Mark Waid Doing a Q&A Over On DC Universe

[Vordan]

The idea is good - making him an astrobiologist, so smart that his genius makes him an outsider and desperately tries to connect with Clark Kent (and - later in his life - old Krypton) because he is in desperate need of friends, even if he doesn't realize it. It's the execution which doesn't entirely work. Too many Joker Luthor moments (grins, bizarreness). He seems, and maybe is, a model for Jesse Eisenberg Luthor.
Also: there are a couple of major plot points which simply don't work. He breaks his friendship with Clark basically because he misinterprets his facial expression (?) and the plan with the fake Kryptonians. The plan is a disaster. A huge anticlimax which fatally undermines the final fight. Waid's works are rarely without weird flaws which could have been avoided in hindsight.
He had potential though. A partially successful merging of Smallville Lex, Silver Age Young Lex, Mad Doctor Lex and businessman Lex. He surely makes more sense than the composite Krypton we have seen from Johns and - later - Jurgens, Tomasi and Bendis.

Sorry I have no clue what you’re talking about. Got any specific panels? Lex misinterprets Clark’s look of pain as a look of fear over what he’s done, and we already saw that Lex is quick to explode emotionally when he destroyed the alien detector machine. I thought it made perfect sense. Lex hates Superman because Supes treats him with distaste which aggravates him.

Snyder fans claim he is, but they have nothing in common beyond look and abusive dad. Eisenberg Lex hates Superman because Superman is Jesus. Birthright Lex hates Superman because he finally meets a member of the race he’s been trying to contact all his life, and that guy treats him with the same suspicion and contempt as humanity.