SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Justice League #5 by James Tynion IV, Doug Mahnke, Jaime Mendoza, Wil Quintana and Tom Napolitano, on sale now.


Lex Luthor has had an interesting few years in the DC Universe.

He went from being mostly absent at the dawn of the New 52, to leading the fight against the Crime Syndicate of America and joining the Justice League. He became the New God of Apokolips and donned the iconic “S” shield to protect Metropolis following Superman’s death. Now, he’s leading a brand new Legion of Doom, which is unlike any previous version of DC’s assembled supervillains.

This week’s Justice League #5 — or as the New Justice team have been referring to it online, Legion of Doom #1 — goes behind the scenes and bridges the gap between what Luthor witnessed in the pages of Justice League: No Justice and the formation of the new Legion of Doom. Along the way, we learn exactly what he saw that convinced him he needed to abandon the concepts of justice and heroism in favor of following his own moral code, a code which is directing him to change the future and steer all of humanity towards Doom.

No Justice

Lex Luthor was recruited by Brainiac as part of Team Entropy, one of the four teams assembled to stop the Omega Titans which were invading through the hole left in the Source Wall. As a member of Team Entropy, Lex had his worldview fundamentally altered, realising that there was no justice in the universe. Lex’s experience in space caused him to reckon with his own existence and how insignificant it truly was, but if there’s anything that’s going to motivate Lex Luthor to bigger and better things, it’s making him feel insignificant.

Lex’s experience during Justice League: No Justice made him realize that it doesn’t really matter what he does; the universe just doesn’t care. Meanwhile, the Justice League’s actions during Dark Nights: Metal literally broke the shape of the DC Universe as we know it, so if Luthor was going to make his mark and cement his legacy for the future, he’d need to up his game and start thinking bigger than he ever had before.

It actually makes a lot of sense for Luthor and it’s less of a heel turn than people might think. It’s not just DC reverting Lex to villainy because that’s what he’s best known for; it’s an evolution of the character’s outlook and motivations. When all he knew was Earth, that was all that mattered to him and the person standing in the way of Lex being the most important person on the planet was Superman. Now, Lex has seen the joys and cosmic horror the entire universe has to offer, so he needs to move beyond his petty jealousy of Superman if he wants to be remembered throughout all of time and space.

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Lex Luthor One Million

Justice League #5 reveals that when Lex returned from his adventures in space, he was devestated to learn that entropy was the guiding force of humanity and in his eyes, there was literally no point to any of his heroism. Determined to find out “who was right” he builds a Time Sphere out of the remains of his Mother Box and journeys further into the future than anyone in the history the DC Universe has travelled, arriving in the year 1,002,018. Previously, the furthest afield we’d seen in DC Comics was the future of DC One Million, but that was based on what year it would be if Action Comics #1 ran for one million issues and Lex Luthor has now gone several hundred thousand years beyond even that. Arriving in the future, Luthor is shocked to find a giant holographic statue of himself towering over the city, named Lexor in his honor.

Lex is informed by a group of futuristic supervillains, led by a teenager modeled after The Joker, that Luthor failed in his own time but an archeologist found his writings which went on to be massively popular. Luthor’s forgotten manuscripts convinced the people of Earth to stop trying to be better people and instead give into their basest instincts and with this new outlook for humanity, they conquered the universe. Lex learned that he was right after all, but he was too late and he’d never live long enough to see it come to fruition. The villains of the future told Lex that the answer was hiding right under his nose, which led him to his father’s Legionnaire’s Club and a secret stash of documents which reveals the hidden truth of the DC Universe.

From there, it was just a matter of figuring out what he needed and who he needed to help him. It wasn’t so much a case that Lex set about wanting to recruit a whole of team of villains, but each member of the Legion was suited to a task he needed of them. Lex wanted to use the Ultraviolet Spectrum to make mankind give in to its sublimated desires, so he needed Sinestro; he wanted to have power over the very concept of creation, so he recruited Gorilla Grodd who could commune with The Turtle’s child and control the Still Force.

Each member of the Legion of Doom was recruited because they were best suited for one of the seven forces in that secret stash of papers, but with an assembled team of himself, Joker, Cheetah, Grodd, Black Manta and Sinestro, that’s only six members. We still don’t know what the other forces are or how the rest of the Legion of Doom will wield them, and there’s a chance there’s a seventh member we aren’t even aware of. Operating out of Vandal Savage’s hidden volcanic base, the Legion of Doom presents the biggest threat the Justice League have ever faced because they’re more than just a threat to the Justice League; they’re a threat to the concept of justice itself. The only question is, which side will the people of Earth choose?