Comic book character owned by
DC Comics. The most famous
cueball in comics, Luthor has been
Superman's
archenemy for decades.
When he was introduced, back in 1940's
Action Comics #23, Lex had a mop of
red hair, but he lost his hair not long afterwards when one of the
artists mistook a
bald-headed assistant for Lex himself. During the Silver Age, Luthor was a
scientific and
criminal genius who held a
grudge against Superman -- years ago, when they were both kids in
Smallville,
Superboy accidentally caused Luthor to lose all his
hair.
In the
post-Crisis DC universe, Luthor is the
ruthless CEO of
LexCorp International, one of the largest
corporations on the planet. Until Superman showed up, Luthor was the most powerful and most popular man in
Metropolis, but after the Man of Steel caused several of Luthor's
schemes to go bad, he devoted himself (and the vast
monetary and
technological resources of
LexCorp) to destroying Superman. He hasn't succeeded yet, and Superman knows he's up to no good, but he hasn't been able to prove that Luthor is anything other than the
benevolent philanthropist he pretends to be.
In late 2000, Luthor was elected
President of the
United States of America. He was considered a fairly competent president, but he was still
obsessed with using the vast might of his office to try to destroy Superman. In time, he went crazy, went openly supervillain, and got kicked out of office. But later, he convinced everyone that it was all the fault of an evil
doppelganger. He isn't president anymore, but he's still running his
megacorp as a secret "Get Rid of Superman" enterprise.
(Thanks to super-comics-historian JD for some of Luthor's history...)