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Lex LuthorcharacterFirst appearance'Created byBased onAdapted byPortrayed byInformationRelativesLex Luthor is a from the television series. He is featured in the until the finale, and has been played continuously by, with various actors portraying the character as a child throughout the series. The character of, first created for by and in 1940 as of, was adapted to television in 2001 by and —this is only the third time the character has been adapted to a television series. The character has also appeared in various literature based on the Smallville television series, none of which directly continues from or into the television episodes.In this 2001 series, Lex Luthor is sent to Smallville, by his father, to run the local LuthorCorp fertilizer plant. After driving his car off a bridge, he is saved by and quickly develops a new friendship with the farm boy. As the series unfolds, Lex's curiosity about Clark and all things connected to Clark ultimately destroys their friendship.
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The Legion of Doom is a recurring villainous organization in DC Comics and its related media. It is an assembly of supervillains that is typically lead by Lex Luthor, gathered for the purpose of defeating the Justice League and eventually taking over the world. After its original conception for. Also the update includes new Teeny Titans figures including Lex Luthor, Cheetah, The Riddler and many.
Lex's relationship with his father is tension-filled from the start of the show, and eventually comes to an end when Lex murders his father in an effort to discover Clark's secret.The Smallville incarnation of the character is first introduced as a morally ambiguous character, who walks a fine line between good and evil. Lex is an inquisitive person, and it is that curiosity that drives him to attain as much power as possible as the series progresses—it will ultimately lead him to being Clark's greatest enemy. Michael Rosenbaum has been nominated for and won a and a for his portrayal of Lex Luthor on Smallville.
After seven seasons as a series regular, Michael Rosenbaum left the show, but reprised the role for the. Contents.Role in Smallville , introduced in the as the son of billionaire , is sent to by his father to run the local fertilizer plant.
As a child, he is caught in the first that renders him completely bald. Years later as a young adult, Lex first meets Clark Kent saving his life from drowning and the two quickly become friends. Lex tries to be a good guy for most of the early seasons, but his motives are usually driven by curiosity for the unexplained, like the day Clark rescued him from drowning.
Over the course of seven seasons—beginning in the pilot episode on the day Clark rescued him from drowning—Lex has been trying to uncover the secrets that Clark keeps.In, Lex hires Roger Nixon , a reporter for the tabloid newspaper The Inquisitor, to discover how he survived the automobile accident where Clark saved him from drowning. All the evidence points to Clark having been hit by Lex's car, but Lex refuses to believe that is what happened so Nixon attempts to expose Clark to everyone. Around the same time, Lex also enlists the help of Dr. Hamilton ; Hamilton is commissioned to study the effects of the meteor rocks. Hamilton finds an octagonal disc, with unknown symbols imprinted on the disc's surface that match those on Clark's ship, while searching for traces of an alien ship that landed in Smallville in 1989.
The disc is eventually stolen by Nixon in an attempt to open Clark's ship.In, Lex's curiosity with the symbols continues. Lex first kills Nixon before the reporter can kill for protecting Clark from Nixon. When Clark discovers the Kawatche Caves, under a LuthorCorp construction site, Lex opts to be the of the caves to preserve them after he notices symbols on the cave walls that match the symbols on the disc, as well as an octagonal shape in the wall of the cave that would fit the disc perfectly.
His interest grows more and more when he finds Clark constantly in the caves, and later with a piece of paper that appears to indicate that Clark has deciphered the language on the cave walls — although, Clark denies being able to read the language. Lex's eventually loses the Kawatche caves to Lionel as his father has also developed an interest in the caves and the octagonal disc. During all this, Lex also met and courted but Helen would try to kill him on their honeymoon.revealed why Lex endured Lionel's harsh parenting; his father blames him for his younger brother Julian Luthor's death, however, Lex took the blame to protect the true killer, his mentally unwell mother Lillian Luthor , from Lionel's wrath. Also, Lex's curiosity into the symbols (and Clark) leads to a blowout between the two. When Lionel gives Clark a key to a room in the Luthor Mansion where Lex has been collecting information on Clark's family, Clark informs Lex that their friendship 'is over'.In, Lex replaces his father as LuthorCorp's CEO and turns his attention turns toward finding three ancient stones, which contain the same symbols as those in the cave and on the disc. He fails to find all three stones but suspects that Clark did, and used the stones to find the treasure of knowledge they were supposed to have led to, often having confrontations with. Around this time, Lex's lifestyle of bedding women and then leaving them the next day would catch up to him when one that he had previously slept with attempts to kill him after framing him for the murder of another one of the said women.In, Lex becomes obsessed with uncovering Clark's secret; he breaks three criminals out of Belle Reve and sends them to the Kent Farm, where they hold several people close to Clark hostage.
