Lex Luthor, Superman's arch enemy, is among the "Forbes Fictional Fifteen" right up there with Santa Claus, Richie Rich, Jed Clampett, Laura Croft, Bruce Wayne and others, all of whom, can thank real estate for a chunk of their wealth.
Luthor, however, stands out from the philanthropic throng of filthy rich characters because he often uses returns from his real estate investments, not for charity, but to go after Superman and anyone else who attempts to thwart his goal of world domination.
The Superman saga is a perennial battle of good vs. evil, but it also contains a subplot that pits Main Street-upbringing against life on the other side of the tracks.
"Superman Returns", the latest film version of the story, advances that theme with global proportions.
We all know the real estate story of Superman and his mild-mannered, nice kid-to-newsman Clark Kent, alter ego. It began with a brief interplanetary flight as a homeless orphan infant aboard a prefab spaceship for one. His first experience with real estate on Earth was the down-home variety found at the bucolic Smallville, KS, farmhouse where he grew up the adopted son of farmers Jonathan and Martha Kent. Later, he enjoyed a second home getaway and rural seclusion at the drafty Fortress of Solitude. He's had only a passing interest in commercial real estate -- leaping tall buildings in a single bound, and all that. As an adult, when he's not fighting crime, he apparently lives in the newsroom at the Daily Planet.
Comic book, television (live action and animated) and movie accounts that trace the Luthor family's real estate tree, frequently rewrite and cloud Lex Luthor's biography, but it's clear that he has experienced both the best and the worst worlds of real estate.
And as studies have shown -- you often are where you live.
Lex Luthor's real estate story begins in the 1940s with his father, Lionel, who grew up dirt-poor in a dangerous Metropolis ghetto called Suicide Slum. Apparently residents were dying to get out.
The elder, perhaps even more ruthless Luthor, raised start-up capital for his first venture, Luthor Industries, from an insurance fire he commissioned a friend to start. Pop Luthor knew his parents lived in the tenement building, but with all the different story versions, it's not always clear if he actually intended to murder his parents, who succumbed in the fire.
The insurance money was parlayed, ironically, into a fertilizer manufacturing plant near Smallville. Lionel used fertilizer company profits to grow his business by buying up competitors and by diversifying into startups that created zoning nightmares -- Kryptonite-based ag-research, super-blood bio tech R&D, bionic zombie manufacturing and more conventional real estate ventures.
Realty ventures included buying land from struggling Kansas farmers, evicting them and developing the land, some of it into upscale housing communities including Pleasant Meadows and De Lex Estates.
Renamed LuthorCorp in the 1970s, the company went public and moved to Metropolis where it engaged in several residential and commercial real estate projects including Edge Cliff Condos in his old Suicidal Slums neighborhood, a Luthor Dome sports arena, the Metropolis Alexandria Hotel and LuthorCorp Plaza at City Center.
Donald Trump from hell, Luthor parlayed his business returns into a host of acquisitions worldwide -- pharmaceuticals, hydroponics, airlines, oil, professional football, more fertilizer and more real estate.
By the time son Alexander Luthor is born, the patriarch is one of the five richest men in the world. Hence the Forbes nod.
For a variety of reasons -- bad parenting, bringing too much work home, general villainy -- the two had a strained and at times estranged relationship. By the time young Lex Luthor reached his 21st birthday, his father, looking to get the rebellious kid out of his hair, sent his offspring to the Smallville area. Lex Luthor was assigned to take the reins of the company's worst performing fertilizer plant and if the son could turn the dung thing around, a corporate vice presidency awaited him back in Metropolis.
The son sees his father's gamble and raises him his stake in the conglomerate, eventually managing to wrest control of the company and all its wealth from his father. Renaming it LexCorp, the prodigal son escalates the long running family feud and at one point becoming nation's 43rd president only to be impeached with the help of good guy billionaire, Bruce Wayne better known as Batman.
That brings us to "Superman Returns" where, once again, the real-estate-as-super-weapon theme also reappears.
This time Luthor finds Superman's crystallized second home, burgles Kryptonian continent rendering technology and sets out to use it to literally corner the world real estate market, especially beach front property.
A smarter super bad guy would have simply sipped cocktails in his penthouse and waited for greenhouse gases to do his dirty work.
