessert."

Voiced by: Clancy Brown

Voiced in Latin America by: Esteban Garcia

Voiced in French by: Alain Dorval (Superman: The Animated Series), Jean-Bernard Guillard (Justice League, main voice)

Appearances: Superman: The Animated Series | Justice League

"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. Even you have to admit, it's a model of efficiency. And yet, I've often thought...why limit myself to just one city?"

A genius multi-billionaire living in Metropolis who is the chief executive of his own company, LexCorp. In reality, he's a sociopath with a thirst for power and control, which he will gladly go to any length to have. Constantly flexes his Villain with Good Publicity muscle as much as he possibly can and has the resources and connections to finance and direct plots against Superman from a distance while still appearing as a benign, philanthropic captain of industry to the public at large.

He's an A-lister among Superman's rogues, not bad for a guy who doesn't have any superpowers and has to share a city with the original Flying Brick. He later takes on various exploits to hamper the Justice League and out them as threats to global security so he may do as he pleases unopposed.

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A-H

• Actually Pretty Funny: Even Clark's amused when he manages to get one over on Lois in "Prototype."
  Lois: Trying to put the Man of Steel out of business, Lex?
  Lex: I would think, Ms. Lane, that with your knack for getting into trouble, you'd appreciate a few extra rescuers!
  Clark: [snickering] Touché.
• Addictive Magic: Technological variant. Once he gets a taste of Brainiac's power in Justice League Unlimited, getting it back becomes his sole goal in life.
• Adaptational Jerkass: With regards to being a Bad Boss to other supervillains in both the Injustice Gang and the Legion of Doom. Some of this is partially justified through Lex contacting kryptonite poisoning and later on, being implied to go mad from Brainiac's influence in his mind. But at the same time, Lex Luthor in the comics has never been this unpopular with the other supervillains. His comic book counterpart can get into conflict with other bad guys but is more often than not justified by the other villain acting way out of line. In the DCAU, Lex has done almost everything he can to make himself as unlikable as possible to other villains, from nearly alienating the Injustice Gang with his attitude to shooting Grodd to maiming Goldface for questioning him to threatening Weather Wizard with disfigurement to daring everyone in the Legion of Doom to make a move against him so he can take away their powers. Not surprisingly, about two thirds of the Legion sided with Grodd against him in their civil war. Comics Lex has never alienated other supervillains to this degree and most bad guys more often than not want to follow Luthor due to his willingness to benefit them and because he doesn't threaten them like a raving madman. ^note However, after many publication years, Lex in the comics did finally catch up to his DCAU counterpart when he casually betrayed and killed Manchester Black, a purple haired supervillain, to power Project Blackout, similar to how he sacrificed the purple haired villainess Tala in a fatal experiment to try to bring back Brainiac.
• Ambiguously Brown: Word of God says he's Greek and his appearance was based on Telly Savalas, a Greek-American actor. Bruce Timm attributes assumptions that he's black, despite his skin being the same color as Superman's, on his lips.
• And I Must Scream: Averted. Instead of going mad or resisting when he discovers that his cells have become a host for Brainiac, Luthor strikes a bargain with the robot.
• And Then What?: When Brainiac explains that he intends to record and annihilate the entire universe, Luthor (who, like it or not, is along for the ride) responds with "And then what?"
• Arch-Enemy: To Superman, as always.
• Art Evolution: He received a redesign in Justice League. In addition to trading in his business suit for battle armor, he received a redesign in his physical appearance; he is taller, with broader shoulders, lighter skin, and altered facial features (a softened brow and pronounced cheekbones).
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: His final fate as per Dwayne McDuffie is of him and Darkseid becoming part of the Source Wall after Lex reveals the Anti-Life Equation.
• Ax-Crazy: Usually, no. Lex is usually well-composed and under control of his emotions, and even when Superman drives him into annoyance, anger, and dismay over being defeated and humiliated, Lex just lashes out in an ordinary, if narcissistic temper tantrum. Heck, on their first meeting, he states that he is better than The Joker because Lex isn't like him. That changes when Lex fuses with Brainiac and starts to play this trope straight, showing himself to be just as crazy and destructive as The Joker could be once he's become drunk with power and control.
• Bad Boss: He has had employees killed (offscreen of course) not only for betraying him, but occasionally because they were involved in his illegal activities and have outlived their usefulness and are now a liability.
  Luthor: Their survivors will be well-compensated.
• Badass Boast:
  • "That's how you know I'm Luthor. When I augmented your powers I also made I can override your abilities. Would anyone else care to try me?" He says this to the entire assembled Secret Society (aka the Legion of Doom), after owning Doctor Polaris. Dozens of villains with powers that let them fight the Justice League take one look at Luthor, and basically decide he's right.
  • When Metron brings him to the Source Wall, he warns Lex that only a twelfth-level intellect could possibly hope to survive beyond the Wall, at which point Lex quips that he's overqualified. Considering he got the Anti-Life Equation and is as suave as ever, he was right.
• Badass Bookworm: Best known for his brain, but he's physically ripped too and an effective fighter.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Luthor is usually shown in his business suit. It's exemplified in the finale of Justice League Unlimited when he shows up to the final confrontation with Darkseid having ditched his battle fatigues for his "power suit", so it's what he's wearing when he saves the world.
