10 Comic Villains With The Best Motivations

4. Lex Luthor

Superman Rebirth Luthor Action Comics
DC Comics

Lex Luthor might be the poster boy for standard super-villainy, but there's a whole lot more to him than just a simple hatred of Superman.

Yes, in a great many ways, Lex Luthor is actually the ultimate comic book supervillain. He's rich, corrupt and resourceful, but he's also highly motivated, intelligent, and possesses the know-how to make his schemes work. The key to that motivation? Superman's presence - more specifically, what the Man of Steel's arrival could imply.

Lex Luthor, for all his skills, smarts and influence, is still a deeply insecure individual. He considers most people to be beneath him, but Superman is better; Kal-El is more powerful and more revered than Lex, and it is this jealousy, as well as Lex's own difficult upbringing, that fuels him to take on Earth's heroes.

Despite this, Luthor is also a pragmatist. He knows when to sit down and cooperate, and will do anything to safeguard his own interests. It's this determination that enables him to go toe-to-toe with the best and worst the DC Universe has to offer, and why he's remained so compelling since his original introduction back in 1940.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.