Lex Luthor was a man of many lairs. He started working from his home lab in Smallville, before disastrous events turned him from Superboy's friend to his jealous foe.[26] Soon he needed to maintain his laboratory in secret, due both to the criminal nature of his experiments and the criminal warrants for Luthor himself.
History
Luthor's Lair I
Lex Luthor's first lair was in the center of Metropolis right under Superman's nose, a private museum for which Luthor had financed the construction under a false identity. Entry was obtained by shaking the statue hand of Julius Caesar. The classical Metropolis Museum was lined in lead, and served as the headquarters for both Lex, and his minions when Lex was imprisoned.[1] The Museum contained:
- The Hall of Heroes: Luthor kept statues of the historical figures that inspired him:[2][3]
- Al Capone
- Captain Kidd
- Genghis Khan
- Julius Caesar
- Benedict Arnold
- Blackbeard
- Nero
- Lex Luthor: Luthor kept a statue of himself to one day add to his Hall of Heroes.
- Rooftop Colossus: On the roof was a huge statue that hid a camera that could spy on the surroundings, and it hid Luthor's secret escape plan - a rocket.[2][3]
- Reminder Room: A room lined with calendars marking all the dates that Luthor had spent in prison because of Superman.[2]
- Workshop
In an alternate Earth, Lex Luthor invites Superman into his first Lair, and has him destroy the "Hall of Heroes" statues, in order to win Superman's trust before killing him.[4]
Luthor's Lair I was marked To Be Demolished At Some Future Date, and that date was celebrated with style when Luthor launched his radium-powered escape rocket, in the form of the rooftop colossus. The rocket was powerful enough to leave the Galaxy, and it took him to the robot world of Roxar.[3]
The Post-Crisis Luthor's Lair
A version of this lair existed in Post-Crisis New Earth continuity, as a museum property which had been purchased and closed to the public by LexCorp. Like the original version, this lair contained a Hall of Heroes dedicated to Luthor's inspirations: Attila the Hun, Al Capone, Genghis Khan, and Captain Kidd.[5]
Luthor's Lair II
Luthor had a lead-lined Observatory secretly financed and built, which contained many of the features of the first Lair. Not only the Hall of Heroes, and the Reminder Room were installed, but also a Time-Space Scanner, Radar, and a Kryptonite-Warhead Missile Launcher.[6]
Alcatraz Lair
Lex Luthor first arrived in Alcatraz as an oversight on his part. Returning from 1906 San Francisco, Luthor accidentally materialized in one of the locked cells of the abandoned prison until Superman rescued him.[7] Realizing the potential, and that no one would look for him in a prison, Luthor's next Lair was in Alcatraz.[8] It contained:
- Rockets and Interceptors hidden in chimneys
- Psychological Warfare Room
- Worldwide View-Screens
- Lexor View-Screen
Galactic Golem Lair
Lex moved his next Lair across the river from Metropolis, into an attractive house which also doubled as an observatory, where he used the Galactic Cannon to gather matter from the birthplace of the universe and create the Galactic Golem, which momentarily erased all life from Earth.[9] Luthor surveyed with his Worldwide View-Screens. The battle with Superman and the return of the Galactic Golem destroyed that Lair, and Superman took the Galactic Cannon from the rubble and mounted it in the Fortress of Solitude.[10]
Anti-Superman Fortress
Built inside a false volcano in the Andes Mountains, the Anti-Superman Fortress was the Lair of the "Four Foes": Luthor, Brainiac, Grax and the Marauder.[11] It contained:
- The Hall of Hate: where Superman's allies were represented by statues being executed.
- Super-Weapon Arsenal: Luthor's War-Tractors and tanks bristling with deadly weapons
- Cryogentronic Projector Beam: A beam which could remotely freeze a huge area, like the cataract at Niagara Falls.
- The Triflector: A mirror that the Four Foes lured Superman in front of to create evil phantom duplicates.[12]
The Penthouse
Luxury penthouse in Midtown Metropolis, hidden from sight by a number of cleverly aimed mirrors.[13] Lex Luthor first wore his purple-and-green Battle Array suit in the Penthouse. He could use the Array's Jet Boots to launch himself directly into attack from the Penthouse.
Stanhope Lair
Luthor's greatest scientific laboratory was hidden under a hollow tree at Stanhope College[14], previously used by Supergirl to hide her Supergirl Robot.[15] It remained undiscovered.
