Lex Luthor Discovers His Connection To Superman’s [SPOILER]

Lex Luthor has had a banner year. Lex has been a huge player in both the Year of the Villian crossover and The Justice/Doom War, but it looks as though he might end the year on a troubling note after all. While probing into his own family history, Lex has discovered a family secret distantly connecting him to one of his Superman’s most loyal allies: Jimmy Olsen.

Luthor has apparently been on Jimmy’s trail throughout Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen by Matt Fraction and Steve Lieber. While Jimmy seems to have thrown him off his tail by faking his death and taking up residence in Gotham, Luthor is nevertheless still looking into Olsen. However, even Lex Luthor isn’t prepared for what he discovers in Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #5 – a blood relation to Olsen himself.

In the past, the Olsens and Luthors more akin to the Hatfield and McCoys of Metropolis, or more fittingly, the Montagues and the Capulets. Near the start of the 20th century, Jimberly Olsen and Hannah Alexandriah Luthor were star-crossed lovers. Ultimately, their destinies saw the pair marrying other people, despite a secret love that culminated in Olsen taking a bullet to the leg when Hannah’s father caught him sneaking onto the estate. Despite the end of their forbidden romance, Jimberly and Hannah’s brief union was not without impact, as Luthor discovers evidence that his great aunt’s fourth child bears a striking resemblance to the present day Olsen, complete with ginger hair and freckles. If true, the revelation means that Lex Luthor, Superman’s greatest enemy, and Jimmy Olsen, Superman’s pal, are actually distant cousins.

The claim isn’t without precedent either. In his very first appearance in Superman #4, Lex was depicted as a middle-aged man with red hair. It was actually an art mistake during the production of the early Superman newspaper strips that left Luthor the memorably bald villain. His Pre-Crisis origin involves a ginger-haired Luthor experimenting with Kryptonite at Superboy’s behest, only for a lab accident to leave him with hair loss and a vendetta against Superboy. Smallville also incorporated elements of this, with Lex losing his red hair as a child when he was caught in the Kryptonite meteor storm that brought Superman’s pod to Earth. It’s clear the Luthor line does bear at least a superficial resemblance to Jimmy Olsen, and one only has to look as far as Alexander Luthor Jr. of Earth-Three, the alternate reality son of Lex Luthor and Lois Lane, to see the evidence.

How this will impact Lex’s pursuit of Jimmy Olsen remains to be seen. If anything, however, it will surely put a thorn in the side of Luthor’s grandiose self-image. After all, Luthor sees himself as a self-made superman originating out of a lofty and well-respected family. The knowledge that the same family which created him also, distantly, produced Superman’s best friend Jimmy Olsen will probably infuriate Luthor a great deal. If anything, it looks like Lex Luthor‘s world – and family line – just became a little bit smaller.