Lex Luthor: reading guide, where to start

Lex Luthor is not a supervillain like the others. He has no cape, no innate superpower, no gratuitous destructive madness. He is a man – brilliant, proud, calculating – who considers himself unfairly eclipsed by an extraterrestrial who has come to steal the destiny of humanity. It is precisely this human dimension that makes him one of the greatest antagonists of the medium: he is the dark mirror of Superman, proof that genius without humility can become poison. Depending on the era, he was a mad scientist with red hair, a billionaire industrialist at the head of LexCorp, a president of the United States, a member of the Justice League, then a knight of despair in the service of Doom. Few characters have undergone so many coherent reinventions.

This longevity – more than eight decades – makes his editorial career dense and sometimes intimidating for the new reader. Should we go back to 1940? Start with the modern version? Read the big crossovers or stories centered around him? The good news is that Luthor shines especially in the Superman series, in a few mini-series dedicated to him and in universe sagas where he plays the leading role. There are therefore clear entry points, without the need to swallow eighty years of archives.

This guide offers a reasoned journey: where to start, how to understand its origins, which runs to read in which order, which great sagas to know, what the modern era offers, and which nuggets to keep for later once you are won over. The objective is simple: to allow you to follow Lex Luthor without getting lost.

Where to Start: The Two Best Front Doors

Two works compete for the title of best starting point, and there is no need to choose: they complement each other.

“Lex Luthor: Man of Steel”(sometimes republished as "Luthor"), written by Brian Azzarello and drawn by Lee Bermejo, is the ideal gateway. This five-chapter miniseries tells the world from Luthor's point of view. Superman appears as an incomprehensible, almost divine threat, while Lex presents himself as a defender of human dignity. The story is chilling precisely because its reasoning seems, for a moment, almost convincing. This is the best way to understand Why Luthor acts as he does, with no liabilities to know beforehand.

“All-Star Superman” of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely constitutes the second pillar. An independent and timeless story, it shows a condemned Superman, poisoned by the sun, and a triumphant Luthor who ends up understanding, too late, the greatness of the one he hated. The final act offers one of the richest and most tragic portraits of the character. These two works can be read in any order; together, they set the tone for everything else.

At the origins: from the redheaded genius to the titan of LexCorp

Lex Luthor first appeared in 1940, in the pages of Action Comics , under the pen of Jerry Siegel and the pencil of Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman. Originally, he is a brilliant red-haired scientist, a megalomaniac dreaming of dominating the world through science. The iconic baldness will take hold a little later and become his trademark.

The Silver Age, in Superboy's stories, brings the founding element of his hatred: a young Lex Luthor, an apprentice chemist who admires Superboy, loses his hair in a laboratory accident that he blames on the hero. From gratitude comes resentment, then obsession. This origin – hatred born from humiliation and personal jealousy – remains the psychological basis of the character even today.

The so-called Bronze period, carried in particular by the screenwriter Elliot S! Maggin, deepens this dimension. Maggin makes Luthor an intellect of dizzying stature, a man who could save the world but chooses to conquer it. Stories like “The Luthor Nobody Knows” explore his intimate flaws, and Maggin even extended the character in two novels devoted to the Superman universe, where Luthor plays a central role.

But the most important reinvention—the one that defined the modern Luthor—came in 1986 with “The Man of Steel” of John Byrne. After the overhaul of DC continuity, Byrne transforms the mad scientist into Ruthless tycoon, founder and CEO of LexCorp, the most powerful man in Metropolis before the arrival of Superman. This Luthor doesn't build death rays in a cave: he buys senators, crushes competitors and considers Superman a rival in a city he thought he owned. This corporate version, respectable on the surface and corrupt in depth, is the foundation of almost everything that will follow.

The essential runs, in order

Once through both gateways, here is a coherent chronological journey through the character's modern era:

1. “The Man of Steel” (John Byrne)— the tipping point. Essential to grasp the logic of the industrial Luthor who governed the following decades.
2. The post-Crisis LexCorp era— in the Superman series of the 1990s, Luthor reigns over Metropolis as a businessman. There we find his permanent economic and media duel with Clark Kent and Superman, much more than a clash with rays.
3. “The Death of Superman” and “Reign of the Supermen”— during this long saga, Luthor reappears under a new identity, a younger clone body sporting long red hair, pretending to be his own son. A peak of manipulation.
4. The “President Lex” era— at the turn of the 2000s, Luthor was elected president of the United States, taking legal control of the country that he had been unable to conquer by force. An idea as daring as it is revealing of his ego.
5. Geoff Johns' run on Superman— with stories like “Last Son” (co-written with Richard Donner, drawn by Adam Kubert), “Brainiac” and “Secret Origin” (with Gary Frank), Johns gives the character a clear origin and emotional depth, reinscribing the hatred of Smallville at the heart of his relationship with Clark.

This common thread takes you through Luthor's major mutations without break, keeping Superman as a constant point of reference.

