Lex Luthor

History

The current Luthor family has a long history with the city of Metropolis. Some of Lex's ancestors were with the Pilgrims who came to the island, and other ancestors of his were among the Native Americans who met them. As the centuries went on, the Luthor family grew in prominence and wealth. Luthor's great-grandfather, Wallace Luthor, was a millionare steel industrialist at the beginning of the 20th century. An ardant pacifist with dreams of a united society, Wallace was distressed when America was pulled into World War I. He reluctantly agreed to sell his steel for the manufacture of allied ships and weapons. In the stock market crash of '29, Luthor lost his entire fortune. He went to his grave penniless believing that it was divine punishment for his part in the war.

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 Lex's mother and belittled his son's dreams of leaving the Suicide Slum district for a better life. His father is also responsible for instilling in Lex a hatred of immigrants (aliens) as well as his atheism. Luthor's mother was also emotionally abusive and spent most of her time drinking. His only friend was Perry White, who encouraged Lex's dreams of making something of himself.

Lex's big break would come in his early teens, when Lex's parents were killed in a car accident and left Lex with a rather large insurance policy that left the teen incredibly wealthy. Years later, an unauthorized biography would accuse Lex of not only causing the death of his parents but also of obtaining the insurance policy on his parents without their knowledge.

Lex was put into a foster home while he waited until he became of legal age to collect the insurance money. However, Lex found that his foster parents were even worse 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 the money in a savings account with it explicitly stated that only he could withdraw money from the account. 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 under the lie that they would use the money to pay for their daughter's college education, which they had no plans on doing.

Lena, who had feelings for Lex, refused and for her trouble was knocked down the stairs by her foster father and died. 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 to destroy anyone who got in his way.

Perry White was the first target of Lex's turn to evil. Lex blamed Perry for keeping him from being at the house when Lena died and got his revenge by seducing Perry's wife shortly after their marriage and getting her pregnant with Lex's child. The offspring Jerry White, would later learn of his true parentage during his late teens before being killed by a local streetgang that Jerry had associated with. Years later, Lex would on several occasions purchase ownership of the Daily Planet, much to Perry's shock and attempt to kill the newspaper out of complete spite for Perry.

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