Luthor Unleashed!
By Cary Bates, Curt Swan, Murphy Anderson, Tony Tollin
Jun 1983
Lex Luthor barely survives his latest battle with Superman. He escapes, with some help from one of his robots, to the planet Lexor. There he is greeted by his loving wife Ardora and his son Lex. The people of Lexor revere him and welcome him with open arms.
Luthor detects a fatal flaw in the planet that might cause it to blow up. He builds the Neutrarod, a long, thick rod to prevent the destruction of the planet he now calls home. The Neutrarod extends deep into the center of the planet and extends hundreds of feet into the air.
Luthor returns to his villainous ways and starts terrorizing the people of Lexor using a new suit of armor he built for himself. Soon thereafter Superman comes looking for Luthor. He arrives on Lexor ready for a fight. Lexor's sun is red, which should negate all of Superman's powers, but he has used some super sunscreen which negates the effects of the red sun to some degree.
Luthor comes out swinging, wearing his power suit, ready to fight. He seems to have the upper hand but when one of his blasts bounces off of Superman and hits the Neutrarod it causes a chain reaction which causes Lexor to blow up. Ardora, little Lex, and all the other inhabitants of Lexor are killed. The only ones to survive are Superman and Luthor. The chapter ends with Luthor tearfully pledging to get his revenge on Superman.
In many ways this feels more like a Lex Luthor story than it does a Superman story. I don't understand why Luthor turned on the people who showed him love and accepted him as one of their own. That part didn't make sense to me. Aside from that moment it was easy to accept him as the hero of this story and see Superman as the villain.
This is part 1 of 3. The story continues in Superman 385 and concludes in Superman 386. There is another story in this issue which introduces the new Brainiac, or new look for Brainiac. Similarly it is part 1 of a 3 part story. The next two installments are in the next couple issues of Action Comics. I talked about that story on DTC15 and DTC17.
GCD: https://www.comics.org/issue/37454/
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