A/N: An alternate look from the first movie at Lex Luthor and his attempt to eliminate Superman.

Do Your Own Research

"It really makes things difficult" Lex Luthor fumed as he read the newspaper article for the third time "when aliens use an entirely different name for their planet than we do. If they would just adopt our nomenclature you wouldn't have to be a genius to figure it out. Fortunately it doesn't affect me." In his lair hundreds of feet below street level, very little affected Lex unless he allowed it.

"It doesn't affect me either" Otis Graves boasted. As the right-hand man of the self-proclaimed evil genius, his specialty was being the one to do the grunt work. It also required that he enthusiastically endorse any idea or plan that his boss presented, even if he didn't understand it.

"I don't think a beheading would affect your mental prowess" Lex retorted, knowing that Otis would never get the insult.

"What's our name for the planet?" Eve Teschmacher asked as she looked up from her own research material. As assistant, secretary, treasurer and female flunky she had brains to match her good looks. Lex considered her on the same intelligence level as most people, which was to say vastly inferior to himself.

"Just some letters and numbers thrown together, it certainly doesn't roll off the tongue. But something tells me that the clue to this Superman's weakness is in this newspaper" he said, shaking the copy of the Daily Planet for emphasis. The lead article was an in-depth interview of the superhero by Lois Lane.

"Ooo Ooo, let me find it!" Otis pleaded. "I haven't read the comics section yet, maybe it's there."

Lex stared at Otis. The man couldn't possibly be that stupid. But as his henchman stood by and almost drooled in anticipation, Lex reconsidered and decided he could very well be. But maybe a diversion would keep the man out of the hair he happened to be wearing at the moment and give him time to actually think without distraction. "Otis, I think maybe I will let you take a crack at it. Here" he said as he separated the front section before handing the rest of the newspaper over. "Surprise me."

...

That had to be it, Lex thought later to himself. If this Kryton planet blew up, some of it came to Earth. That had to be the key to Superman's vulnerability. His thoughts were interrupted with Otis stumbling in, knocking over a statue in the process as he hurried to talk to his boss.

"Mr. Luthor, Mr. Luthor...I found it!" he said breathlessly as he approached. His breathlessness might be from his excitement, but more likely from the physical exertion trying to run from where he had been when whatever analogy of an epiphany popped into his head. Lex let the idea pass as useless trivia. "Just like you said, the answer was in the newspaper alright!" Otis continued.

Eve looked up and winced. It wasn't that she didn't have any confidence in Otis, it was just what confidence she had was worn down by the many times it had been trampled by actual outcomes. She felt a little sorry for him, but then again she felt sorry for herself even if she didn't tell anyone.

"Otis, this I have to hear" Lex said with more than a little skepticism. "Please, tell me what you found. Miss Teschmacher, pay attention; this may be historic. Otis, you have the floor." The man started looking at the tiled floor in confusion. "SPEAK!" Lex commanded, clearing up any uncertainty.

"Well, I took the paper you gave me and went into my room to read it; the light is better in there." In fact the light was the same everywhere, but in his room he wasn't ridiculed for reading out loud to sound out the more difficult words. "I just finished the comics...oh yeah, there was one of those where they show two drawings and you have to find the differences in them. It was a picture of that Samson guy from the Bible chained to some posts. And I thought that Samson was a strong guy, maybe we could cut Superman's hair since he's a strong guy too."

"Fascinating" Lex almost yawned. "I don't know why I bothered to do my own research all this time."

"But I figured the scissors would probably break on his hair. But there was an ad on the bottom of the page for luggage and I got the answer."

"Which was?" Eve tried to follow.

"Don't you see? They call it Samsonite because it's tough enough to hold the strong guy."

"They do? So?" Lex asked.

"So we just get some luggage big enough to hold Superman! Of course they'd probably call it Supermanite or something." He stopped and looked for approval.

"Why Otis, maybe you've got something. And I suppose we could just bait it with cheese or something. Maybe an injured nun. Then when he goes in we snap it shut" Lex played along, letting the sarcasm just bounce right off the man.

"Exactly Mr. Luthor! I knew you'd get it, you're such a smart guy." Otis stuck out his chest in pride; the effect made it look like he was ready to topple over backwards.

Lex started to rub his temple; the game wasn't fun when the other side didn't know it was being ridiculed. "Oh wait, maybe we could just make it out of stuff from his planet. Call it Kryptonite and we could sell it afterwards as the ultimate..." Lex trailed off as a thought suddenly sparked in his head. "Otis...Miss Teschmacher...I have an idea."

The End

A/N: Even a brilliant evil super villain has to have a thought process...