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'Crisis on Infinite Earths' Part 2: Lex Luthor is more of a deranged lunatic than any version of the character ever

Over the years, we've had many versions of Lex Luthor, both on-screen and in print. In all of those versions, Lex Luthor is ultimately a man who's desperately trying to do what he believes is right. Except for this one.

It's a tale as old as time: boy meets alien, alien saves the world, the boy tries to kill the alien with a wild variety of death traps. For Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer), killing Superman isn't just a hobby, it's a burning passion. 

Over the years, we've had many versions of Lex Luthor, both on-screen and in print. In all of those versions, Lex Luthor is ultimately a man who's desperately trying to do what he believes is right. Except for this one. 

In 'Crisis on Infinite Earths' Part 2, Luthor finally returned from the dead to fulfill some strange new mission for The Monitor / Mar Novu (LaMonica Garrett). Being resurrected by an almighty space god to help save the multiverse? To most people that might sound like a chance at a new beginning, a chance to finally redeem oneself for a lifetime of evil. But not Lex Luthor. 

Luthor's first (and only) instinct is to steal an interdimensional extrapolator and the Book of Destiny so he can go on a mad killing spree across the multiverse. Because even when the existence of everything ever is under threat, all Luthor cares about is killing Superman.

Sure, every version of Lex Luthor wants to kill Superman but none of them have ever been so ridiculously obsessed as to actually risk the multiverse for it. They risk the multiverse for other reasons, of course, but not this one.

In fact, he's so messed up he doesn't even realize that his universe's Clark Kent is Superman, even though the Book of Destiny reveals to him that this is the truth on at least two universes. At this point, we don't know if he's just willfully ignorant or completely crazy.

Of course, we're not exactly complaining. Luthor's crazed murder spree took him to the world of 'Smallville' for an extremely fun interaction with that universe's depowered Superman (Tom Welling). Seeing Luthor's face when he realized his secret weapon (surprise, surprise, it's Kryptonite) was useless against this Man of Steel... that was absolutely priceless and exactly what this megalomaniac deserved.

'Crisis on Infinite Earths' Part 3 will air on The CW on December 10.