10 DC Characters Who Killed Superman (And What Happened To Them)

10. Lex Luthor

While Luthor has killed Superman a whole variety of bizarre and beautiful ways over the pair's rivalry, the golden standard for these antics is set by Superman #149, which features Luthor literally going as far as to create the cure for cancer in order to get the prime opportunity to kill the Man of Steel.

Of all the various convoluted schemes Luthor has been involved with - which often get as surreal as him creating a robot that can kill Superman a million years in the future, or becoming the President of the United States - this is still the most unusual in just how convincing it is.

Lex spends countless amounts of time bonding with the hero, and building him neat gadgets to help him, all with the express purpose of slowly weaselling his way into Superman's trust in order to murder him.

And it works, too - with this being one of surprisingly few comics to feature Superman dying for real, and not dying only to be revived by whatever weird circumstance can be dreamt up in a writer's fever dream - although Lex also more or less dies for his crimes when he is tried and sent to the Phantom Zone.