• Badass Normal: It is nowhere near Batman's level of training, but when you can forcibly assume leadership of a large group of superpowered beings and keep them in line just through your intelligence and personal charisma, you qualify.
• Bald of Evil: He doesn’t have a strand of hair on his head and is evil to the core.
  • At one point in Justice League, he is escorted by Supergirl and Steel to his secret bunker...fronted by a barber shop. Steel quips that this is a good choice since this would be the last place anyone would look for him and that he'd probably be getting his nosehairs trimmed here.
  • In another Justice League episode, Gorilla Grodd uses a device that turns every human in the vicinity into gorillas. Luthor turns into a hairless gorilla. He reacts with incredulity.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: He wanted so badly to merge with Brainiac again. Ironically, he then uses this exact same trope against Darkseid.
• Big Bad: For much of Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League. He bankrolled individual supervillains, founded the Injustice Gang, provided secret funding to Cadmus, and eventually usurped the leadership of the Secret Society.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Essentially, he is this in Superman: The Animated Series. He poses a genuine threat to Superman and creates many of his enemies, using his wealth and power to his advantage, but at the end of the day Luthor is much less of a threat than most of the other villains in Metropolis, and many of his creations wind up turning against him and trying to kill him, forcing him to rely on Superman to save him. This ends in Justice League, where he becomes a full-on supervillain.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: When it suits his purposes, he can be quite charming, but only when it suits him.
• Body Horror: In "Panic in the Sky," Brainiac bursts out from under Luthor's skin, leaving a human body with black robot tentacles randomly placed over his body and Brainiac's face protruding from his stomach. Though momentarily astounded, Luthor doesn't Go Mad from the Revelation, which is itself evidence of a staggering amount of willpower.
• Bodyguard Crush: He is the attraction of his own bodyguard, Mercy Graves. The feeling, unfortunately, is one-sided as Lex only really sees her as a subordinate and nothing else.
• Break the Haughty: In Ghost in the Machine, Lex is forced to slave away for Brainiac to point of sleep deprivation and aching hunger. When he's finally able to get some food, he gorges himself, but then he sees his reflection and winces at how pathetic he now looks.
• Character Development: In Superman: The Animated Series, he's a mere Smug Snake who poses a very real danger to Superman, but is utterly dwarfed in threat level by the other villains. After losing everything in Justice League, he becomes far more resourceful and cunning, becoming a genuine supervillain who can hold his own against the Justice League and take down far stronger opponents through sheer intelligence and planning.
• The Chessmaster: He often has plans to manipulate everyone involved to accomplish his goals. One notable example is when he forms the Injustice Gang. He doesn't do so to create an evil equivalent to the Justice League, but really so that the other members will keep the Justice League distracted so they can't stop his real plan. Another notable example is when he deliberately has John Corben infected with a lethal virus so that he could use him as a guinea pig for the cybernetic Metallo transplant experiment to "save" him from the virus.
• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: He's physically based off of Telly Savalas' portrayal of Blofeld from On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Bruce Timm also took some of the characterization as well, describing both as a "cultured thug...a bruiser who wanted to be taken seriously."
• Composite Character: Of himself. This version of Luthor ran the gamut from his modern Corrupt Corporate Executive incarnation (albeit with an emphasized scientific acumen), to the nineteen-forties Diabolical Mastermind, and to the Mad Scientist of the sixties and seventies.
• Cool Plane: Lex has his own specialized aircraft in case he needs to either fly or for surveillance for his own ends. Fittingly, it's called the LexWing. Joker ends up hijacking it (and painting a smile on it) to level Metropolis, resulting in its destruction during the final battle between him, Superman, and Batman.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: He is the CEO of LexCorp and, of course, the primary Arch-Enemy of Superman, as well as a very shady businessmen who will throw away whatever scruples and moral standards he has to get things his own way.
• Crapola Tech: In each new appearance, Lex either showcases or creates a new sort of technological device, vehicle, and/or weapon with the main intent of defeating Superman and taking over his place as the Man of Steel. However, each new tech somehow finds new ways to become malfunctional overtime, which Superman tends to exploit every time. Makes you wonder when Lex would consult a QA department.
• Crazy-Prepared: He made damn sure he can turn the powers of any member of the Secret Society against them if they step out of line, as Doctor Polaris, Goldface, and Grodd found out to their sorrow. Also has an elaborate panic room hidden deep under a random Metropolis barber shop.
  Steel: Gotta hand it to you, Luthor; nobody would think to look for you here.
• Cure for Cancer: He ended up having cancer thanks to him holding the chunk of kryptonite for years, and tried to get it cured, but it's terminal. Brainiac actually cured the cancer when he was inside Luthor's body.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: He already has enough money and power in the world to practically own Metropolis and more, but his obsession with Superman has led him to waste millions on projects solely dedicated to destroying the Man of Steel. Mercy Graves calls him out on this in Justice League, stating that Luthor's leadership nearly led LexCorp to bankruptcy until she started making cuts on his "Kill Superman" R&D. The third season of Unlimited eventually justifies the trope by revealing that Luthor has lost all interest in money after tasting what Brainiac had to offer.
• Deadpan Snarker: Luthor has a sharp tongue and isn’t afraid to use it. It becomes particularly pronounced in Justice League and Justice League Unlimited.
