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They say that every great villain believes they’re really the hero of the story and no one embodies that idea quite like Lex Luthor. The billionaire genius has been a thorn in the side of Superman for decades and has shown up in almost every live-action and animated incarnation of the Man of Steel. With the latest trailer for James Gunn’s Superman movie out, I’ve found myself hoping that Nicholas Hoult’s Luthor will embrace the mad scientist roots of the character.

It all started when the teaser for the trailer came out earlier this week. It showed the Hammer of Boravia, an original character created by James Gunn for the film who attacks Metropolis. However, as I watched the teaser, my first thought was that it looked a bit like the armor that Lex Luthor wears when he needs to try (and fail) to go toe-to-toe with Superman. That’s right; sometimes Luthor tries to overpower Superman through the power of tech.

See, there are generally two sides to Lex Luthor. The side that is usually depicted in adaptations is the billionaire capitalist. He’s ruthless and cunning and able to think circles around most of the DC universe, making him the perfect villain for Superman. Since no one can ever be stronger than Superman, you need someone smarter, right?

I love this version of Luthor – for my money, the best version is Clancy Brown, but that’s the DCAU fan in me coming out – but it gets a little old. Even going back to Gene Hackman in 1978’s Superman movie, we usually see that business cunning take center stage, but I’d love to see something different from the 2025 film.

The other side of Lex Luthor is an absolutely deranged mad scientist. No morals to his experiments. No concern for collateral damage. Just absolute unhinged weirdness. This is a guy who poisoned himself with kryptonite and then built a clone body, called it his son, and put his brain in it to cheat death. There are some wild stories from the comics and I just want DC to give us just a taste of them in this movie.

This trailer has me hoping against hope that the whole Hammer of Boravia thing is a cover-up to protect us from knowing it is Lex Luthor in that armor throwing hands with Superman. We know that James Gunn has looked to All-Star Superman for inspiration when developing this movie, which includes Luthor making a super serum while he is in prison and using it to break out of prison, so maybe he also spent some time building a mechanical suit so he could punch Superman into orbit. (As potential backing to this idea: we see the Engineer with Luthor at one point in the trailer, and also fighting Superman at some other point, just like the guy in the armor... so, are they connected...?)

I’m just saying that we’ve had enough of evil billionaires for a little while. My big hope for the new Superman movie is that we’re entering Lex Luthor’s mad scientist era at last.

James Gunn's Superman is flying into theaters soon enough, and Popverse has all you need to prepare. Refreshing your cinematic memory with our Superman movie watch order, learn what we know about the upcoming Superman movie, Superman's S-Shield through the ages, and read about what DC is doing ahead of their flagship hero's triumphant return.