There aren’t many supervillains who can claim to be as iconic as the heroes. It’s this same principle that’s led a lot of people to condemn the MCU for having a “villain problem.” A lot of thought and energy goes into developing the heroes to be human characters with real relationships, and it’s very rare that the same thought and energy goes into doing the same for the villains.
Most of the time, they’re just mindless evil geniuses who want to take over the world, just because. But then you have Lex Luthor. Lex Luthor is different. We understand his mindset and his motivations.
9 Why is Lex Luthor bald?
There are a few versions of this. In the original version, a young Superman (known then as Superboy) was extinguishing a fire in Lex’s lab by blowing it out with his super-breath and it knocked over some chemicals that made Lex go bald. In a retconned version, Lex’s baldness is revealed to be hereditary and nothing to do with Superman. In yet another version, he was attempting to communicate with a fallen alien civilization (which turned out to be Krypton) and an explosion singed off all his hair and killed his father. In Lex’s current incarnation in the comics, there’s no explanation for his baldness, so just take your pick.
8 Was Lex Luthor a good U.S. President?
The uninitiated might be thinking: “Huh?! U.S. President?!” But it’s true. In the comics, Lex Luthor has been elected U.S. President a few times. His most notable term began when he was elected as a third-party candidate who emerged in the 2000 race.
In the comics, Lex Luthor was elected in 2000 and an alien invasion of Earth happened in 2001. It turned out that Lex had insider information about the invasion and he decided to keep it to himself due to some delusion that he would be hailed as Earth’s savior if he led the charge against the aliens. The parallels to real life were not lost on comic readers.
7 What is Lex Luthor’s weakness?
As powerful as Lex Luthor is, he is human and all humans have weaknesses. Perhaps Luthor’s greatest weakness is his pride. He is so arrogant that he assumes all of his schemes will work out as planned, just because he’s a genius and he came up with them. Naturally, an undying faith in one’s own abilities is going to be their downfall, and that’s the way we’ve seen Lex fail time and time again over the years. He’s built his own empire and he’s personally worth more money than most small countries. This has given his a huge ego – which is also his weakness.
6 Does Lex Luthor know Superman’s real identity?
After a long rivalry, has Lex Luthor ever figured out that Superman is just Clark Kent without the glasses and with a red “S” on his chest? Yes. In Superman Vol. 2, he was told that the true identity of the superhero he’d been so vehemently pursuing. However, when he found out it was a mild-mannered Daily Planet reporter named Clark Kent, he refused to believe it. He refused to believe that was the guy he was struggling to defeat. And with this ignorance, he went on not knowing (or not believing) Superman’s identity until he died. Once again, his downfall is his giant ego.
5 Is anyone else in the DC universe smarter than Lex Luthor?
Probably not. Lex Luthor has long been established as the smartest person in the entire DC universe. This is not just because of his intelligence; it’s because of his cunning focus on the details. Other people might have his intelligence, but not his sharp focus. People can get distracted or their emotions can cloud their judgment, but not Lex. Having said that, it’s difficult to judge smarts. There are a few candidates in the DC universe who could potentially be smarter than Lex Luthor, including Brainiac, Professor Ivo, and Bruce Wayne, although he can be very emotional and that lets him down.
4 What is Lex Luthor’s IQ?
Lex Luthor’s IQ is estimated to be 225, which is very impressive. Batman’s is 192, while Albert Einstein’s is thought to be between 160 and 180. So, Batman has a higher IQ than Albert Einstein, but Lex Luthor has a higher IQ than Batman. However, compare Lex’s to Tony Stark’s, which is 270, and it doesn’t seem so impressive. Tony’s IQ of 270 is extremely high. It makes him certifiably a “super genius” and puts him in the smartest 0.1% of the world’s population. 225 is still an incredible IQ score, but it’s not in the top 0.1% of the world.
3 Has Lex Luthor ever beaten Superman?
Lex Luthor only unequivocally beat Superman once and it was in Mark Millar’s brilliant limited series Superman: Red Son. With the comic, Millar wanted to pose the question: what if Superman was raised in the Soviet Union? He only became all-American farm boy Clark Kent because his escape pod landed in Kansas.
Millar had it land in the Soviet Union instead and raised Superman as a communist. Since this was a topsy-turvy, upside-down telling of a Superman story, it only made sense that Lex Luthor would win in the end.
2 Does Lex Luthor have any powers?
As the arch nemesis of Superman, you’d expect Lex Luthor to have some impressive superpowers, but he doesn’t. His only power is his mind. He’s been blessed with one of the smartest minds in the world and he’s decided to use it for evil. No one can outgun the Man of Steel, no matter how much destruction is caused in the process, and that’s why Luthor succeeds: he can outsmart him instead. What makes him work as a villain is the same thing that makes the Joker work as Batman’s villain: he’s the flip-side of the hero. It’s the same as Batman being careful and meticulous and the Joker and being an agent of chaos. Superman has the brawn, but Lex Luthor has the brains, and that’s what makes him the perfect villain for that character.
1 Why does Lex Luthor hate Superman?
Lex Luthor wants to be as great as he can be. He has spent his life becoming about as great as a human can be: he’s rich, he’s powerful, he built an empire, he’s respected and feared in equal measure by the world. And then Superman comes along, a god from another planet who can take flight at a moment’s notice and punch a hole through a skyscraper with his bare hands. Suddenly, Lex doesn’t seem so great anymore, does he? Naturally, he has come to resent Superman and want to destroy him. If he’s the human who destroys Superman, he’ll be back on top.