• Demoted to Dragon: In Justice League Unlimited, when he's recruited into Gorilla Grodd's Legion of Doom. At least until Luthor pulls a Starscream and takes over for himself.
• Diabolical Mastermind: After losing his company and resorting to more obvious villainy. He reaches its height in JLU.
• Didn't Think This Through: When he gets his hands on Kryptonite shortly into Superman: The Animated Series, he's quick to put two-and-two together for how to use it to weaken Superman in hopes of killing him for being a nuisance. Amidst all of this he completely blows off his chief scientist's own statements, along with STAR Lab's own documentation, about the fact that the Kryptonite is emitting some sort of radiation. Despite being a brilliant researcher and scientist in his own right, he doesn't think about the possible downsides to carrying around radioactive material from space all the time and subsequently gets terminal cancer for it. Only a Fusion Dance with Brainiac saves him at that point.
• Disproportionate Retribution: His actions in Justice League Unlimited can be considered this as he describes it to The Question (while beating the crap out of him), who's trying to stop him from becoming President to keep from fulfilling a future where Superman kills him and turns evil.
  Luthor: President? Do you know how much power I'd have to give up to be president? That's right, conspiracy buff. I spent $75 million on a fake presidential campaign, all just to tick Superman off.
• Disappointed by the Motive: While he admits he was going to do it in a few weeks anyway, Luthor betrays Grodd and takes over the Legion of Doom because Grodd’s plan (to turn everyone in the world into apes) was stupid and didn't work.
• Do Wrong, Right: While he admits he was going to betray him anyway in a few weeks, Luthor's beef with Grodd's master plan is not that it is a horrible plan, but that it is rather stupid and didn't even work.
• Does Not Like Magic: In "Dead Reckoning," he explains that he doesn't like working with something he doesn't understand, like magic. He later comes around on this after Tala helped him to determine where to locate Brainiac's remains with a spell, and it culminates in him using her power alongside his technology in a bid to resurrect Brainiac.
  Luthor: I used to think magic was unknowable, unpredictable, and not to be trusted. You've taught me so much, Tala. Even my wealth of scientific knowledge would never have been up to this task.
• Domestic Abuser: He became this to Tala. It's also implied in "Tabula Rasa" that he was this to Mercy Graves at some point.
• Dragon with an Agenda: He only joins because Grodd dangles the last remaining chunk of Brainiac in front of him.
• Drunk on the Dark Side: He enjoys his merger with Brainiac since it gives him so much power. He shows signs of addiction afterward.
• Dual Wielding: He uses two laser pistols in the third season of JLU.
• Easily Forgiven: After a season and half of overt villainy—including prison breaks, forming the Injustice Gang, and fistfighting Superman in a suit of Powered Armor—he wrangles himself a presidential pardon in return for his help against the Justice Lords. Despite disapproving comments from the media, he is almost immediately forgiven by the public at large, to the extent that his presidential campaign in the second season of Justice League Unlimited draws Perot-in-'92 levels of support. Notably, Superman never forgives him, not once, and he's pretty consistently portrayed as unforgivable, if only because he's never thought he'd done anything wrong in the first place.
• Empowered Badass Normal: As Brainiac's takeover of Luthor's body proceeds in Unlimited, Luthor has a brief stint of Super-Strength.
• Energy Weapon: Most of Lex's created weaponry is energy-based in some way, ranging from laser blasts to force-fields. For extra points, said energy weapons may be powered by Kryptonite to enhance its effectiveness against Superman.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Two examples.
  • In "My Girl", Lex shows genuine affection for Lana Lang. In a rare show of affection, Lex admits he's glad for once Superman was around after he saves Lana, and is visibly hurt when he learns she was using him to feed information to the Man of Steel.
  • "Love" may not be the right word, but in season 3 of Justice League Unlimited, Luthor's obsession with Braniac has some oddly familiar overtones.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Deconstructed and examined over the course of the continuity. He'll have people assassinated, try to bump off an ex-girlfriend because she dug too deep, wants Superman dead solely because of his slighted ego, and eventually goes Jumping Off the Slippery Slope into full supervillain territory to do as he pleases. But he usually makes his plans much more concise than the wonton crime and destruction most of the other villains wreak, avoids pointless collateral damage unless it's part of the plan, and was Disappointed by the Motive for Gorilla Grodd's plan to turn all of humanity into apes. It's not that Lex has moral and humane standards, it's that he has no real reason to actually cause all hell since it would just make things harder for him, and even that isn't entirely solidified since his tenure under Brainiac demonstrated his willingness to get Drunk on the Dark Side.
• Eviler than Thou:
  • He tries to pull this on the Joker in "World's Finest", but the Joker completely owns him.
  • Ends up on both ends of this trope in "Alive!" He is the bigger evil than Grodd, but the lesser evil than Darkseid.
• Evil Genius: Lex may be a total bastard, but he is a superb scientist and businessman, quite possibly the smartest human being on the planet, with an extremely advanced knowledge of robotics, cybernetics and a host of other fields. The fact that he uses his brilliant mind for entirely self-serving and outright criminal ends is what makes him such a monster.
  Metron: I warn you one final time — only a twelfth level intellect has the slightest hope of surviving what you are about to experience.
  Luthor: Then I'm overqualified.