The big sagas and crossovers to know

Luthor is an architect of conspiracies across the DC Universe. Several major events place him at the center of the game:

• “Public Enemies”— in the first chapters of the Superman/Batman series Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness, President Luthor puts a price on Superman's head and sends heroes around the world after him. A jubilant blockbuster that marks the peak and fall of his presidential era.
• “Our Worlds at War”— cosmic crossover where Luthor, then president, must coordinate the defense of Earth. He demonstrates that his strategic genius can, from time to time, serve greater than himself.
• “Infinite Crisis” and the Secret Society of Villains— Luthor orchestrates a coalition of villains and finds himself confronted with his own double from another reality, a game of mirrors typical of his ambition.
• “Salvation Run”— exiled with DC's worst criminals on a prison planet, Luthor reveals his survival instinct and his natural ascendancy over other villains.
• Grant Morrison’s “JLA” run— Luthor founded the Injustice Gang, a counter-Justice League, proving that he is the only one capable of uniting irreconcilable enemies around his will.

These sagas show the “great strategist” side of Luthor: the one who pulls the strings, builds alliances and always thinks several moves in advance.

The Modern Era: From Forever Evil to Legion of Doom

The recent era offers some of the most surprising reinventions of the character. After restarting continuity,Geoff Johns sign with the designer David Finch the event “Forever Evil”. Faced with the Crime Syndicate, an evil version of the League from another world, it is Lex Luthor who leads the resistance. The villain becomes, in the space of a saga, the savior of the Earth - not out of kindness, but because no one else is capable of it.

This shift leads it to integrate the Justice League in Geoff Johns' run, alongside Superman and Batman. The reader then witnesses a Luthor torn between heroic ambition and his deep nature, particularly during the saga “Darkseid War”(drawn by Jason Fabok), where he touches an almost divine power.

More recently, as part of the event “Year of the Villain” orchestrated by Scott Snyder(on the Justice League) and by Brian Michael Bendis(on the Superman and Action Comics series), Luthor makes a pact with primordial forces and transforms into "Apex Lex", prophet of chaos, before rebuilding the Legion of Doom. It is the logical outcome of a character who, failing to defeat Superman through reason, chooses to embrace a power that surpasses him.

Nuggets to save for later

Once familiar with the character, several more specialized or more demanding stories offer increased pleasure:

• “The Black Ring” by Paul Cornell (with Pete Woods)— a rare arc where Luthor alone plays the leading role in Action Comics, Superman being almost absent. Launched in pursuit of a source of power, Luthor reveals all his metaphysical megalomania. The ultimate Luthor-centric read.
• “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” » by Alan Moore (with Curt Swan)— the ultimate tale of the Silver Age, where Luthor and Brainiac form a terrifying alliance. A heartbreaking farewell to an era, with Luthor at the height of his cruelty.
• “Superman: Red Son” by Mark Millar— an “Elseworlds” where Superman landed in the USSR. Luthor becomes the greatest American spirit, the only bulwark of the free world. Fascinating reversal of perspective.
• “Kingdom Come” by Mark Waid and Alex Ross— in this alternate future, an aging Luthor still plots at the head of an organization opposed to the heroes. Enhanced by the paintings of Alex Ross.
• The novels of Elliot S! Maggin— for those who want to extend the experience outside of the comics format, these two prose stories deepen the intelligence and paradoxical humanity of the character as the Bronze Age had outlined them.

These works are not starting points, but peaks to savor once Luthor's mythology becomes familiar to you.

Where and how to read: collections and recommended route

Good news for the collector: most of Lex Luthor is available in collections, integrals and omnibuses which group the arcs by saga or by run, which avoids the hunt for isolated numbers. Standalone miniseries (like “Lex Luthor: Man of Steel”), full-length stories (“All-Star Superman,” “Red Son,” “Kingdom Come”) and major crossovers (“Public Enemies,” “Forever Evil”) all exist in dedicated hardcover volumes — it's the best format to start with.

For a smooth journey, here is the order I recommend:

1. Discovery: “Lex Luthor: Man of Steel”, then “All-Star Superman”.
2. Foundations: “The Man of Steel” by Byrne, then the run by Geoff Johns (“Secret Origin”, “Brainiac”, “Last Son”).
3. Great sagas: “Public Enemies”, then “Forever Evil”.
4. Modern era: Luthor's passage in the Justice League, then "Year of the Villain".
5. Deepening: “The Black Ring”, then the Elseworlds and the classic stories of Alan Moore.

One last piece of advice: Luthor always understands himself in relation to Superman. Don't try to read him completely in isolation - it is in the contrast with the Kryptonian that his genius, his pride and his tragedy take on their full meaning. Read him as the perfect negative of the hero, and each saga will gain depth. You will then discover that beyond the villain, Lex Luthor is perhaps the most deeply, desperately human character in the entire DC universe.

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