How Luthor Met Superboy is a Superman story written and illustrated by Jerry Siegel and Al Plastino and published in Adventure Comics #271 (April, 1960). As the name would suggest, it is Lex Luthor's first origin story which remained canon for twenty-six years.
Superboy is going to greet the new family who have moved to Smallville, when he runs into a Kryptonite meteor. Fortunately, he is saved by the new neighbors' son, who introduces himself as Lex Luthor, genius scientist and Superboy's greatest fan. In gratitude for saving his life, Superboy builds Lex his own research laboratory, prompting Lex to develope an antidote for Kryptonite poisoning.
Finally, Lex develops a cure, but he accidentally tips over a flask and starts a fire. Lex desperately calls Superboy for help, and the Teen of Steel swiftly comes and blows out the fire. Unfortunately, Superboy's Super-Breath accidentally destroys Luthor's top secret project. Lex angrily accuses Superboy of destroying it on purpose out of jealousy, and he refuses to listen when Superboy pleads innocence. This is the beginning of a hatred for Superboy that will ultimately result in Luthor becoming Superman's Arch-Enemy.
Tropes found in this story:
- Alliterative Name: At the end of the story, Superboy realizes Lex Luthor has the same initials as Lana Lang, and feels puzzled about that coincidence.
- Anger Montage: After his life-engineering experiment is destroyed, Lex spends several panels smashing his Superboy memorabilia and trashing his room with a baseball bat.
- Antagonist Title: The story title is "How Luthor Met Superboy", and it tells the origin of Superman's arch nemesis Lex Luthor.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: When Superboy puts out the fire burning his lab down, Lex angrily yells the combination of fire, chemical fumes and Superboy's Super-Breath has ruined his antidote for Kryptonite, has destroyed his breakthrough scientific discovery, and has made his hair fall out.
- Baldness Angst: Lex Luthor loses his hair in a lab accident that Superboy saves him from.
- Bring It: Subverted. Convinced that Superboy wants to "crush his greatness" out of jealousy, Lex Luthor yells "Do your worst!" at Superboy, completely oblivious to Superboy sincerely wishing him success.Lex Luthor: Do your worst! You'll see! I'll still become more admired, and more famous than you!
- Broken Pedestal: Lex was a total Superboy fanboy until his lab got burned down, and he convinced himself that Superboy started the fire to destroy his great discovery out of jealousy.Lex Luthor: I hate him, I hate him! How could I ever have hero-worshipped that super-rat?!! I'll destroy every picture, every trophy of him!
- Captain Obvious: When Lex leads Superboy into a Kryptonite trap, Superboy shouts "A... KRYPTONITE TRAP!!!"
- Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: When Superboy saves Lex from being burned alive, his buddy yells at him because Superboy accidentally destroyed his experiments and his hair as rescuing him.
- Create Your Own Villain: Lex was a fan of Superboy, then went on to hate his guts after an accident made Luthor lose his laboratory, a protoplasmic lifeform he had created, and his precious... hair. Luthor believed that it was done out of jealousy for Luthor's genius and vowed to prove he was better than Supes. While this seems like Disproportionate Retribution, that same story had Luthor create multiple grandiose engineering projects for Smallville to show Superboy up, only to have all of them go disastrously wrong and force Clark to intervene. Thus Luthor's hate grew due to his warped perception that Superboy was out to publicly humiliate him despite the fact that Superboy had no choice in the matter.
- Creating Life: Lex Luthor manages to create an artificial, protoplasmic lifeform. Unfortunately, his artificial being gets accidentally destroyed when Superboy puts out a fire consuming his laboratory.Lex Luthor: Wouldn't Superboy be surprised if he knew I am on the verge of discovering the very secret of life itself?!! [...] It's alive! A formula created it... out of chemicals! It's crude protoplasm, but who knows what this stupendous experiment may lead to?!