• Evil Is Petty: As explained in President Evil, he wasted millions doing a fake president campaign just to annoy Superman. Granted, he did have reason to want Superman distracted to perform his current scheme, but it's clear he enjoys humiliating Superman more than he enjoys pulling off his plans. And in "Divided We Fall", he admits that even in his "transcended" state, he'll enjoy murdering the Flash with his own two hands just to twist the knife.
• Evil Sounds Deep: He is voiced by Clancy Brown and he is a villain.
• Expy: He was modelled on Telly Savalas' version of Ernst Stavro Blofeld in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
• Face Death with Dignity: For all the complex plans he's been running since receiving his pardon, AMAZO coming back for him was something he genuinely wasn't prepared for and after a last ditch Hail Mary in the form of a nanotech disassembler gun fails, he had every reason to think that his number was well and truly up. Even so he neither breaks down or pleads for mercy, but simply tells the android to Get It Over With.
  • In "Divided We Fall," after causing Flash to fade out of existence, he looks up to see Superman glaring down at him, and makes a callback to his own evil gloating, with weary resignation, knowing he has no way to defend himself.
  Luthor: I was mistaken earlier... I think this is the part where you kill me.
• Falsely Reformed Villain: After being pardoned and while running for President, he was still plotting to destroy Superman, or at least humiliate him. Of course, Brainiac's in there pulling his strings, so it's hard to say if he even was planning on going straight.
• Faux Affably Evil: He acts friendly, but it does nothing to hide his true nature as a manipulative narcissist.
• Frickin' Laser Beams: Lex often specializes in using lasers as his go-to ammunition in regards to his technologically advanced weaponry and would often install them in other LexCorp tech as well.
• Fusion Dance: With Braniac in JLU. The end result is an uber-powerful being bent on destroying the universe and then remaking it as they see fit.
• Genius Bruiser: With Brainiac being inside of him he gained enough strength to easily overwhelm Batman and Question in hand-to-hand combat and throw them around like ragdolls.
• Godhood Seeker: He seeks to become a god after being diagnosed with Kryptonite cancer and discovering the blueprints to Amazo's powers and immortality. He doesn't get the chance to upload his conscious into an Amazo android body but after learning that Brainiac has been living inside of him the whole time, he decides to make do with the alien AI's powers instead. After losing Brainiac in a battle with the Justice League, Luthor spends the last season trying to get him back because the taste of godhood was worth more than the billions he made as a criminal businessman.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Lexcorp's R&D labs don't have any kind of bug testing. Whenever Lex rolls out a new product (particularly in Superman: The Animated Series), there's a better-than-even chance that it'll turn out dangerously flawed and require Superman to clean up the mess.
• Gorgeous Greek: Word of God says that Lex is Greek-American, and he's not exactly bad-looking.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Ironically despite being an ex-boyfriend of Lois Lane, it's not because of the blatant close relationship she and Superman or Clark Kent share, but rather entirely of Superman himself. Beloved by the people unanimously, all the mighty power in the world and yet the sheer humility to never truly exploit it, and being a paragon of justice for all? Everything Lex does once their rivalry begins is either for himself, or to spite Superman for being everything Lex isn't, for being the kind of "god" Luthor thinks he should be.
• Guns Akimbo: He wields guns in JLU.
• Heroic Sacrifice: He makes one to stop Darkseid in "Destroyer," although it's somewhat subverted in that he's explicitly only doing it for revenge, not to save Earth. Although, it's possible that Luthor didn't know that his actions were going to cause his own demise too, and it's also possible that Luthor only saved Superman because he wanted to be the one to kill Superman someday instead of Darkseid. Also, the whole situation was his fault in the first place. Darkseid would never have been revived to begin with if not for Luthor's actions.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • In Superman: TAS, he frequently has to be saved from the negative consequences of his own attempts to create the perfect anti-Superman weapon.
  • He contracted an incurable illness due to always keeping Kryptonite on him. He has to have a machine implanted in him to stay alive for most of Justice League and Justice League Unlimited until Brainiac cures him... for his own reasons.
  • When AMAZO returns to Earth looking for Lex, he and the Atom make nano-disassembler beam cannon to try and take the godly android down unluckily for them AMAZO No Sells it. Even more unfortunate for Lex however, it works very well for Amanda Waller in BFG form when Lex makes an AMAZO Android in his own image.
  Waller: Waller: A nano-disassembler beam. Your design, I believe.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Averted big time—in "The Great Brain Robbery", upon finding himself in the Flash's body, he immediately puts his powers to incredible use, from the standard Speed Blitz to the weirder applications of high-speed vibration.
• Humiliation Conga: Luthor makes it through Superman: The Animated Series more or less about how he entered, give or take some humbling moments. Over the course of Justice League however, he gets cancer, loses his fortune, has his reputation as a captain of industry stolen forever, is forced to live life on the run from the law (with occasional stops in a Cardboard Prison), is possessed and puppeteered by an alien intelligence, (possibly) goes insane, is made into a lackey for Grodd, has his life's goal of Godhood snatched from him at the last minute by Darkseid, and ultimately winds up trapped in the Source Wall for all eternity. Many times he starts to reverse his situation and turn things around by manipulating others (conspiring with Cadmus, teaming up with Brainiac, hijacking Grodd), but all any of these brief respites do is set him up for a greater fall.
• Humongous Mecha: Lex created the Lexo-Suit 5000 as a state-in-the-art military equipment to win over public trust and to assert himself in the military arms industry. Incidentally, the suit is also the very first thing Clark Kent fights against as Superman.

