The arrival of Lex Luthor II brought welcome relief to the city of Metropolis. The young heir pledged to devote the entire resources of Lexcorp to rebuilding the city his father had called home. Thanks to his actions, jobs were restored and the city slowly began to climb out of depression. Even Superman found himself grateful for Lex's assistance in dealing with the return of Brainiac.

But there were some ways in which Lex the Second was very much like Lex the First. One was his "eye for the ladies," as Lois put it. Another was his desire--known privately only by a few--to do whatever he could to upstage Superman.

Lex found the perfect way to achieve that end when Supergirl returned to Earth (after helping to defeat Brainiac). Her landing had left her disoriented, and Lex took advantage of this to make her fall in love with him and become his personal body guard.

There was, as it turns out, a perfectly reasonable explanation for why Lex II took after his father: they were the same person!

The original Lex, upon learning that his cancer was fatal, devised a way to cheat death. Working with a team of geneticists, he built a clone of himself, staged the accident with the Lexwing, had his brain surgically transplanted into the clone body, and made a miraculous debut as his own son!

The deception could have lasted forever, had Lois Lane not gotten involved. She was investigating the disappearance and subsequent death of a Lexcorp employee, one of Lex's personal trainers. Her investigation led her to uncover the truth of Lex's cloning, as well as evidence that implicated Lex in the murder of his trainer. But before Lois could break the story, Lex used his considerable resources and influence in an attempt to destroy her.

Lex hacked into her computer and changed the story, making it seem that Lois was making wild and unsubstantiated claims like "Lex Luthor, Alien Love Child". He had her arrested for drunk driving and destroyed her finances. Lois' life was in a shambles.

Lex hardly had time for victory, however. His cloned body was dying, wasting away. Lex tried everything he could to find a way to save his new body. He even recreated his previous attempt to clone Superman, resulting in another imperfect duplicate Bizarro. When none of these strategies worked, Lex made a deal with the DNAliens, the Cadmus clones which had been living underground in Metropolis. Lex armed the DNAliens and set them against Cadmus, igniting a battle which would lead to the destruction of Metropolis itself!

While the DNAliens waged war against the Cadmus soldiers, Lex, his body deteriorating rapidly, tried to flee the city. Superman caught up with him and confronted him over his role in the destruction happening in Metropolis. It was during this confrontation that Luthor's doctor, Sydney Happersen, activated Luthor's "fail-safes."

After the Cyborg and Mongul destroyed Coast City, Luthor developed a series of protocols designed to activate should Metropolis suffer a similar fate. The first of these "fail-safes" was a number of sonic torpedoes designed to create as much property damage as possible. The second was a series of tripod war machines which would employ a "scorched earth" policy. The third was an hallucinogenic gas which would be deployed throughout the city. Each of these systems was designed to punish or destroy whatever force had wipded out the city, and was only intended to be used in the event of Metropolis's complete destruction.

Unfortunately, Happersen's actions endangered the population of the city. Although Superman, Supergirl, and Superboy were able to stop most of the sonic torpedoes, a few slipped through. The tripods and gas likewise created havoc within the city.

By this time, Luthor's body was almost completely dead. His mind was still active, but it was trapped. Fortunately for him, Cadmus scientists had managed at the last moment to develop an antidote to the sickness which was killing the clones of Metropolis. Against his better judgement, Superman delivered a sample of the antidote to the doctors taking care of Luthor. Before the doctors could begin the treatment, however, representatives of Lexcorp arrived to remove their CEO's body to the Lexcorp medical facilities. There was an enormous uproar at this from the public, who naturally blamed Luthor for all the troubles the city of Metropolis had undergone; but Luthor's legal teams were unsympathetic. The CEO's body was brought to a secret lab, where test after test and treatment after treatment failed to produce any measurable improvement...until, one day, Luthor appeared, miraculously hale and hearty.