Beneath the Superman Pavillion
Luthor secretly tunnelled a lair below the Superman Pavilion, where he used Superman's own Mind-Prober Ray to extract memories and a skin sample to create a perfect clone of Superman. The entire Lair was bathed in artificial red sun radiation, which weakened Superman to the point that Luthor could beat him with his Power Gloves. If not for a clearly marked off-switch for the "Power Draining Prison"; Luthor would have killed Superman and all of his fans above in the pavilion.[16]
The Nefarium
The Nefarium was an underground lair where Luthor launched what Superman called his most vile scheme. Luthor used his Ultra-Computer to brainwash himself into becoming a hero. In his bio-lab he'd made a clone of his perfect bride, and disposed of the original woman, Angela Blake.[17] It was part of a plot to blast Superman into an anti-matter dimension from which he could not return. The Nefarium was destroyed by Superman in an angry rampage[18]. It had contained:
- TV Broadcast Studio
- Ultra Computer
- Intra-Spacial Viewer
- Anti-Superman Weaponry
Luthor's Lair Number 16
Lair number 16 was abandoned by Luthor after placing Nathaniel Tryon in his Neutron Displacer.[19] Safe behind a triple-thick Molybdenum door, Nathaniel endured the Neutron ray for a year before being freed, and becoming the revenge-oriented Neutron.
Lexor Lair
In a staggering grudge match, Superman destroyed Lex Luthor's Lair and left his Battle Array in tatters. Luthor limped back to Lexor, where he resumed doing good works, until he found a super-scientific Lair from a past civilization, and created his Luthor's Warsuit.[20] In the second round, Superman and Luthor's battle on Lexor resulted in the destruction of not only his lair, but the planet, his family, and his people.
L-Island/ Black Island
Surviving the destruction of Lexor, Luthor rode a huge asteroid made of the planet's remains to Earth - a gravestone for his family and what little goodness there was in Luthor. With his Warsuit, he directed the massive meteorite into the Atlantic Ocean, where it floated like an iceberg, and Luthor fortified it with quarried stone and advanced weapons. He called it his "Ultimate Lair", "L-Island" and "Black Island".[21]
As a piece of Lexor, it was not subject to the shockwaves that had previously eliminated all Green Kryptonite on Earth[22], and thus Luthor mined L-Island as a source of new earthly Green Kryptonite.
L-Island housed his super-powered conscripts, Pluto, Plato, Luoto and Wanda and contained numerous weapons and defensive systems.[23]
- Brain-Chain Beam
- Cloaking Device
- External Defence System
- Killer Drone Dogs
- Red Solar Blast
- Solar Fusion Lasers
- Stasis Field
L-Island was last seen adrift in the Atlantic when Lex Luthor was taken during Crisis on Infinite Earths.[24]
Generic Lairs
Generic lairs contained interesting monuments and traps. One was lined with images of traps that Lex had set for Superman — and of Superman escaping them.[25] Another was a simple lead-lined house designed to lure Superman in, where he was "magnetized" by a Kryptonite Magnet array, and covered in Kryptonite meteors. One mountain lab was found in the future by the Legion when they were hiding from the Science Police.
Residents
- Lex Luthor
- Angela Blake Clone[18]
- J. Robert Arngrim Clone[16]
- Grax[11]
- Brainiac[11]
- Galactic Golem[9]
- Marauder[11]
- Neutron[19]
- Louto Malono[21]
- Pluto Statler[21]
- Plato Statler[21]
- Wanda Nordo[21]
- Robots
Notes
- Luthor's Lair was generally an Earth-One location, or seen in canonical flashbacks.
See Also
- Appearances of Luthor's Lair
- Location Gallery: Luthor's Lair
- Catalogued images related to Luthor's Lair
- ↑ Action Comics #286
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Action Comics #277
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Action Comics #292
- ↑ Superman #149
- ↑ Silver Age 80-Page Giant #1
- ↑ Superman #167
- ↑ Superman #168
- ↑ Action Comics #332
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Superman #248
- ↑ Superman #258
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Action Comics #417
- ↑ Action Comics #418
- ↑ Superman #282
- ↑ Action Comics #486
- ↑ Action Comics #272
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 Action Comics #500
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 Action Comics #510
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 Action Comics #512
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 Action Comics #525
- ↑ Action Comics #544
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3 21.4 Superman #385
- ↑ Superman #233
- ↑ Superman Annual #12
- ↑ Superman #413
- ↑ Superman #213
- ↑ Adventure Comics #271