I-N

• If I Wanted You Dead...: He explains to Lois in "Target" that, if he were really behind the most recent attempts on her life, he would never have left such a blatant trail that would lead back to himself.
• Immortality Seeker: One of his main goals in Justice League — after killing or discrediting Superman, of course. In "The Return", he gets a monologue about how, despite all his efforts, even his achievements will be forgotten in a few generations. In the Cadmus arc, it turns out his endgame was to upload his mind into a second Amazo, giving him a super-powered body for the rest of eternity. Upon being released from prison by Grodd and the Secret Society, he makes it clear that his goal is not defeating the Justice League or even reclaiming his company, but getting back the power he had when he was briefly bonded with Brainiac and the Dark Heart.
• Implied Death Threat: One episode has him tell a scientist who knows too much that “Metropolis is very dangerous at night”, and that he should let Mercy “protect him”; the unspoken implication, of course, is that Mercy is going to kill him.
• Ink-Suit Actor: Bears more than a passing resemblance to his actor, Clancy Brown. He was, however, based visually on Telly Savalas.
• Insurance Fraud: In one story of the Comic-Book Adaptation, Luthor hires robbers to steal valuables that are reported as being accidentally destroyed during the attempted robberies so he'll collect the insurance money. Superman stops the scheme and Luthor has to save face by claiming the destroyed artifacts were copies made to deceive thieves.
• It's All About Me: Luthor's ego requires constant feeding; this is one of the reasons Superman's humility galls him.
• Jerkass: He's such a colossal dick. An example would be how in "Injustice for All", he ends up having to triple the pay of his Injustice Gang to keep them from walking out on him (and then has to pay even more than that to get the Ultra-Humanite's help in keeping him alive). And in the final season of Justice League Unlimited, he somehow manages to push several members of the Legion into backing a coup by Grodd, whose big master plan is to turn everyone on Earth into apes.
• Jerkass Has a Point: As much of a douchebag as he is, Lex wasn’t wrong that Grodd’s plan to turn people into apes was rather convoluted and nonsensical.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: For most of Superman: TAS, he remained untouched and never had to directly pay for his crimes. In the series finale, however, he's finally punched out by a depowered Superman. By the time of Justice League, Lex is an outlaw and is finally seen by the public for the criminal that he is.
  • Though he manages to redeem his public image after getting a presidential pardon for his role in stopping the Justice Lords, which eventually leads to him running for President with a pretty large base of support. It turns out the entire campaign was largely a giant excuse to screw with Superman, who never believed that Lex turned over a new leaf. Lex loses his support again for the final time however after publicly fusing with Braniac and causing all sorts of chaos. He is put back in jail, and after being broken out, he spends the rest of the series as a an out and out villain hiding away from public view.
• Kick the Dog: Luthor barely even knows Superman five episodes in besides ruining his initial Lexo-Suit 5000 deal with a foreign nation, and he still goes out of his way to weaponize Kryptonite as soon as he realizes it weakens Superman, just to be petty. On top of that, he cruelly disregards a chief scientist that thinks the material could help advance humanity, because he'd rather do the petty things with Superman than bother making a profit off of it. Incidentally, this very decision gives him terminal cancer in the long-term.
  • The beginning of the series establishes that Lois Lane is an ex-girlfriend of Lex. But because she's quick to badger him over his questionably legal practices, and plays a key part in helping Superman undermine his illegal operations, he outright tries to have her killed multiple times out of spite, with not even an ounce of hesitation or consideration. She got in his way, after all.
• Lack of Empathy: He really doesn't care about anyone or anything unless it's himself. He even invokes it to Superman during Darkseid's invasion in Justice League Unlimited to prove that his Enemy Mine offer is genuine:
  Lex Luthor: Let's be clear about this: we're not here to help you save the world — you're here to help me get revenge on Darkseid. When this is over, it's back at business as usual.
• Last Chance to Quit: In A Little Piece of Home, once Superman and Lois become aware of Kryptonite as well as learning that Lex has possession of pieces of them, he offers Superman a final chance to settle their rivalry if the latter refrains from opposing the former. Superman rejects this, of course.
• Let No Crisis Go to Waste: In Legacy, he immediately figures out that something's off with Superman when he starts attacking the Earth and that it's not him behind it. He doesn't care - it's a good opportunity to finally destroy him.
• Mad Scientist: Big time. This is played up by the time of Justice League.
• Made a Slave: In "Ghost in the Machine", Brainiac reveals to Luthor he downloaded his mind into LexCorp's computers following the events of "Stolen Memories" and sabotaged his latest weapon's demonstration to get Luthor to go into a research lab where he's rebuilding himself. Luthor refuses to help Brainiac in anyway, but after showing how he can create a 3D rendering to fool everyone, Luthor has no choice but to rebuild Brainiac's body. After being locked up for several days in the lab, Luthor collapses, and when Brainiac tries to force him to keep working, Luthor responds that as a human, he needs food and rest, but Brainiac only allows him enough time off to eat some chocolate bars from a nearby vending machine. Luthor is only freed when Superman and Mercy storm the lab and confront Brainiac.
• The Man Behind the Man: To Project Cadmus in Justice League Unlimited. And then he, in turn, is revealed to be simply the Unwitting Pawn of Brainiac.