The scheme amounts to nothing, however, and Clark cuts Lex out of his life completely upon finding out. His curiosity into the symbols, which he believes to be alien in nature, results in arranging him to be possessed by the spirit of the criminal. In, Lex married after deceiving Lana into being pregnant with his child. Upon learning the truth, Lana faked her own death and attempted to pin the murder on Lex.displayed Lex's descent into darkness; he has a brother-like relationship with , the new editor of the Daily Planet, until it's revealed Grant is actually a clone of Lex's late brother. After Lex buys the Daily Planet, Grant attempts to keep Lex from being controlling, thus Lex has his brother's clone murdered and staged as a failed mugging.
Lex then discovers that the previous symbols are connected to the secret organization Veritas, which his father is a part of. The Veritas members learned that an alien visitor known as 'The Traveler' would arrive in Smallville during the meteor shower of 1989. At this time, Lex realizes that Lionel has been covering up the Traveler's existence and subsequently kills his own father for it. He eventually discovers that the Veritas members knew of a means to control the Traveler, so Lex sets out to find the device. The device, an orb he finds in the mantle above a fireplace in the Luthor mansion, leads Lex to the, where he is confronted by Clark. Having finally discovered Clark's secret, Lex uses the orb to bring down the Fortress around Clark and himself.In, Lex is missing and is put in charge as Lex's hand-picked successor.
Tess wants Lex found, until Lex is revealed to have a surgically-implanted nano-transmitter in Tess's optic nerve. Wanting revenge, Lex uses a kryptonite bomb to have Lana's stolen bio-enhanced suit, designed to absorb and emit kryptonite radiation, absorb the radiation to de-activate the bomb and subsequently never be able to go near Clark again without fatal effects. discovers Lex's location and uses a bomb to blow up Lex's travelling medical transport, seemingly killing him.revealed that Lex is barely alive and in hiding after the attempt of his life by Oliver, and had manufactured a number of clones in a struggle to heal himself. However, the majority of these clones are flawed and age at an accelerated rate. One clone of Lex , aged approximately twenty years older than the original, attempted to get revenge on Clark by trying to kill but died before he could finish. The reveals that Lex has been hiding underneath the Luthor mansion and is almost mended after grafting viable parts of his clones to his damaged body; it only lacked a working heart. After the version of his father sacrifices himself to, Lex is healed and brought back to life.
He speaks with Clark, telling his former friend he accepts they have a destiny as enemies, but neither of them can fulfill their roles unless Clark defeats Darkseid by inspiring humanity. Lex later meets with Tess, and fatally stabs his sister, however, Tess poisons him with a specialized that removes all of Lex's memories. The series ends by shifting seven years into the future, where Lex had been elected as the.
Portrayal When crafting Smallville's version of Lex Luthor, series developers and decided that he would not be a precursor to the more comedic role performed by in the; the pair wanted him to be likeable and vulnerable. The role was difficult to cast, as no one involved in the casting could agree on who they liked for the role. Gough and Millar wanted to cast a comedian for the series, on the belief that comedians always want to 'please and be loved at the same time.' Michael Rosenbaum auditioned for Lex Luthor twice. Feeling he did not take his first audition seriously, Rosenbaum outlined a two-and-a-half-page scene, indicating all the places to be funny, charismatic, or menacing. His audition went so well that everyone agreed he was 'the guy'.Before Rosenbaum got the part, auditioned for the role of Lex Luthor; Cummins would go on to play Dr.
Garner, a neuro-scientist who experiments on Clark, in multiple episodes of Smallville spanning season two and three. Michael Rosenbaum is not the only actor to portray Lex on the show. There have been four other actors that have performed the role; Matthew Munn, and Connor Stanhope have all portrayed Lex Luthor as a child in various episodes throughout the series. Rosenbaum relished the opportunities he gets to show Lex's evil side, even if it is only for a few seconds in earlier seasons. Specifically, he delighted in the chance to 'go overboard', like he did in 'Hug' where his character pulls out a machine gun and shoots everything in sight; to the actor, this gave the audience a glimpse into who Lex was becoming.
To portray Lex's signature bald head, Rosenbaum had to go through more than just a regular. Not only was his head shaved every day, but he had to undergo hours of make-up treatments on his head, in various color combinations, so that his natural hairline did not show up on film. After seven seasons of portraying Lex Luthor on Smallville, Michael Rosenbaum decided to move on with his acting career, so he departed from the show. On February 11, 2011, Michael Ausiello reported that after the back and forth speculation as to whether Rosenbaum would return to the series, the actor finally agreed to appear in the series finale. Rosenbaum expressed that his return for the final episode was for the fans, stating, 'I appreciate all of their passion, their relentlessness, and even their threats.' Character development Storyline progression Rosenbaum believed that Lex was trying to be a hero in season one, but that his character showed signs of having to fight 'ambiguity' and stay on the straight path.
