Best Lex Luthor Runs: 6 Comics Ranked, from 1986 to 2011

Lex Luthor has almost never had a series under his own name, and yet his best stories exist. They hide in auteur miniseries, in a handful of Action Comics issues and in big sagas where Superman remains the hero but the villain steals the scene. Our reading guide puts the path in order; here we rank the reads worth the most, accepting that an excellent Superman story is not necessarily an excellent Luthor story.

As always in this guide, only verified information (creators, issues, dates) is stated as fact; the analysis is our own, with no reproduction of protected panels or dialogue.

The criterion: who is the subject of the story

For Luthor, the real question is not the overall quality of a story, but the place the villain holds in it. A Superman masterpiece where Luthor is just one more obstacle says little about him. So we asked three questions of each candidate. Is Luthor the subject, or a pretext? Can the story be read without knowing thirty years of Superman continuity? And does it leave a mark on the way later writers have written the character?

This ranking measures reading, not the market. The character's key issue, Action Comics #23, dates from April 1940 and sits outside any run: we give it a separate entry. The six entries below are reading periods, not key issues.

Top 1: Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo, Lex Luthor: Man of Steel (2005)

The five-issue miniseries takes a simple, bold stance: show Metropolis, Superman and the rest of the DC universe through Luthor's eyes. The hero appears as an incomprehensible, almost divine power, and Luthor presents himself as a defender of human dignity against a being who makes every effort pointless. The reasoning is carried out with enough rigor that readers, for a moment, hear it out.

This story matters for the character because it gives Luthor an inner coherence rather than mere wickedness. It explains the jealousy without reducing it to the Smallville laboratory accident, and it makes his hatred as political as it is personal. Lee Bermejo's art brings a dark realism and marked faces that reinforce the solidity of the premise.

It is for everyone, including those who have never opened a Superman comic: it is one of the few DC stories where you can start with no backlog. For collecting, the single issue is secondary: the series exists as a bound volume, sometimes published under the short title Luthor, and that is the most practical format. Our reading guide makes it the recommended entry point, and we do not contradict it.

Top 2: Paul Cornell, The Black Ring in Action Comics (2010-2011)

From issue 890 to issue 900 of Action Comics, Luthor becomes the protagonist of a series that carries Superman's name. Superman is largely absent from the story, which leaves the field to his adversary: Luthor pursues a source of power he wants to claim, and his quest reveals an ambition that goes beyond money and politics. Paul Cornell writes the whole, with Pete Woods among the artists.

The run matters because it does what few publishers dare: take the hero out of the title to watch the villain work. It shows a Luthor who is megalomaniacal in the metaphysical sense of the word, who no longer settles for wanting to beat Superman but seeks to possess what he does not understand. It is the quintessential Luthor-centered read, more so than Top 1 in terms of continuity.

It suits a reader who already knows the character's broad outlines: the pleasure grows when you measure the distance from the usual Luthor. Issues 890 to 900 exist in a collected edition, and the original single issue remains modest in rarity. Our entry on Lex Luthor's key issues places it among the modern milestones.

Top 3: John Byrne, The Man of Steel (1986)

The six-issue 1986 miniseries rebuilds Superman after the reset of DC continuity. In the fourth issue, Byrne transforms Luthor: the mad scientist with the flying city gives way to the head of LexCorp, the most powerful man in Metropolis before Superman shows up. His methods run through boardrooms, senators and crushed competitors, not death rays.

This story counts for a simple reason: it defined the Luthor that almost all later writers have written. The respectable industrialist on the surface and corrupt at the core is this one, and most versions that followed either claim it or push away from it. Our entry on John Byrne's Man of Steel #1 tells the context of this overhaul.

It is for readers curious about the origins of the modern Luthor, and only the fourth issue is centered on him: the rest is a Superman story. Hence a third place, in the name of influence rather than pure pleasure. A collected edition of the miniseries is enough for reading; the single issues, for their part, belong to a collectors' market that we cover elsewhere.

Top 4: Mark Waid and Leinil Francis Yu, Superman: Birthright (2003-2004)

A twelve-issue limited series published from September 2003 to September 2004, Birthright rewrites Superman's beginnings and, along the way, Luthor's. Waid reestablishes the youthful bond with Clark Kent in Smallville and has Luthor lose both his father and his hair in a single experiment accident. The villain becomes a researcher again, driven mad with jealousy by the arrival of a real extraterrestrial.

