10 Notable Career Changes Of Famous Comic Book Characters

5. Lex Luthor €“ President

The thing about Lex Luthor is no matter how many times he fights Superman and no matter how many times he is stopped and arrested, his public image never suffers for too long. It just goes to show how much power money wields. How else can you explain a criminal being elected President of the United States? Anyway, Luthor ran his campaign on technological progression and successfully won the 2000 presidential election. Among his first acts were proposing a moratorium on fossil fuels, taking steps to rebuild Gotham City after the events of No Man€™s Land, and thwarting an invasion from the alien Impeiex, although it was later revealed that Luthor knew about the invasion ahead of time and didn€™t alert anyone. Luthor€™s reign began its downward spiral after he framed Bruce Wayne for the murder of Wayne€™s lover Vesper Lynd. Shortly afterwards, a Kryptonite asteroid was spotted heading towards Earth. Attempting to link Superman to the asteroid, Luthor sent a team of superheroes to capture Superman and Batman, the latter of whom had recruited his own team of heroes to unseat Luthor. Luthor€™s plan failed after several of the heroes he sent left his ranks and joined Batman and Superman. His arrogance had led him to believe that they would follow him unquestioningly because he was President, something that proved devastating to him. In desperation, Luthor used a combination of an Apokoliptan power suit, liquid synthetic Kryptonite and Venom to fight Superman, but the madness from taking these substances caused him to accidentally confess his multiple crimes, which was recorded. Defeated, he managed to escape, but his final defeat came when he learned that acting LexCorp CEO Talia Head (actually Talia al Ghul) had sold the company to the Wayne Foundation. Vice President Pete Ross served the rest of the term and Luthor went into hiding. One reason this event was important was that it was the storyline used in the animated movie Superman/Batman: Public Enemies. Beyond that, the event demonstrated perfectly why absolute power corrupts absolutely. Luthor was already a wealthy business mogul who repeatedly failed in his attempts to defeat Superman. By washing his record and becoming President, he believed that he would finally have all the resources he needed to defeat his hated enemy and become the most powerful man in the world. In the end, his arrogance and ego proved to be his undoing, and he was reduced to what he truly is: a criminal.