Lex Luthor is by far one of the most iconic villains in DC Comics, but like many of the baddies in the DC Extended Universe, they flopped hard with this incarnation of Alexander “Lex” Luthor. This also feels like the beginning of the end of Jesse Eisenberg’s peak fame. I honestly cannot recall many recent movies that feature him, despite the fact that he was one of the most popular actors of the 2010s.

One of the major problems with Lex Luthor in the DCEU was that he gave off serious Mark Zuckerberg vibes. That did not help matters considering Jesse Eisenberg famously played Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network. In hindsight, it almost feels unintentionally accurate, since Mark Zuckerberg has basically become a real world villain like many of his billionaire peers.

But the overall vibe of Lex Luthor is just wrong in this version. He comes off as far too Joker-like, which misses the point of the character entirely. While both are major villains in DC Comics, they are fundamentally different types of antagonists. The excessive hair did the character no favors either.

The only thing that feels truly comic accurate is his hatred of Superman. He also does not seem to care much about the other metahumans, even though he clearly knows who Wonder Woman is. I guess she gets a free pass for being remarkably beautiful. But this version never really captures the idea that Lex hates Superman because he envies him. On top of that, he figures out that Clark Kent is Superman within the first movie, which creates a massive plot hole when it comes to the safety of Clark’s friends and family for the rest of the DCEU. That is, assuming any of it was actually planned out, which it clearly was not.

And then there is his intelligence. Nearly every successful version of Lex Luthor portrays him as a man with no superpowers but a mind sharper than even Batman’s. Yet this version thinks it is a good idea to create a monster using Kryptonian DNA with absolutely no contingency plan. If Doomsday had defeated Superman, the Earth would have been destroyed. So what exactly was Lex’s end goal?

As far as I remember, he only had one other role afterward: a minor appearance in the Justice League and a slightly expanded role in Zack Snyder’s Justice League. That version finally gave him the bald head and teased the formation of a Legion of Doom to counter the Justice League. But this was already around the midway point of the DCEU’s lifespan, and nothing ever came of it. Kevin Feige may have lost some popularity at Marvel, but having someone like him providing a cohesive vision for a massive shared universe was clearly what DC was missing. That is a major reason Zack Snyder is out and James Gunn is now in charge of this new DC Universe (DCU).