- Death Trap: Luthor sets up an actually simple trap for Superboy: a Kryptonite rock stashed away behind a lead wall panel. When Superboy walks into his lab, completely clueless to the fact that his former friend now wants to murder him, Lex presses a button on his desk and the panel slides upwards, letting the rock bathe Superboy in lethal radiation.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Luthor's first response to Superboy accidentally rendering him bald when the superhero put out a lab fire was to create grandiose public works projects around Smallville to steal Superboy's thunder as the local hero. However, Lex cannot get it through his head that Superboy does not mind in the least— he's simply glad that if his former friend is carrying them out as part of a vendetta, at least he is doing it constructively. Of course, each project goes dangerously out of control, forcing Superboy to intervene to avert disaster and Luthor can only rationalize that Superboy did that to humiliate him.
- Evil Former Friend: Superboy and Lex were friends until the latter convinced himself that Superboy was scheming against him, started hating him, and eventually turned to villainy.
- Evil Gloating: Lex Luthor lures Superboy into a Kryptonite death trap. As Superboy is lying in agony, Lex leans over Superboy to gloat while waving a flask of Kryptonite antidote over his face. Superboy quickly exploits Lex's arrogance, snatches the flask from his hands and swallows the antidote.
- Evil Is Petty: When Lex decides to break up his friendship with Superboy, he could have flushed out his Kryptonite antidote and never told anybody about it. Instead, Luthor mixes a special batch, gives Superboy a sample, lets him fly between Kryptonite meteorites unharmed, and then reveals it was merely a temporary antidote only to laugh in Superboy's disappointed face.
- Fatal Flaw: Lex's repeated attempts to upstage Superboy keep going wrong and forcing Superboy to save the day. Lex convinces himself that Superboy is engineering his heroics to humiliate Lex, instead of Lex humiliating himself and Superboy dealing with the consequences.
- Fight Off the Kryptonite: After setting up his Kryptonite trap for Superboy, Lex wants to add insult to injury, so he waves a flask of Kryptonite antidote above Clark's face while he is lying on the ground. Superboy is too weakened and hurting to move a muscle, but he can still use his Super-Breath, so he breathe in a powerful gust of air, causing Lex to drop the flask right on Superboy's face, who hurries to suck in the antidote.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: Twice, Lex creates new inventions that are meant to help Smallville (a sun-reflecting weather tower that lets crops grow in winter and "super seeds" that create fruit trees near-instantly) as a way of one-upping Superboy; however, they both have some major design flaws that nearly cause them to destroy the town (the weather tower almost burns everything to a crisp and the trees created by the seeds start growing uncontrollably), forcing Superboy to intervene to save everyone. As a result, Lex is regarded as a menace by the town and his hatred for Superboy grows.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: Super Vacuum Breath -essentially using Super-Breath to inhale air instead of expelling it out- sounded so silly that even Pre-Crisis Superman and Supergirl (who thought nothing of their super-ventriloquism ability) considered it a ridiculous power. Still it saves Superboy's life when Lex Luthor exposes him to Kryptonite, and while Clark is lying in agony, waves a flask of K-antidote over his face. Quickly, Superboy breathes in air, wrenching the flask from Luthor's hands and sucking in the antidote.
- House Fire: Lex's lab gets destroyed by a fire which he himself accidentally causes. Though, Lex convinces himself that Superboy started the fire out of jealousy, thus starting his descent into darkness.
- It Has Only Just Begun: After being defeated for first time, Lex swears he will keep trying to destroy Superboy.
- Kryptonite Is Everywhere: The story begins when Superboy is about to greet Luthor, and suddenly a Kryptonite meteorite crashes next to him. Later, Superboy tests Luthor's Kryptonite antidote by streaking up into outer space until finding a Kryptonite meteor swarm.
- Milking the Giant Cow: When he feels he has been slighted, Lex gesticulates wildly, raising his fist heavenwards and yelling Superboy will regret crossing him.