• Misanthrope Supreme: The only human Luthor cares for is himself. If he has a shot at godhood, and it comes at the price of the rest of humanity, well too bad for the human race.
• Narcissist: One of his largest character traits, to the extent where you couldn't really imagine Luthor without his narcissistic tendencies. It's made clear from his first appearance onward that he has an insanely bloated opinion about himself and often considers himself the best of what humanity has to offer. His enmity towards Superman is mainly based on the fact that he is a superhuman and has won the love and respect of Metropolis, something which Lex has desired and held onto for years and is annoyed by the fact that his spotlight is taken over.
• Never My Fault: He gets cancer from manipulating Kryptonite for years. He blames it all on Superman, saying that he would never had caught the disease if Superman didn't oppose him in the first place.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: His appearance and voice were based on Telly Savalas.
• No Sympathy Between Mooks: Lex is callous to the point where he couldn't care less about his own subordinates wanting his help or his affections. This is best shown in Ghost of the Machine when Mercy Graves is begging for his help whilst trapped under debris, and he doesn't bother to respond to it.
• Not Me This Time:
  • When someone's attempting to kill Lois, Lex is at the top of the list due to the tech used being from his company. Lex points out he'd never leave such an obvious trail if he did want to kill her, which he doesn't because he respects her. Lois believes him more because the killer's M.O. is not Lex's style.
  • Later, when said killer becomes Luminus and uses Luthor's own satellites to filter the sun so it appears red, and thus depowering Superman, Luthor denies he's involved because he's losing billions in communications revenue because of Luminus' actions. Even he wouldn't flush his company down the drain to settle the score with Superman. Yet.
• Not-So-Imaginary Friend: Brainiac in Season 3 of Justice League Unlimited. After Darkseid is accidentally revived instead of Brainiac, Brainiac stops appearing to Luthor since the last of Brainiac's functional remains were absorbed into Darkseid.

O-Z

• Pay Evil unto Evil: He eventually starts to argue and later fight against Gorilla Grodd over leadership of the Secret Society, and Lex ultimately wins by ejecting Grodd to the vacuum of space. While Lex is arguably the less moral individual, him offing Grodd is still warranted, given that the villainous gorilla seeked domination and wanted to convert all of mankind into primates for him to lord over.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Lex was at Dan Turpin's funeral, along with everyone else. While it might just be for publicity sake, we do see him somewhat mournful.
  • When it appears that Superman has been killed, he comes to the funeral and comforts Lois, saying sadly, "Believe it or not, I'm going to miss him too" There are at least three fanbase interpretations:
    • He presented genuine gratitude after the Enemy Mine situation (involving the Justice Lords) got him pardoned.
    • He's a Villain with Good Publicity and his absence would have been suspicious.
    • He's sad because somebody else got there first, and he's mourning his The Only One Allowed to Defeat You relationship.
  • He also followed through on his word not to use a power-annulling weapon on the Justice League, after using it on the Justice Lords.
  • He also saved the world, twice. First time, he deprogrammed Amazo away from Blue-and-Orange Morality in "The Return" (though it must be noted that he's responsible for Amazo becoming such a threat to start with). Second time, is when he saved Superman from Darkseid, and by offering him the Anti-Life Equation, removing himself and Darkseid as threats for good, but again Darkseid was perfectly fine and dead until Luthor revived him and ran to the Justice League to bail him out.
• Photographic Memory: After seeing the original Amazo blueprints for only a few minutes, he's able to secretly build his own model.
  Batman: And I suspect you have a photographic memory.
  Luthor: I'm too modest to boast.
  • As well as this, when Tala used a spell that showed him the locations of Brainiac's remains in deep space (from his lair that was destroyed after the events of the episode "Twilight"), he was able to determine their coordinates just from the position of the surrounding stars in the few seconds he was able to see them.
• Powered Armor: He wears it a lot in Justice League, where he's forced to go head-to-head with the League. That said, his real "power suit", as shown in the finale, is his business suit.
• President Evil:
  • Played straight with the Justice Lord-verse Luthor, who seems to be almost exactly identical to the normal one. Murders the Flash, seems on the verge of starting a nuclear war, and mocks Justice Lord Superman by telling him that even if he somehow stops his Evil Plan of the week, he'll still get away with it and trying something else again since Superman doesn't have the guts to kill him. Turns out, Superman does.
  • Subverted in the main continuity. He only ran to annoy Superman. And it worked.
• The Quisling: Despite previously having been an Unwitting Pawn, he voluntarily throws in with Brainiac in exchange for more personal power in "Divided We Fall", as, since he's on his way to godhood, loyalty to the human race is of negligible concern.
• Reconstruction: Of Mad Scientist Lex Luthor during the Silver Age of Comics. Back in the late 80s and 90s, his comic book counterpart was reinterpreted as a Corrupt Corporate Executive because it was believed at the time that an evil genius like Luthor would use his intellect to subtly gain power through business dealings and finances rather than super weapons and cartoonish plots to rule the world directly. While Lex starts off as a rich businessman who merely finances a lot of Superman's foes, Superman: TAS slowly but surely establishes the foundation of his mad scientist persona, while Justice League depicts the key events that would turn a normal businessman into a true supervillain, namely being exposed as a criminal by Superman and dying of Kryptonite cancer. Without his money to save him from prison (or death), Lex fully embraces the life of a supervillain determined to become a god, leave his mark upon the world, and destroy Superman out of spite.
