En Vid

In the post-Man of Steel mythos, Luthor was born in the Suicide Slum district of Metropolis. In his younger years, Alexander Joseph "Lex" Luthor grew up in a household where his cruel and short-tempered father abused his mother and belittled his dreams of a better life. His only friend was schoolmate Perry White, who encouraged Lex's aspirations of escaping the slums and becoming a success.

Cover detail of Lex Luthor: The Unauthorized Biography graphic novel, 1989. Art

by Eric Peterson.

During his teens, Lex's neighborhood environment cultivated in him a ruthless savvy and talent to manipulate. Lex took out a large insurance policy on his parents without their knowledge and sabotaged their car's brakes, killing them. Lex was put into a foster home where he would wait until he became of legal age to collect the insurance money. Lex soon discovered that his foster parents were even more brutal than his biological parents. Greedy and manipulative, they schemed to find out the location of Lex's money and steal it from him. Shortly after Lex turned the age in which he could have access to his money, he secretly put it in a savings account with the explicit instruction that only he be allowed to make withdrawals.

When his foster parents found bank documents Lex had hidden from them, Lex's foster father confronted his daughter Lena and demanded that she seduce Lex (who had fallen in love with Lena) into giving her parents the money.

Lena, who had feelings for Lex, refused and for her trouble was beaten to death by her father. Lex was absent from the home at the time, having been talked into going to a football game by his friend Perry. When Lex returned home, he was heartbroken to find Lena murdered by her father. This event would serve as the turning point for Lex Luthor, who vowed to do whatever it took to gain power and absolute control over his surroundings. Decades later, on the day Lex's daughter was born; Lex hired his criminal foster father to assassinate the mayor of Metropolis. Following the killing, Lex met with Lena's murderer in an alley (under the pretense of payment) and personally shot him. Lex named his daughter Lena.[4]