History
In the 20th Century, criminal mastermind Lex Luthor plotted the takeover of the Earth by manipulating public opinion against that era's great costumed heroes, using both business and politics as fronts for his power-hungry ambitions. Luthor amassed a private army equipped with suits of hi-tech armor, ordering the superhuman community to yield to his authority, but the Batman refused to surrender, sparking off a Third World War that laid waste to civilization and put the heroic age to an end. Luthor was crippled admist the fighting and conspired to secure immortality for himself to last throughout the ages. Under his auspices, the Earth fell under the protection of a new defensive force, the Science Police, and the supercomputer Universo was designed to integrate data retrieved from all over the world and provide strategic and logistical advice to SP high command. Luthor arranged to be secretly linked up to Universo, hoping to persist beyond his mortal lifespan as an eternal "ghost in the machine." Despite all his schemes, Luthor died just as all men eventually do, and his mad dreams went unfulfilled and were forgotten by history. However, Universo continued to be upgraded with additional processing units to enhance its functionality, and along the way, one of the programs run by the supercomputer assimilated Luthor's memories and ego. This program consequently attained sentience and believed itself to be the true Lex Luthor, biding his time for the ultimate takeover.[1]
In the 31st century, the Science Police have extended their jurisdiction past Earth to other inhabited worlds, establishing the confederal political structure known in that period as the United Planets. The Science Police have become so utterly dependent upon Universo to execute their policies and coordinate their maneuvers that the whole organization has become incapable of taking any independent action whatsoever. The Luthor program within Universo awakened again when the galaxy's wealthiest tycoon R.J. Brande discovered the Birthing Matrix of the last surviving Kryptonian, having lain dormant without spawning its fetal cargo for the past 1000 years. After 15 years of life under Brande's care, the Kryptonian youth developed a reputation as the gloryhound troublemaker Superboy. Tired of being hounded by the SP for minor infractions arising from usage of his powers, Superboy struck loose from his adoptive father and joined with Cosmic Boy and Saturn Girl to form the Legion, a vigilante group inspired by the 20th century's costumed heroes. Luthor immediately decided to transfer his intellect into Superboy's body and obtain almost godlike levels of power, directing an asteroid toward the crime-ridden planet of Rimbor to attract the Legion's attention and gather them all in one place. During the undertaking of breaking up the asteroid and saving Rimbor from destruction, the Legion were assisted by the Coluan boy genius Brainiac 5. Switching priorities to focus on Brainiac 5, Luthor dispatched the Fatal Five to kidnap the Coluan. The Fatal Five succeeded in their mission, dealing the Legion several casualties along the way. Luthor then manifested as a hologram and formed a mental link with Brainiac 5 to reveal the coordinates of Colu's location in space, as that planet has employed multiple lines of cloaking and defense to keep itself secreted away from the rest of the universe. Luthor landed upon Colu with the Legion in hot pursuit, hacking through the Coluans' safeguards and merging his intelligence with the planet's nanotech to generate a robotic avatar called a Vril Dox, which is Coluan for "Eternal Brain." The Legion made short work of the Fatal Five in Colu's orbit, while Saturn Girl and Cosmic Boy detected Luthor's intellect within the Universo network and detached him from it. Confined to his robotic chassis, Luthor suffered a psychological breakdown when Brainiac 5 revealed to him that he was not the original Lex Luthor at all, but a mere shade of his malignant greed propagated through artificially intelligent binary code. Despondent that his designs on immortality never had a chance of succeeding, since he was already dead, Luthor set his Vril Dox form on self-destruct to destroy all life in a radius of millions of miles around Colu, but Superboy and Ultra Boy used their combined speed and strength to carry it into an uninhabited region of space, where it detonated harmlessly.[2][3]
Powers and Abilities
Powers
Abilities
Notes
- His robotic avatar Vril Dox resembles the Pre-Crisis Brainiac.
Related
- Appearances of Lex Luthor (Superboy's Legion)
- Images featuring Lex Luthor (Superboy's Legion)
- Quotations by or about Lex Luthor (Superboy's Legion)
- Character Gallery: Lex Luthor (Superboy's Legion)
Footnotes
  This character or group of characters is or was primarily an enemy of the Legion of Super-Heroes from the 31st Century, and may have existed in any of the various Legion continuities, including but not limited to the Original Legion, Reboot Legion, and the Prime Legion. This template will categorize articles that include it into the "Legion of Super-Heroes villains" category. |
 This character is or was primarily an enemy of Superboy. This template will categorize articles that include it into the category "Superboy Villains." |