- Mundane Utility: Superboy uses his powers to build an experimental laboratory for Lex Luthor using rubbish from a junk yard.
- My Greatest Failure: Pre-Crisis Superman's biggest failure was arguably when he destroyed Lex Luthor's protoplasmic lifeform as well as causing his hair to fall out when he was trying to rescue him from a lab fire. Sure, it was an accident and mostly not his fault (Luthor caused the fire and Superboy had no way of knowing what was inside at the time), but it didn't help that before the fire, Superboy jokingly said he could spy on Luthor to find out what he was working on. Luthor wrongly believed Superboy destroyed his experiment out of jealousy and dedicated his life to destroying him and proving he was better. Luthor had the scientific genius to make a cure for Kryptonite as well as unshrink Kandor, so if things had gone differently, Superman would have had a lot fewer problems in his life and an ally against evil as well.
- Never My Fault: Lex accidentally burns down his lab and convinces himself that Superboy started the fire out of jealousy. Later, he talks the mayor into funding the building of innovative public works to improve Smallville -and fuel his ego-, but when his inventions malfunction, prompting Superboy to shut them down, Lex convinces himself that Superboy ruined them with the purpose of humiliating him.
- No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Lex achieves to create an artificial lifeform after countless experiments... but apparently, he never thought of noting the formula down during said tests, since he rants about being unable to replicate his experiment when the formula is accidentally destroyed.
- Origins Episode: Lex Luthor's first origin story, told by his creator himself.
- Parental Neglect: Clark realizes that Lex is becoming disturbingly unhinged, but his father cannot stop his downward spiral, even though his son clearly needs him, because the man is always working away from home.Superboy: It's unfortunate Luthor's father, a traveling salesman, is rarely home. His son needs a father's guidance...
- Prematurely Bald: Lex loses his hair as a teenager, when an experiment in artificial life goes wrong.
- Pride: Lex Luthor's arrogance and hubris lead to him becoming a villain. Since Lex cannot admit that his scientific breakthrough became lost forever because he is a clumsy idiot who could not even think of writing the formula down, he convinces himself that Superboy destroyed it intentionally to "crush his greatness", and swears revenge.
- Revenge Before Reason: Eventually Superboy stops trying to change Lex's mind because he realizes Lex will never believe in his innocence. Lex's arrogance and guilt-pushing attitude will never allow him to accept he is the sole responsible for his failures.
- Start of Darkness: Lex accidentally starts a lab fire which destroys his life-creation science project, but he blames Superboy because his ego will not let him admit he screwed up. Believing that Superboy is trying to undermine him because he is jealous of his genius, Lex decides to show him off by creating ambitious public works which earn the public's admiration. Unfortunately, Lex is still a rookie engineer, so his inventions go awry, forcing Superboy to save the day. Lex becomes more embittered and short-tempered with each failure, and since he is still too prideful to take responsibility for his mistakes, he convinces himself that Superboy is trying to ruin his life. Lex decides to murder Superboy to prove his superiority, and the rest is -comicbook- history.
- Superdickery: Young Clark allowing himself to be a bit of an ass has far-reaching consequences. When Lex confides to Superboy that he is working on an amazing secret project, Superboy cannot help pointing out smilingly that he can easily X-Ray Lex's drawers, before adding quickly he will not do such a thing because he would never betray a friend's trust. Unfortunately, Lex would become convinced that Superboy indeed snooped on his project and decided to sabotage it.
- Ungrateful Bastard: After putting out the fire, Superboy expects Lex to be grateful for being saved from death by burning. Instead, he walks into the lab and finds Lex yelling he has ruined his life.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Subverted. Lex looked like a friendly teenager before the lab accident, but he was already showing subtle hints of the kind of hubris, jealousy and hair-trigger temper which led him to become a villain.
- We Used to Be Friends: Superboy and Lex were friends when they were teenagers until the lab accident occurred. Superboy saved Lex, but Lex blamed Superboy, and the rest is history.
