Favorite Superman/Lex Luthor stories and moments

Kitty Kowalski: Sounds great Lex, but you're not a god.

Lex Luthor: [fixes Kitty with an icy stare] Gods are selfish beings who fly around in little red capes and don't share their power with mankind. No, I don't want to be a *god*. I just want to bring fire to the people. And... I want my cut.

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I always felt that one of the reasons Lex hates Superman is because he envies his powers. Superman overshadows Lex in every way, because Supes uses his powers to help the world, and I don't think Lex would be as kind and humble as Supes. Lex thinks about himself first. I just always liked this scene from Superman Returns. It encapsulates Lex pretty well. Lex is very smart and intellectual, but he is very selfish and cruel.


So the question is, What are your favorite Superman/Clark/Lex Luthor moments/stories from all media? Who are your fave actors who have portrayed them? I know it's a big question, but we are not going anywhere. ;) This is a really hard question even for me since I'm not a big comicbook reader, but I really love Lex and his hate for Superman and what he stands for. They are iconic.

Well, my favorite Lex Luthor comics are Superman volume 1 #149, 230-231, 292, 416, volume 2 #2, 143, Action #660 and 668, All Star Superman #4, DC Special Series #5, Superman Annual #9, and probably DCP Annual #1 of all-time. Storyline wise it's between Hostile Takeover (I dunno enough about business to know how his scheme wouldn't work, but I appreciate the cleverness of the fiction. It's like the comic equivalent of that penny scheme from Superman III), Krimson Kryptonite, and what is collected in "They Saved Luthor's Brain!" Although I guess that those are part of the same arc from Action #660-700. Generations is also cool, though there's a technicality to including it for Lex.

Here are some scene over the years. I guess although I have such a strong bias toward Brainiac, many of the dozens of Lex scenes and stories make him one of my favorite fictional characters.

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I'd humbly submit The Black Ring from right before the New 52. Superman only gets involved at the tail end of the arc, but it's good to see Lex face his own obsessive flaws and just lose it.

Otherwise, in an odd choice, I'd maybe choose the last arc featuring the Polkistan General Zod. Lex and Superman end up allying to take him on alongside all of Superman's post-crisis Rogue's Gallery, with Lex setting up Zod for a fatal lunge at Superman by timing when to unleash yellow sun radiation on the Earth.

Somehow I forgot the Black Ring. Of all the comic stories where a villain is a protagonist, that might be my favorite.

So many great moments to choose from. Off the top of my head, I know these are definitely some of my favorite Luthor moments-

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Superman #282 - "Lex Luthor--Super Scalp Hunter!" First use of Lex Luthor's Bronze-Part of Copper (up to when he changed costume / battle armor again in 1983) costume, as well as built-in technology within to par himself up to strength against his arch enemy.

Superman #292 - "The Luthor Nobody Knows" Bronze Age retelling of Lex Luthor's origin

Action Comics #510-512 - Lex Luthor, in an elaborate attempt to trap Superman into an anti-matter dimension, find lonely without a family terminally ill woman, Angela Blake, clone her, disposed of her, cure clone, amnesia himself to become heroic, convince Superman to give her away in his marriage to clone, to kiss her, which sets off trap of anti-matter dimension.

Yeah, somehow I forgot that one. If Superman is the literal superhero, that makes Lex the true super villain, and not just a brilliant pest. With Angela Blake you got the sense that Superman could temporarily depower himself just to be normal strength and beat the brakes off that guy.

You know I thought of some of my favorite Lex and Superman moments, but went with just Lex not thinking of the finer point of the OP. Really, I like whenever Luthor's attitude sets him up for a super-burn.

And as for acting, to me the best is just Clancy Brown. I really would bee curious as to how it would have turned out if they shaved his head and let him on screen. I think John Shea was really good for what they gave him. Jesse Eisenberg has grown on me. He's not "my" Lex really, he's sort of just the worst. Which was the point of him, so good job.

It was a passing moment shortly after the destruction of Lexor. Lex returns to Earth seeking his revenge and studies Lois Lane as a potential target only to discover that during his absence Superman and Lois have broken up. Lex's first thought is that he could simply play cupid and get Lois and Superman back together. And in fact he could make their romance even greater than before. The end result of all that being just a way to make Lex's revenge all the sweeter when he used Lis as a weapon against Superman. Having missed Action #510-512 that ngroove mentioned above, this was something that just solidified Lex's villainy to me.

And on the flip side was Lex's returning the gold to Fort Knox when he discovers the "Superman" he defeated when stealing it was just a robot. Or Lex taking a dive when fighting Superman just so that Superman would aid the people of Lexor. I always liked a Lex who had some part of him not dedicated to evil and revenge on Superman.

And the topper has to be the scene in All-Star when Lex momentarily see the world the way Superman does.

Special notice goes to the Marvel [I]What The ... [/I] issue by John Byrne where Doctor Doom provides Lex with irrefutable evidence that Clark Kent is Superman and Lex responds with the reason none of that evidence convinces him: [I] that the only way the evidence made sense was if Superman was [U]nicer[/U] than Doom and Luthor[/I]