The story matters because it offered, for a time, the character's official origin. It was then set aside by the continuity reshuffles that followed Infinite Crisis, which makes it today more of an alternate version than a canon. Our article on Luthor's successive origins details this succession and explains why Waid returns to it in 2026.

It is written for readers who want to understand how the top of the pyramid is built: the broken friendship that founds the grudge. Leinil Francis Yu's art, inked by Gerry Alanguilan, keeps a very kinetic energy. Recommended format: the collected edition, which gathers the twelve issues in order. The single issue adds nothing to the reading.

Top 5: Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, All-Star Superman (2005-2008)

Twelve issues, a Superman doomed by an overdose of solar exposure, and a Luthor who did everything to bring it about. Morrison writes a complete story, independent of any continuity, that takes up the character's great motifs in an almost mythological form. The Luthor of this series is a genius who triumphs, then discovers, too late, the greatness of the one he fought all his life.

This fifth place may surprise for a masterpiece. It comes down to the criterion: Superman remains the subject of the whole, and the villain occupies only some episodes. But those episodes include some of the richest portraits of the character. Frank Quitely gives Luthor a singular physical presence, heavy, almost animal, which contrasts with the image of the billionaire in a suit.

It is for everyone, without exception, and not only for Luthor fans. Recommended format: the bound volume, and for those who hesitate, the animated adaptation does not replace the reading. Our article on the animated film, All-Star Superman versus the comics, explains what the screen kept and what it left out.

Top 6: Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness, Superman/Batman, Public Enemies (2003-2004)

The first six issues of Superman/Batman show a Luthor who has become President of the United States, who puts a bounty on the heads of Superman and Batman and sends heroes and criminals after them. The whole is a joyful blockbuster, with pages full of guest stars and plot twists, far from the introspection of first place.

This run counts because it pushes the logic of the presidency to its limit: Luthor no longer conquers by force, he governs, and it is the law he turns against his enemies. It is also a pivotal moment in the character's cycle. It is less deep than the other five, which explains its last place, but nobody will call it boring.

It suits readers who want action and spectacle, with a minimum of continuity to know. The collected edition of these six issues is easy to find, and the original single issue has no extra reading value.

Which to start with, depending on your profile

You are discovering Luthor. Lex Luthor: Man of Steel, without hesitation, then All-Star Superman to see the same character in another register.

You like understanding where things come from. Byrne for the industrialist Luthor, Waid for the Smallville friendship. Read back to back, they show two incompatible ways of founding the same hatred, and our analysis of the adversary without powers sheds light on why this flexibility is the character's strength.

You want Luthor alone on screen. Paul Cornell's The Black Ring. No other set on the list takes Superman out of the picture as much.

You are looking for spectacle. Public Enemies, which asks only for a wish to have fun.

You compare the great villains. After this list, our face-off Doctor Doom versus Lex Luthor pits two ways of governing through intelligence against each other, one sovereign, the other corporate.

What these runs are worth in a collection

For Luthor, value is read in ratios, and the first is a contrast. The character has an unattainable key, Action Comics #23, and almost no single issue on this list has marked market value: the 2003 to 2008 miniseries were printed in large numbers, and reading them costs a modest price in a collected edition. The gap between the character's importance and the price of these stories is precisely what makes reading them accessible.

The second ratio sets the whole period against the single issue. In Byrne's The Man of Steel, the fourth issue is the one collectors care about because Luthor changes nature there, and its neighbors sell less well. So look for the specific issue, never the whole series. To place it, note the current listings of the same issue in the same condition, then compare them with completed sales: the gap between what sellers ask and what buyers pay is often more instructive than the figure itself.

The third ratio concerns current events. A retelling of the origins by a prominent writer draws attention to older versions, as Mark Waid's return to the subject shows, and that attention goes first to the editions that are easy to find. The stories on this list therefore benefit more from a reprint than from a revival of speculation on single issues.

Finally, keep your inventory both by item and by set: Luthor is scattered across Action Comics, Superman, miniseries and collected editions, and that is the only way to know what you own. Our comparison of bound volumes and single issues details the trade-off between the two formats.

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