Seriously, Luthor didn't become cool until Byrne. Mad scientist Lex is beyond dated, whereas CEO Lex is relevant.

It's not like Post-Crisis and New-52 Lex is a mad scientist too. Actually his science has gotten even powerful on top of being insanely rich and loved by the public despite the ridiculous ways he gets away with things.

@night4345: post crisis wasn't a mad scientist until Geoff Johns used Infinite Crisis am excuse to shoe horn outdated Silver Age retardation back into continuity, like Diana Prince, and Luthor losing company to become a mad scientist again. God, the mere thought gives me mental hemorrhoids.

As long as I am on the vine no one ever complained about Luthor's characterazation at least from what I remember.
Best Luthor is a polymath Luthor, that DC is using since 2000s. Takes all the aspects of his personality through the years and molds them together. CEO limits Luthor's potential a lot same with scientist Luthor. But take both of them and you have a powerhouse. A man with the means, intelligence,power and ruthlessness to be a threat. Only by combining all those aspects you get a good threat for Superman. And as the smartest man on the planet Luthor being only one of them, seems odd.

As for returning to his scientist status after infinite crisis, I don't see a problem with it Luthor lost his company and that opened some great storytelling routes(Luthor underground, Lana as CEO) and that was only temporary since Luthor got his company back at WofS. Luthor losing his company, going underground and actually killing kryptonians to get it back was great character development and kept the character fresh. If you want to blame someone for not seeing more CEO Luthor after IC blame DC for rebooting their universe :P

And the New 52 has a very good balance with Luthor, especially the first issue of Forever Evil. With Luthor, threatning to get what he wants, doing hostile company takeovers, then mock the ultimate war machine that top minds on the planet made only for him to see multiple ways of making it better.

Lex has always been a scientist, that's his thing. His brains are supposed to rival Superman's braun.

I agree that he is better off as a CEO who only occasionally gets his hands dirty, but he has to be a scientist still.

In a story I was writing, Luthor created Lex Corp as a way to get money to achieve his means. He only gives less than 10% of his attention to the company, the rest is towards building and creating stuff.

I never liked mad scientist Lex Luthor I prefer the CEO. Don't get me wrong I do want him to be a genius but it should be used in different ways.

Scientific: Sure but not outrageously so. He should have to work with a teams he hires at Lexcorp.

Manipulative, Business: These are where his true genius comes out to play.

No battle suit unless the extreme situation happens. Something that rarely happens. Lex should believe himself above such things and himself to important to get involved in smash em ups. That is for underlings, pawns, and the typical him manipulation of people

Lol who's a fan of the silver age. And I hate scientist luthor. He should use his smarts for other business stuff like he does now

Right now he is a top scientist and a billionaire. Im totally happy with that. If he was only a dumb, greedy, rich guy, I wouldnt appreciate that.

Top scientist AND billionaire into one megalomaniacal package is the ideal Lex.

Reminds me so much of Red Son Lex. Oh boy Im getting goosebumps