The tension-filled relationship with his father, which is first established in the pilot episode, comes to a crossing in the season one finale, when Lex is left with the decision to either help his father remove the structural beam that has fallen on him, or let him die. Rosenbaum wanted the audience to see that Lex was really contemplating what his life would be like if Lionel was no longer around. As Rosenbaum explained the scene:I think the thing that separates a murderer from a regular person who's sane is that one moment of decision. Murderers can make the decision to commit that act and kill, which most people probably never have to face. You or I have never been pushed that far, and in comparison to Lex's life, our lives haven't been that. For that moment in the library, Lex forgot who he was.
That's the way I played it, and that's the way I wanted it to come across. And it's those decisions that you make that make you realize that there's such a fine line between rational and irrational. When you're driving down the road, your day's just gone to hell, and you're really upset for a moment you just want to jerk the wheel off the road. Most people just think that for a second then let it go, but at the moment when you think it, are you really contemplating it? Would you really do that?
Most people wouldn't, but when he sees his father lying there, it's one of those moments where Lex is like that driver.Season two delved deeper into Lex's darker moments, from the time he wavers to save his father's life, to his outburst at Jonathan for what he feels is unfair treatment. These moments play into Lex's. Season three's 'Memoria' finally explained the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of Lex's infant brother, Julian.
Gough explains that they had known the story of Julian Luthor back in season one, when the character was first mentioned in 'Stray', but they wanted to find the right time to explain the situation. The creative team wanted the audience to think that Lex was responsible for Julian's death as an infant, before finally revealing that Lex was merely covering for his mother.Season four began expanding on the series long story arc of Lex's feelings for Lana. Though the seeds were planted in the second episode of the first season, it was not until season four that Lex began to show more of his true feelings. According to Gough, not only was Lex trying to protect Lana from , Lana's boyfriend who was also after the stones of knowledge, but he was also trying to get Jason out of the picture completely so he could have Lana for himself. Writer questioned Lex's motives from earlier seasons: 'You have to ask yourself, in the words of Lex Luthor himself: Why would some billionaire want to be bailing out this girl and buying her a coffee house to begin with? What's that all about?'
Writer described season five as 'the darkening of Lex Luthor'. By the time 'Aqua' came around, Lex had removed the gloves, as there is no friendship with Clark that he needed to worry about, and his dark side began to show its face. Season five also saw Lex's hunger for power begin to develop, as he campaigned for a Kansas senate seat. It was the events of 'Lexmas' that drove Lex to continue his pursuit of ultimate power. In 'Lexmas', Lex is shot and he gets a chance to live a life where he is married to Lana and he no longer on a quest for power.
In this alternate reality, without all the power and money that he had originally had, Lex is unable to save Lana, who dies after giving birth to their second child. It is here that Lex decided that he would always 'go for the prize'.
Characterization One of Lex's key characteristics is his curiosity for the unexplained. Lex's primary motive for his 'shady' actions derives from his curiosity, specifically beginning from the moment he and Clark meet after Lex hits Clark with his Porsche.
Clark always appearing when something strange happens in Smallville does nothing but fuel Lex's curiosity. Rosenbaum believes that Lex's only sees two options: 'For Lex, it's either take a nice ride to Metropolis and work with his dad, or find out what's going on with this strong, strange fellow, Clark Kent.'
Another characteristic of Smallville 's Lex Luthor—one that is being developed over the course of the series—is his evilness. Rosenbaum believes that what the audience sees in Lex's dark side in the early seasons is merely a taste of what the character is truly capable of. In the season two premiere 'Vortex', Rosenbaum requested Greg Beeman to shoot a close-up of him after he shoots Nixon, in an effort to open a window into Lex's darker side.
Rosenbaum intended to leave the interpretation of whether Lex enjoyed killing Nixon open to the audience. As Beeman explains Rosenbaum's thoughts, '. Either Lex is horrified and appalled, or he liked it, and it felt good to him'. According to Rosenbaum, when Lex reaches that point where he uses all of his mind, and 'really flips out', that is the point where the 'world needs to hide'. Television reviewer Brian Byun felt that it was this struggle between good and evil inside Lex that not only made him an anti-hero, but also, given that the audience familiar with Lex's mythology and the knowledge that he will end up being Superman's greatest enemy, make Smallville's Lex Luthor a 'tragic figure of almost Shakespearean grandeur'.Taking a page out of 's, Rosenbaum ignored the script during his final scene with Kristin Kreuk for the season six finale.
Here, as Lana is informing Lex that she is going to leave, Lex walks around her and closes the door to her exit. Rosenbaum was trying to invoke a moment of fright for the audience. To the actor, he wanted the audience to wonder what Lex was going to do to Lana; it was a moment meant to show just how unpredictable Lex can be. Simpson, Paul (2004). Smallville: The Official Companion Season 1. Pp. 20–23.
^ Simpson, Paul, (Season 1 Companion), pp.120–123. (writer) & (director) (November 6, 2001).
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