Lex Luthor Character Analysis: Why Gunn’s Lex Is the DCU’s Most Dangerous Idea
Every Superman needs a Lex Luthor, but James Gunn’s Lex is doing something rarer than opposing Superman. He is being asked to stand beside him. In Man of Tomorrow, the follow-up to 2025’s Superman, Nicholas Hoult’s Lex is not simply the villain again. Gunn has described the film as just as much a Lex story as a Superman story, with David Corenswet’s Man of Steel and Hoult’s Lex forced into an unlikely partnership against Brainiac, played by Lars Eidinger. That premise only works if Lex is understood correctly, not as a cackling businessman or a generic evil genius, but as a character whose intelligence, pride and jealousy make him both indispensable and untrustworthy. Gunn’s version, by all accounts, gets that balance right.
The core of Lex, in the comics and in Gunn’s films, is a wound disguised as a philosophy. Lex believes, sincerely, that Superman is a threat to humanity, not because Superman has done evil, but because his existence makes humanity smaller. If a god can save us, Lex argues, we will never learn to save ourselves. That is a compelling idea, and it is also a convenient cover for something uglier: Lex cannot bear that the world loves an alien more than it loves him, the smartest man on Earth. Hoult’s performance in Superman captured that duality, a Lex who is genuinely brilliant, genuinely convinced of his own righteousness, and genuinely furious at being overlooked. He is not wrong that power should be questioned. He is wrong that he is the right person to question it.
What makes the Man of Tomorrow pairing so interesting is that it tests Lex’s philosophy against a real crisis. Brainiac, the superintelligent android collector of worlds, is a threat that neither Superman’s strength nor Lex’s intellect can handle alone. Gunn has emphasised that Lex will play an integral role, less as an antagonist and more as an unlikely partner. That forces Lex into a position he hates: needing Superman, and being seen to need him. The dramatic question is not whether Lex will help, but what he will charge for his help, and whether the partnership changes him or merely gives him better access to Superman’s weaknesses. A Lex who learns nothing is a cartoon. A Lex who learns the wrong lesson is a tragedy.
The Warsuit is the visual symbol of that tension. Set images have shown Hoult’s Lex in his iconic green Warsuit from the comics for the first time in live action, a sharp break from the suit-and-tie look he wore in 2025’s Superman. In the comics, the Warsuit is Lex’s answer to feeling powerless beside Superman: if he cannot be loved like a god, he will be feared like a weapon. Putting Lex in the suit for a team-up, rather than a final battle, is a telling choice. It suggests a Lex who is still fighting Superman even while fighting beside him, armouring himself against dependence as much as against Brainiac. Gunn’s Superman sequel is also giving Corenswet a re-engineered suit, described as slightly more functional and ready for a fight, so both men arrive changed, and both changes are about survival rather than style.
That focus is also why Lex matters to the wider DC Universe, beyond Man of Tomorrow. Gunn has confirmed that the Superman Saga, running from Superman through Man of Tomorrow and onward, will continue past this film, and Lex is the thread that ties its moral argument together. Superman represents hope. Lex represents the human cost of hope arriving from outside. If the saga is really about what kind of world deserves a Superman, then Lex is not its obstacle. He is its question, asked in human form, and the DCU will be judged by how seriously it takes his answer. A universe that can make its villain’s argument feel almost reasonable, and then show why it still fails, is a universe with something to say. Gunn’s Lex, brilliant, wounded and now reluctantly allied with his enemy, may be the clearest proof yet that this DCU intends to say it.
