Lex Luthor (Smallville) - Role in Smallville

Role in Smallville

Lex Luthor, introduced in the pilot as the son of billionaire Lionel Luthor (John Glover), is sent to Smallville by his father to run the local fertilizer plant. As a child, he is caught in the first meteor shower that renders him completely bald. After Clark Kent (Tom Welling) saves his life, the two quickly become friends. Lex tries to be a hero for much of the earlier seasons, but his motives are usually driven by curiosity for the unexplained, like the day Clark rescued him from drowning. As the series unfolds, Lex becomes involved with various women, with all of the relationships ending badly. In season one, he starts a relationship with Victoria Hardwick (Kelly Brook), who was attempting to use him so that she and her father could buy out LuthorCorp. Lex’s lifestyle of bedding women and then leaving them the next day would catch up to him in season four when one of the women he had previously slept with attempts to kill him.

Lex has been married three times in the show. First, in season two, he married Desiree Atkins (Krista Allen), who used her meteor-created powers to seduce Lex into marriage so that she could steal his money. Later that season, Lex met and courted Dr. Helen Bryce (Emmanuelle Vaugier) who would try to kill him on their honeymoon for reasons unknown. In season six, Lex married Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk) after deceiving her into believing that she was pregnant with his child. Upon learning the truth, Lana faked her own death and attempted to pin the murder on Lex.

Over the course of seven seasons—beginning on the day Clark rescued him from drowning—Lex has been trying to uncover the secrets that Clark keeps. In season one, Lex hires Roger Nixon (Tom O’Brien), 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. At the beginning of season two, Lex kills Nixon before the reporter can kill Jonathan Kent (John Schneider), who was protecting his son from Nixon. Lex also enlists the help of Dr. Hamilton (Joe Morton) around the same time he hires Nixon in season one; Hamilton is commissioned to study the effects of the meteor rocks. Dr. 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, who learns that it will open Clark’s ship.

When Clark discovers the Kawatche Caves in season two, under a LuthorCorp construction site, Lex opts to become the curator 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 company, LexCorp, eventually loses the Kawatche caves to his father Lionel, who has also developed an interest in the caves and the octagonal disc. Lex’s curiosity into the symbols, and Clark, leads to a blowout between the two at the end of season three. When Lionel gives Clark a key to a room in the Luthor Mansion where Lex has been collecting information on Clark and his family, Clark informs Lex that their friendship "is over".

In season four, Lex’s 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 them to find the treasure of knowledge they were supposed to have led to. In season five, Lex becomes obsessed with uncovering Clark's secret; to this end, he breaks three metahuman criminals out of Belle Reve and sends them to the Kent Farm, where they hold Lana and Clark's parents hostage. The scheme amounts to nothing, however, and Clark cuts Lex out of his life completely when he finds out. His curiosity into the symbols, which he believes to be alien in nature, results in him being possessed by the spirit of the Kryptonian criminal Zod at the end of season five. It is not until season seven that Lex discovers that the symbols are connected to a secret organization, known as Veritas, which his father is a part of. The Veritas members learned that an alien visitor, "The Traveler", would arrive in Smallville during the meteor shower of 1989. He also 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 Fortress of Solitude, where he is confronted by Clark. At the end of the seventh season, Lex uses the orb to bring down the Fortress around Clark and himself. In season eight, Lex is missing and Tess Mercer (Cassidy Freeman) is put in charge of LuthorCorp and its subsidiaries. She wants Lex found, and believes that Clark is the key to finding him. In season eight's "Bulletproof", Lana informs Tess that she knows that Lex is alive—which Tess confirms—and that he has been keeping tabs on Tess via a nano-transmitter he surgically implanted in Tess's optic nerve against her will. In the episode "Requiem", Lex uses Winslow Schott to plant a kryptonite bomb on the roof of the Daily Planet as a means of keeping Lana and Clark apart forever. As Lana stole Lex's bio-enhanced suit that is designed to absorb and emit kryptonite radiation, Lex forces Lana to absorb the kryptonite to de-activate the bomb and subsequently never be able to go near Clark again without killing him. Oliver Queen (Justin Hartley) discovers Lex's location and uses one of Schott's bombs to blow up the medical transport Lex was travelling in, killing him.

In the season ten premiere, it is revealed that prior to his death Lex had manufactured a number of clones in an attempt to use them to heal himself. However, the majority of these clones are flawed and age at an accelerated rate. One of the clones (Mackenzie Gray), aged approximately twenty years older than the real Lex, attempted to get revenge on Clark but died before he could finish. In the 2-hour series finale, it is revealed Lex had used the parts of other clones to create a perfected one; however, the clone lacked a heart. After a Lionel from an alternate reality sacrifices himself to Darkseid, his heart is placed inside the clone allowing him to live. The reborn Lex speaks with Clark, telling him he accepts they have a destiny as enemies, but for either of them to fulfill their roles Clark must defeat Darkseid by inspiring humanity. Lex later meets with Tess, and fatally stabs her; before she dies, Tess poisons him with a specialized neurotoxin that removes all of Lex's memories. The series ends by shifting seven years into the future, where Lex has now been elected President of the United States.