• The Resenter: What lies at the core of his villainy beneath all his wealthy bravado. Superman is beloved and cherished by the citizens of Metropolis, using his great power to serve rather than reign. This grates on Luthor immensely. Why should a man with endless ambition and drive such as Luthor never stack up to a godlike extraterrestrial whose only contribution to the world is humbly being its guardian? As long as Superman is loved then Luthor will never be satisfied.
• Save the Villain: His ploy to set up The Joker backfires really hard on him when the Clown Prince of Crime suddenly turns on Lex and leaves him to die alongside Harley Quinn. To Lex's displeasure, he has to be saved by Superman on this occasion.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: As a Corrupt Corporate Executive, he uses money to buy his way out of getting in trouble for his actions.
• Shadow Archetype: Lex is a cynical man who uses all kinds of money and political power to manipulate, throwing himself into conflict with Superman, an idealist who uses his abundance of physical power to protect.
  • He becomes a Badass Normal Genius Bruiser in Justice League in contrast to Batman.
  • Also with The Joker, most prominent in "World's Finest" where Luthor is more orderly and Pragmatic Evil while The Joker is chaotic and petty. However, in the later seasons, particularly after he bonds with Brainiac, Luthor's Mask of Sanity vanishes and he proves to be nearly as unstable as Joker. He's also an abusive dickhead just like Joker.
• Ship Tease: Averted. Tala is into him, but he's not interested and he's a complete jerkass to her. In one scene, he grabs her as if to lean into her and kiss her, only to violently shove her away. After Tala decides she's over him and frees Grodd to start an internal conflict in the Legion, Luthor isn't hurt by her betrayal at all and Curb Stomp Battles her before sacrificing her to revive Brainiac. Too bad she revived Darkseid instead to spite him.
• Smug Snake: For the entire duration of Superman: TAS. Having enough money and resources to weasel his way out of legal troubles, Luthor is a very arrogant businessman who thinks he's in control of the situation and often finds himself being bitten in the ass, whether it be Superman, the villains he hires to kill Superman, or other superheroes he dismisses as mere nuisance. It reaches its logical conclusion in Justice League where Luthor's overuse of the Kryptonite causes him to walk into a confession trap set by the titular team (who are mostly unaffected by the Kryptonite radiation), as well as giving him a terminal illness where no amount of his money can save him. This ironically helps Luthor become the competent villain like he was in the comics, as having no money or minions means he has to be creative and smart with his evil plans.
• The Sociopath: Although he can act caring and compassionate in public, he is a consistent liar and manipulator who treats people, his employees and even his love interests as disposable assets to further his goals. He shows no empathy to anyone except if they gave his life meaning such as Superman and Brainiac. And he shamelessly admits to Superman in the Justice League Unlimited series finale that he sees their Enemy Mine against Darkseid as settling revenge against the Lord of Apokolips for stealing his prize instead of saving the world.
• The Social Expert: Luthor is really good at being charismatic and talking people into believing or doing what he wants. Of course, this only lasts so long, since he is such a Jerkass that people will inevitably try to sever their ties with him. Then again, he’s so good at it that he talks Brainiac into allying with him after they fuse into one being.
• The Starscream: A successful one, too. He shoots Grodd and takes over the Legion as soon as he gets fed up with Grodd's...uh...big and evil plan. Bonus points for being completely open about his plans for treachery.
  Luthor: I wasn't going to do this for another few weeks, but seriously? Turning all of humanity into apes? That was your "master plan"?
• Taking You with Me: His last trump card if he loses everything else.
  • When he finds out he's dying of Kryptonite-induced cancer, he forms the Injustice Gang in a last-ditch effort to take out Superman and all his friends.
  • His Justice Lord counterpart, President Luthor, is willing to launch a nuclear war just to spite Superman one last time.
  • After Darkseid took away Brainiac from him in the JLU finale, Luthor is willing to do anything to get revenge, even sacrificing himself to trap Darkseid into the Source Wall with the Anti-Life Equation as bait.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Whenever working with Superman, or the Joker, or Grodd. He's really not a people person. The only one he really got on with is Brainiac.
• Terrifying Tyrannosaur: He houses a mechanical Tyrannosaurus in A Little Piece of Home which he activates and control in an attempt to stop Lois and kill Superman for attempting to slander him further. He embeds the mechanical Tyrannosaurus with a piece of Kryptonite in its mouth to give himself an advantage against Superman.
• They Know Too Much: Several people working for Luthor have been killed for their knowledge of his crimes. One guy was killed for deciding to be a whistleblower.
• Too Hungry to Be Polite: In ''Ghost of the Machine, he was held hostage inside his own office by Brainiac, who forces him to build him a new robot body. When Brainiac finally allows Lex to take a dinner break, Lex gorges himself on a handful of candy bars from a nearby snack machine.
• Took a Level in Badass: In Superman: TAS, Luthor served as businessman and The Man Behind the Man and Greater-Scope Villain behind various Superman villains. He was also easily outranked by Joker, Brainiac, and Darkseid in terms of scale. In "Legacy", he was a Butt-Monkey that a depowered Superman landed a head-butt on. However, the minute Luthor became a criminal mastermind in Justice League (Unlimited) and lapsed back to his Silver Age get-up (Purple Suit, Orange Jumpsuit), he became far more dangerous and powerful than ever before, believably becoming a League-level threat (second only to Vandal Savage, Brainiac and Darkseid), and even getting the upper hand on Batman in a fight during their fight in "Injustice for All".
