Alexander Luthor (New Earth-Eight)

The Hard Life of Lex Luthor
Lex Luthor was born in Suicide Slums of Metropolis, but he was not born into a family of status, nor was he born into a stable one. His father Lionel was an alcoholic, who constantly spent his time between jobs, while his mother Letitia was often forced to work extra shifts at her own job to support the family. This life style caused friction between Lex's father and his mother, with his father constantly abusing his mother and him both physically and verbally. Lex would originally plan to get out of his family as soon as possible and would do everything in his power to be better then his failure of a father and never see him again.

This plan would not go as so however, due to the sudden birth of Lex's sister when he was 12. His sister Lena was born with complications that left her very sick as a child and left his mother very weak as well. Lex feeling fear for the child's safety would do all he could to help take care of the child and protect her from his father's violence. Lex himself would be forced to get a job himself, when his mother became incapable of working at the age of 14.

When Lex was 18, his mother would pass away from an illness related to her birth of Lena. After her funeral, Lex would discover, that his father had taken a large life insurance policy on both Letitia and Lena after the birth and had been waiting for it to pay out. Angered and worried about Lena safety by this revelation, Lex would decide to do what his father did and put a huge life insurance policy on Lionel and cause a freak accident to get him killed, while also changing his father's will so all the money would be left with him. Lex once commented that any outsider who read it would of thought, Lionel was a great and kind father and not the monster he truly was.

After killing his father, Lex would use the combined insurance money from both his mother and father's deaths to invest and start his own company, which grew to global corporation known as LexCorp after 4 years through both legal and illegal means. During this time, Lex would do everything he could to give Lena a better life, by paying for proper schools and medicine to treat her illness.

Rivalry with Superman
During his time as an corporate giant, Lex would develop a very large ego about how he was one of the greatest men in the world. His world view would be shattered however, by the arrival of the superhero called Superman. Superman stood for everything Lex wasn't, which drove him insane with irrational hatred for the man of steel.

Lex would spend years, fighting Superman in secret, via either proxy to fight on his behalf or by directly creating weapons and things to defeat him, while only avoiding being arrested by his skills in both covering his tracks and bribery.

During his time, Luthor would father a child with his wife Erica Alexandra del Portenza, who died after the birth, due to Luthor poisoning her while she was recovering. He would name the child after his sister Lena and would raise her alone.