Published Sep 10, 2026, 11:59 PM EDT
An experienced Editor representing Canada via ScreenRant's Team Anime, J.R. has been reading manga since the first printing of Shonen Jump in North America. This passion drove him to write about anime, manga, and manhwa since 2022, having recently served as Lead Anime Editor for ComicBook.com.
His favorite moments in media coverage include reviewing the series premieres of Zom 100 and Bleach: TYBW Part 2 back-to-back and briefly meeting Junji Ito at a VIZ gallery event in 2023.
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There's little to be said that's not already been put out about DC's Absolute Universe lineup. It's stunning, bold, occasionally abrasive, yet holds a remarkable capacity for tender, emotional, or dark moments ranging from happy memories to harrowing tragedy. Such is par for the course with DC Comics across over eight decades of stories, but in the case of Absolute Superman, its most intriguing dangling thread, in terms of villain origins, is that of Lex Luthor, and whether he responds to Brainiac's twisted call to action.
Teased in Absolute Evil as Brainiac's key to negating the threat and balancing the ego of Absolute Joker, this universe's Luthor is a humble family man. Seemingly bereft of the same lethal ambition and megalomaniacal tendencies of other realities' Luthors glimpsed thanks to Mirror Master, Brainiac tried, and failed, to recruit this alternate-universe family man to his cause. But in a bid to draw out Luthor's animus, Brainiac committed a brutal massacre of Luthor's family, forcing him to watch, before ultimately leaving his prospective recruit, victimized, horrified, and broken, with the ominous promise that they'd meet again. Should Luthor be brought into the fold in any capacity, his would be the most devastating top-tier supervillain origin to date in the Absolute Universe.
DC's Absolute Universe Utterly Broke One Man To Create A Supervillain
Tragic origins are a dime a dozen across superheroes and villains, and certainly venture into the territory of hamfisted tropes more often than not. So when Jason Aaron's Absolute Superman completed the handoff of Lex Luthor's introduction in Al Ewing's Absolute Evil, it was an intriguing introduction which, in the way most Absolute Universe stories proceed, went south extremely quickly. Brainiac's uncannily grinning facial mimicry of Prime Earth's Luthor was not persuasive enough to pull this universe's counterpart out of his quiet, happy life as a local gas station owner into a vague "project" targeting Superman, so he opted instead for his usual drastic measures.
Luthor's demeanor, after all, is a surprise even to Brainiac. He's the same man who's consistently known to have challenged the prominence of Superman on Earth and even donned wildly powerful interstellar villain mantles in the past. But whether it's because he's without the ambition, or perhaps the driving insecurity that otherwise motivates his innate brilliance, Luthor felt no reason to do more than build a family and small local business in Missouri. Brainiac's attempts to bypass that are naturally beyond the pale, which seems to be the Absolute Brainiac benchmark, creating an inciting incident as an alien butcher murdering Luthor's family in Absolute Superman #17.
Good Guy Lex Luthor Has Had His "One Bad Day"
Famously and appropriately attributed to the Joker, Absolute Lex Luthor is very much a good man whose "one bad day" moment set an unclear but abyssally dark path ahead of him, stained in the blood of his entire family in this case. Brainiac's fiendish confidence in his actions and their ability to awaken Luthor's capacity for evil are especially horrible considering that, were Luthor to continue not to pursue the villain's journey, this entire display would have been pointless. But it all comes back to balancing egos as hinted in Absolute Evil, with Luthor this time being from a humble upbringing, and Joker being a serial killer from a billionaire dynasty.
Where Luthor goes from here is intriguing. His trauma could overtake him and push him in chaotic directions, or, it could plant seeds of hatred, pushing him on a similarly xenophobic warpath toward Superman. Just how this balances out Joker is yet to be seen, but Luthor is, for all intents and purposes, all too human compared to the utterly inhuman Absolute Batman villain. His mind may yet be unclouded by insecurities from past iterations, making a vengeance story arc likely starting in some part with Brainiac to create a twisted iteration of the iconic Earthbound nemesis everybody knows and loves to hate. The pieces are all there, and with multiple different comics highlighting Luthor, it's rather apparent his story is not over yet in Absolute Superman.
Comic Superman (2023)
English (US) ·