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Lex Luthor was a businessman who hoped to take out his nemesis Superman by unleashing an alien weapon on him.

Lex Luthor was an industrialist and the head of LexCorp, a business that dealt in scientific, technological, and medical advancements, though all for the purpose of making Luthor the wealthiest man on Earth regardless of the cost. Sometime after Superman made his first appearance in Metropolis, Luthor became Superman's enemy and vowed that one day he will destroy him.

His company's Project Applecore, an illegal earth-mining operation intended for tapping into the Earth's molten core as an energy source for powering Metropolis, has hit a snag as they uncovered an alien stasis chamber from which a hulking gray-skinned humanoid monster emerged, killing the miners. From there it headed toward Metropolis, killing anything and anyone that gets in its way and wreaking a path of destruction along its route. Superman eventually arrived in Metropolis and, with relentless determination, did all that he could to stop this "Doomsday machine", even to the point of flying him into space and then pushing him back to Earth where he finally died, no longer a threat. However, this also took a toll on Superman, who collapsed in Lois' arms, apparently dead.

Luthor attended the televised funeral service where the people of Metropolis paid their last respects to their hometown hero, which Lois Lane noticed much to her anger. Privately, Luthor fumed over being cheated of the victory he had planned for years by what he called a "soccer hooligan", and shot Mercy Graves dead to cover up any leads to Project Applecore.

Sometime later, a psychotic criminal known as the Toyman threatened to dump a school bus full of children off the ledge of a high-rise building if the police do not back off from him, using his mechanical spider to make his point clear. With the Toyman distracted, Lois sneaked her way onto the roof to get as many children safely out of the bus as possible, but ended up falling along with the last child when Toyman pushed the bus over the ledge. Surprisingly, the bus was caught and brought safely to the ground by a familiar sight -- that of Superman, now back from the dead. He also destroyed the mechanical spider and delivered Toyman to the authorities before he flew Lois back home to her apartment, seemingly responding to her as if they just met for the first time. However, it turned out that this "Superman" really is not Superman, but a clone created by Luthor from D.N.A. taken from Kal-El's blood samples and under Lex's control. The real Superman's body remained in a stasis chamber in the Lexcorp laboratories after it was taken from its tomb -- until one of the robot servitors from the Fortress of Solitude took the body and used the Fortress' Kryptonian technology to bring him back to life.

While Lois was puzzling over Superman's return while not yet seeing Clark Kent return to his work station at the Daily Planet, the cloned Superman overheard through a televised newscast that the Toyman murdered a four-year-old girl at a day care center where he took children hostage. He went over to the police station where he saw the Toyman being taken in by the police and grabbed him, flying him high above the city before casually letting him drop to the ground, killed by the fall. The people watch astonished as the cloned Superman flew off, not caring that he has killed a criminal in cold blood. Lex scolded his clone for this action and gave him a list of potential rival companies that may have stolen the real Superman's body for personal gain. The cloned Superman discarded the list and used his X-ray vision to look into his own head, discovering a tiny lead-lined ball of Kryptonite implanted within his brain, which he used his heat vision and a pair of scissors to extract.

Later on Lois met with Lex Luthor in his office under the pretense of leaving the Daily Planet for good in order to go on with her own life, but drugged him so that she and Jimmy could go through his files to discover his genetic research laboratory where he was harvesting Superman clones, all for patrolling Metropolis under Luthor's control. Luthor awakened from his drugged state and threatened to kill both Lois and Jimmy, but was stopped by the active Superman clone who then proceeded to destroy the entire laboratory and all the work done in it while Lois and Jimmy escaped. Luthor fled to his special room with red solar lamps and his Kryptonite gloves waiting for the clone to enter in, but the clone instead sealed up the room and wrenched it from the building, hurling it down to the ground with such force that it crippled Luthor. The real Superman, wearing a special suit for him to absorb yellow solar energy since his fight with Doomsday had left him weak, took down the cloned Superman after a long drawn-out fight across Metropolis that led them to Metropolis Park, to the site of his burial, igniting a Kryptonite-encased cartridge that was stuck on the clone's bodysuit that killed the clone with a thick cloud of Kryptonite.

At the end of the story, Luthor sat at his desk on life support, brooding over the real Superman's return from the dead. While also contemplating that Superman seemingly can't be killed.

Equipment

A "rompus room" with red solar lamps for draining the cloned Superman's power.

Weapons

Kryptonite-embedded gauntlets.

Related

Footnotes


Villains-secret-files
Superman Villain(s)
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This character has been primarily an enemy of Superman in any of his various incarnations, or members of the Superman Family. This template will categorize articles that include it into the "Superman Villains category."

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