• Trade Your Passion for Glory: Lex Luthor was always brilliant but one can argue that his time spent behind the desk of a corporate office hampered his scientific passion and genius. In Justice League he would note how Lexcorp's great wealth and resources didn't achieve half the stuff that Professor Ivo did alone in his lab, more or less confessing that even he never built anything like the AMAZO Android. Indeed, he shows far more genius, elan and inventiveness as a criminal and open supervillain than he ever did as a civilian businessman.
  Lex Luthor: "Ironic...years of plotting...hundreds of millions spent on Cadmus R&D projects and none of it bore fruit. Now it's a lowly employee of Lexcorp, Doctor Ivo, creator of Amazo, who we have to thank for my impending godhood."
• Troll: In Justice League Unlimited. His entire presidential campaign was a farce to get under Superman's skin. It was immensely successful at doing so.
• Underestimating Badassery: There were two people in Luthor's lifetime he thought were minor nuisances at best—The Joker and Batman. Unfortunately, the clown and "one mere mortal in a Halloween costume" made a complete fool of him.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Superman saves Luthor's life multiple times in the DCAU- stopping Metallo (and others) from killing him, getting him to hospital when he has a heart attack / stroke, saving the planet that Luthor happens to live on etc . Lex still hates Superman and spends a fortune on trying to see him dead.
• Unwitting Pawn: Of Brainiac's during the first two seasons of Justice League Unlimited.
• Villain Has a Point: In Blasts from the Past, he is afraid Mala will try to enslave the human race and should be sent back to the Phantom Zone. Not only does she find the idea of enslaving humans and breeding Kryptonians with Superman tempting, but in the end Superman ends up sending her and Jax-Ur back to the Phantom Zone, meaning he probably should have listened to Lex a lot earlier.
• Villain Protagonist: He becomes this in the final season of Justice League Unlimited, which is about how he rises from prison to Gorilla Grodd's lackey in the Legion of Doom, to usurping the Legion of Doom and in the end, perhaps Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence; the second last episode, in particular, is told almost entirely from the perspective of himself and other members of the Legion.
• Villain with Good Publicity: In Superman: The Animated Series and the second season of Justice League Unlimited.
• Villainous Breakdown: When the League exposes his crimes in "Injustice for All," he becomes a lot more irritable and less composed than he was previously.
• Villainous Friendship: Well, "friendship" might be too strong a word, and it more coincides with his desire for godhood, but the way he voices his obsession with bringing Brainiac back in Season 3 does bring to mind someone who is desperate to bring back a loved one. It should be noted that, unlike how he usually is, he was willing to consolidate power with Brainiac when they merged in the first place.
• Villainous Rescue: In part two of "A Better World", Lex uses a power disruptor to stop the Justice Lords' Superman from killing Flash, then subdues the rest of the League's evil counterparts, as part of a deal he struck with the real Superman in exchange for a pardon.
• Villainous Underdog: Even moreso during Justice League (Unlimited), where Luthor is stripped of his company, his reputation, and his funding but becomes a greater threat than ever before, representing what Neil Gaiman said that while one can imprison Luthor time and again, you can't really imprison his mind.
• Villainous Valour: Discussed in the final episode of Justice League Unlimited, where Luthor saves the day and defeats Darkseid by forcing him to assimilate into the Source Wall with the Anti-Life Equation:
  Martian Manhunter: In many ways, Lex Luthor represented the very worst of humanity.
  Superman: And yet, he died to save the world.
• Visionary Villain: Although he's a greedy bastard ruled by his lust for power and control, when all other schemes and inventions fail, it is Lex Luthor's idealism that gets through to Amazo and helps the android stabilize itself and become a hero, as he speaks passionately about the joy of being able to live to bear witness to the whole breadth of the universe and the progress of the evolutionary process moving ever forwards.
• Wealthy Yacht Owner: He had one in "The Way of All Flesh".
• We Can Rule Together:
  • At the end of "The Last Son of Krypton", Luthor offers Superman a chance to work together, seeing opportunity to expand his global influence with Superman's powers. Naturally, Superman refuses, which officially starts the bitter rivalry between these two larger-than-life figures. "Brave New Metropolis" would show what the world would be had Superman taken the offer.
    Lex Luthor: A being with your abilities could be very useful to me on a, shall we say, global scale? Why don't you float on in and we'll discuss it?
  • When Luthor is at Brainiac's mercy but realizes that Brainiac has no idea what to do after collecting all the knowledge in the universe, he suggests to the android that they should remake the universe together since Luthor's creativity will give meaning to Brainiac's programming. Seeing the logic behind it, Brainiac accepts.
• Worthy Opponent: He personally has this viewpoint towards Lois Lane; while Lex is not fond of the fact that Lois would slander and criticize him and LexCorp publicly for his criminal actions, he does respect her for being outgoing in her pursuit for journalism as well as her skills and abilities in that field.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Several people doing his dirty work have been killed after accomplishing it, since They Know Too Much, or, in the case of Dr. Vale, not leaving town fast enough.

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