In his earliest appearances, Luthor is shown with a full head of red hair ; despite this, the character later became hairless as the result of an artist's mistake.

Less than a year later, however, an artistic goof resulted in Luthor being depicted as completely bald in a newspaper strip.

In gratitude Superboy builds Luthor a laboratory, where weeks later he manages to create an artificial life-form, which Luthor loved as if his own child.

A concise biography for Luthor, later outlined in Action Comics # 850, first appeared in the 2007 limited series Countdown to Final Crisis.

Libra later figures out Luthor had been the mole in the Society of Super Villains.

Luthor later assists Superman and his remaining allies in constructing the new Miracle Machine to reset the universe and recreate the universe without Darkseid

Luthor later manages to use Brainiac's connection to his ship to kill the soldiers assigned to watch him.

The two are later shown to have entered into an alliance, with Brainiac promising Luthor the Earth when he is done with it.

It is later revealed that Lex Luthor was the secret caller named " Icarus " that was giving secret information on Glen Glenmorgan to Clark Kent.

Lex Luthor himself later marries Ardora of the planet Lexor and, in Action Comics # 544 ( June, 1983 ), first learns of his infant son by Ardora, Lex Luthor, Jr. A short time later, Lexor is destroyed and both Ardora and Lex, Jr. die as a direct result.

The Contessa later escapes to an island mansion, but upon being elected President, Luthor targets her home with a barrage of missiles and destroys it.

Luthor later escapes after a whole year in prison, through an elaborate plot involving clones: first using a clone of the President to grant him a pardon, then kidnapping the real Lois and replacing her with a clone just before her wedding to Clark.

Seven years later in a flash-forward sequence, it's revealed that Luthor is the President of the United States and has donned his white suit and black glove.

The widow dies shortly after Superman's return to Earth, and Luthor immediately sets out to avenge himself, first by ransacking the Fortress of Solitude, and later through the abduction of Lois Lane and her son Jason.

Lex Luthor later combines one of the crystals with Kryptonite and shoots it into the ocean, creating what he calls " New Krypton ".

The character is later given the civilized name of ' Clark ' by Lois Lane, and is captured along with his friends, and used for profit by Lex Luthor, who is also eventually slain.

Conner Kent was a clone made by Cadmus in case Superman turned or was ever defeated ; it was later learned that his DNA is half-human ( with Lex Luthor as his human father ).

It is later revealed that Ra's al Ghul and Luthor are plotting together to have the diplomats saved by Mercy Graves from the assassins and have them make a weapons deal with Luther in order to assist the Light ( Project Cadmus ' Board of Directors ).

Superman later destroys the Fortress after it has been breached by Luthor and the Phantom Zone criminals, but then goes back in time, where it remains normal.

Burton's own script included Brainiac's intellect bonding with Lex Luthor, as would later happen in Justice League Unlimited ( and which had previously been seen in the comic book story Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?

The long-anticipated wedding was put off to coincide with the characters ' marriage in the comics, which led to many storylines designed to delay and interrupt the wedding on the TV series Another controversy erupted when ABC announced that the wedding would actually take place Valentine's Day weekend, even sending out heart-shaped " wedding invitations " to ABC News staff, only to present viewers with a bogus wedding in which Clark unwittingly married a clone of Lois, developed by a mad scientist whose creations were required to ingest frogs periodically which started a main thrilling climax of a special five-part story with Lois being kidnapped by Lex Luthor who had put the clone in her place and later after a sharp hit on the head had amnesia and needed to regain her memory.

In the end, LexCorp scientists are shown performing experiments on the captured Facade, while Luthor assembles his staff and reveals that he knows that it was one of his employees who had hired the creature in the first place.

In the shooting script for the film ( under the production title " Red Son "), Lex Luthor reveals to a weakened Superman that his henchman actually set Superman up to believe that Krypton still existed by sending false signals.

When accused of being a traitor by Luthor, she reveals Martian Manhunter is posing as Blockbuster, which would soon lead to the hero's death.

Supergirl then reveals to Superman that Brainiac shrunk the Kryptonian city of Kandor and placed it in a bottle, that the Brainiac that Superman has been fighting all these years was in fact a swarm of nanomachines sent by the real Brainiac to look for Superman that had possessed Milton Fine, Doomsday, the Brainiac 2. 5 android, and finally Lena Luthor, and that no one has ever seen the actual Brainiac.

Confronting him, he asks Luthor for help, when he reveals his " hope " in the form of Toxin ; Miss Vaughn.

At the last second, Batman reveals that he anticipated the Syndicate's betrayal, and had used the Tangent Universe's version of Green Lantern to resurrect Luthor behind the Syndicate's back.

In the closing panels, an aged Lex Luthor reveals to young Joel Kent the truth about his heritage.

Dr. Holurt reveals himself to be a disguised Lex Luthor ; he shows the world that Clark Kent is Superman, then kills Lois.

