His baldness here represents how good of a character he is...if you don't get it the sentence basically means this Luthor is a shit character.
Watts up Near Pure Evil Wiki. Welcome to my twenty-fifth proposal. Currently, with me getting around some things, I've decided to propose the version of Lex Luthor that appears in live-action film, the arch-nemesis of Superman, as a candidate for NPE... the bad one, not the good one, originating from the good old DC Extended Universe. This character has already been proposed and approved before... twice but once was by a sock and the other by an overall shitty person. Now, I've decided to be the one to propose him and finally get him approved for the third and final time. Anyways, let the trial commence!
What's the Work?
The DC Extended Universe is one of the many copycats that existed when the Marvel Cinematic Universe was at its golden age all just to copy its initial success, only to end up in a sorry state the universe it based off of would ironically go into as well. It revolves around superheroes from the DC Comics that initially set up a plot where a team known as the Justice League would be formed to maintain good...until it went off the rails and the later films became their own things I guess.
Who is He? What Has He Done?
Alexander Joseph "Lex" Luthor, Jr. is the main antagonist of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and a minor antagonist in its sequel Justice League and Zack Snyder's director's cut.
He is the CEO of the company LexCorp which was ran by his now deceased father Alexander Luthor, Sir. who actually abused him as a child with no God wanting to help him making him think he played favorites, causing him to grow a massive hatred of anything correlating to him, including later the hero Superman.
At the present day, after knowing about the hero Superman, as explained above, due to him correlating with the God that did not save him, he took several measures to give him a bad image in the public eye and have him killed. His measures include gangster Anatoli Knyazev to kill many people in Africa and bombing the Capitol filled with people and having Superman enter it to frame him while also having an employee of Wayne Enterprises a suicide bomber, the latter causing him to stay alone.
Then, sometime later, Lex discovers the existence of an experiment conducted by the High Council of Krypton known as Doomsday, which they recommend to not repeat it. Lex Luthor, being the smartest man on Earth, decides to repeat the experiment. He also uses the DNA of General Dru-Zod and his to begin the experiment.
He then has Superman's adoptive mother, Martha Kent, to be tortured by his men, and he also has Lois Lane captured to put her into the roof of LexCorp to push her off and have her saved by Superman all just to meet him in person. He explains his motivations to him, on how he wants to expose him for being a fraud, and later tells him he must fight Batman to the death, though he actually wishes to have him killed with kryptonite weapons. Superman obviously doesn't take his offer initially, until Lex shows him photos of Martha being tortured and he also puts her under the threat of death. Superman initially wishes to kill him, until he submits to Lex after he tells him Martha will die if he doesn't kill Batman.
Lex Luthor, awaiting his return, then meets Superman in the Kryptonian scout-ship without having the head of Batman. Lex calls Knyazev for information, only to hear that Batman is there and that Martha Kent has been rescued by him. Lex then tells Superman all about Doomsday which will finally kill him. Doomsday awakens and begins fighting Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman as well as causing a lot of destruction and death, until Dommsday dies, with the temporary cost of Superman's life.
Lex Luthor would then be arrested for his crimes thanks to having his crimes be exposed by Lois Lane, and he is then sent to jail. However, Batman suddenly barges into his cell and tells him that he'll be locked up in Arkham Asylum instead, and that people there are waiting for him. Batman then just disappears.
Lex, however, escapes from Arkham Asylum. He then boards some sort of yacht and also hires a mercenary known as Deathstroke. Lastly, Luthor points out the idea to Deathstroke about... some sort of league of with injustice, in order to compete with another league which is of justice instead. Too bad we'll never see that go into fruition given the universe has now ended (maybe we'll see one from the DCU but uh... Warner being sold shit).
Is He Heinous Enough?
The heinous standards of the DC Extended Universe are no doubt pretty high as we have multiple villains that do plenty of heinous things such as genocidal maniacs that try to wipe out humanity Zod, Ares, the Enchantress and Incubus. There are also some evil human villains like...this mf, Erich Ludendorff who gassed a village and tried to do the same to London, Doctor Poison who conducted many experiments on people with deadly gas, the Thinker who tortured, raped and experimented on Starro and used him to kill thousands, and many more.
However, I'd say Lex Luthor still makes it even with all of this competition. He is just a human character being the CEO of a company that also has access to some explosives, henchmen, and a monster he doesn't even have control over, yet he still manages to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people such as bombing the Capitol filled with many people in it. Also, the argument of him indeed failing the HS came from an untrustworthy user, so that's an unreliable argument given Erich is a quartermaster general and the Thinker is a scientist that has an advanced starfish with more control over it, next.
Non-Preventions?
While he does seem to be affable, such as when he plays sports games with people like basketball with his coworkers and bowling with an interviewer, none of this is genuine as they're just for him to keep good publicity, and we see later on that he's obviously an asshole on the inside.
While he has comedic moments seen in said interactions above, they are only when he is in his facade, and he is entirely serious outside of that, with all of his crimes such as bombing the Capitol, having Martha tortured and be put under the threat of death and creating Doomsday be played for horror and with everyone treating him as a threat.
While he seems to be an extremist wanting to have Earth be safe from Superman, and also Kryptonians as a whole who he sees as dangerous, heck Zack Snyder even confirmed he was meant to be one, the film contradicts this as it's basically nothing more than lies and that he is just an egotist that only values himself wanting to be seen as a good person by the public eye.
While he does have a tragedy, at the very least, this is not disqualifying from NPE, as the film doesn't constantly bring this up with it only being primarily being brought up in the scene where he meets Superman in the roof of the LexCorp building and he is otherwise portrayed as an asshole.
What Prevents Him From Being Pure Evil?
His tragedy, while not disqualifying for here, does hold up and is disqualifying for PE. He was abused by his father as a child and despite everything, no man in the sky intervened to help him escape from his wrath. This explains as to why he dislikes Superman as seen in the aforementioned scene where he meets him since Superman correlates with the God that didn't save him.
Verdict?
Yes.