20 DCEU villains ranked by sort of scary to absolutely sinister

9. Lex Luthor

Even though plenty of people had issues with not just Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, but also  Lex Luthor himself, you have to admit that the character was actually quite well written. Ultimately, whether you love him or hate him in this movie, this version of Luthor feels like he was fleshed out and developed.

All it takes is looking at how easy it seemed to be for Lex Luthor to have Batman going up against Superman to know that this is the kind of manipulative villain we want to see more of. With just a few well-placed words, he was able to make two of DC’s greatest heroes enemies. And that is the kind of feat that one would think was hard to do.

What pulls this villain’s story all together is his motivations, as they actually seem rather reasonable based on his own perceptions. That is not to say that his motives are just, but rather they make sense for the character. Everything he does is literally for himself, and that means that even when his ideas make sense, they mostly just work for him and his best interests.

In many ways, Lex Luthor is a turning point for villains of the DCEU. He is a well-conceived bad guy, with a history that makes sense. The biggest downside to the character (and why he is not ranked higher) is the fact that he simply wasn’t the villain at the heart of the story. Instead, the movie split the story too much to give any one bad guy enough attention to truly shine. If he had been in the spotlight more, perhaps he could have landed higher on the list.