In Infinite Crisis, Alexander Luthor reveals that had the Multiverse continued to exist if the event of Crisis on Infinite Earths hadn't occurred, Rayner would have been a native of Earth-Eight.

Infinity Inc # 1 ( Sept 2007 ) reveals that, after Luthor shut down his Metagene, Gerome went into a deep state of depression and self-absorption.

After Superman arrives to rescue his comrades, Henshaw reveals that the Doomsdays that fought them were actually all clones of the original created by Lex Luthor.

Luthor then attempts to kill Fox, but Batman intervenes and reveals that he is the one who anonymously tipped the Wayne Enterprises ' CEO.

Luthor reveals that when he augmented Polaris ' powers, he installed failsafes that allow him override Polaris ' powers.

Mockingbird / Luthor reveals that he chose those six individuals because each had different knowledge and experience that could be used to oppose the Society: Catman, for his knowledge on Batman's villains ; Deadshot, for his knowledge on the remaining Suicide Squad members ; Parademon, for his experience living on Apokolips ; Ragdoll, because he grew up as a " nephew " to the members of the Injustice Society ; Scandal, because she grew up with Vandal Savage and his associates ; and Cheshire, for her knowledge on the villains of the Teen Titans.

Mockingbird / Luthor reveals to Scandal that he never placed the families of the Six in danger and disbands the team.

" Abandoned " also reveals her to be a composite character with Lena Luthor, as she was born Lutessa Lena Luthor.

Metallo was soon kidnapped and his power source forcibly removed by Lex Luthor who, after discovering its debilitating effects on Kryptonians, created a ring with a kryptonite gem to keep Superman at bay.

This backfired badly on Luthor, as long-term exposure to kryptonite radiation from the ring gave him cancer, leading to the amputation of his hand and then apparent death ( although he was able to have his brain transplanted into a cloned body ).

Although Luthor would not appear until two years after Superman's debut, a central theme to his character — a dichotomy of science versus superpowers — was in place.

At the end of the story, Luthor was apparently killed when Superman caused the dirigible to crash.

When the concept of the DC multiverse began to take hold, Luthor's red-haired incarnation was rewritten as Alexei Luthor, Lex's counterpart from the Earth-Two parallel universe.

Waid's original intention was to jettison the notion of Lex Luthor being an evil businessman, restoring his status as a mad scientist.

Birthright was initially intended to establish a new origin for Superman and Luthor.

Even when Superman was depowered after the Battle of Metropolis and remained out of sight for a year, the only thing Luthor accomplished in that time was the self-sabotaged ' Everyman ' project, where " found a big destructive machine so could break things ", claiming that Superman drove him to it.

This idea was further reinforced when Luthor was briefly merged with a near-omnipotent entity that sought peace after its difficult ' childhood '.

Luthor's trademark battlesuit from this era — a heavily-armored, flight-capable suit with kryptonite fixtures embedded in its gauntlets — was designed by George Pérez as part of the Super Powers toyline in the early 1980s and introduced as Luthor acted as Lexor's sovereign.

Luthor eventually suffers from severe cancer brought on by long-term radiation exposure to the ring ; before this, kryptonite was mistakenly assumed to produce a ' clean ' radiation that is harmless to humans.

Ironically, Batman ultimately learns that the entire debacle was the fault of Luthor alone as he attempted to take control of Gotham by forging deeds for the land in his name, which results in Bruce Wayne severing all commercial ties between the U. S. government and his company, Wayne Enterprises, in protest of Luthor's election as President.

Luthor even attempted to send a team of heroes after them under the leadership of Captain Atom-the team consisting of Major Force, Black Lightning, Power Girl, Starfire, Katana and Green Lantern, but this plan failed when Katana and Power Girl quickly sided with Superman and Batman and Major Force was apparently killed, Power Girl noting that Luthor had assumed in his arrogance that the heroes would obey him simply because he was President.

After discovering that his hybrid clone /" son " Conner Kent ( Superboy ) was injured by Prime, Luthor contacts Robin and gives him the means to help Superboy recover.

Labs and notes that the corpse was altered postmortem to make it resemble Lex Luthor.

Undaunted, Luthor gathers together a new Revenge Squad to fight against invading Kryptonians led by General Zod, leaving Superman alive to provide assistance simply because he believed that this ' invasion ' was proof that he had been right about Superman all along and he wanted Superman to live with that knowledge.

While still forced to wear chains, Luthor was assigned the job of accessing the knowledge stored within the captured Brainiac, who had recently been defeated by Superman ( as seen during the " Brainiac " storyline ).

Luthor successfully accessed Brainiac ’ s brain and after Metallo and Reactron were taken to Kandor as prisoners of the Kryptonians who had now settled on Earth he used Brainiac to reactivate the Coluan ’ s ship that was also being held in Kandor.

After his success with Brainiac, Luthor was given the seemingly dead body of Doomsday, who had been defeated by the Kryptonians, to study as it had “ potential ”.