Lex Luthor's doctors could not understand how Lex had managed to make such a full and complete recovery, virtually overnight. (What they did not know, of course, was that Luthor had struck a deal with the demon Neron, who had given Luthor a new body in exchange for--yep, you guessed it--his soul.) But there was no doubt about it--Lex Luthor was back.

Not that the public knew, of course. There was still the pesky matter of a large number of criminal charges pending against Luthor, who prudently decided to keep his "recovery" a secret, at least until those could be dealt with. In the meantime, of course, he could devote himself almost completely to his old hobby of trying to destroy Superman, if only from a distance. Luthor arranged several attacks on the Man of Steel, watching each one from the security and relative seclusion of his yacht.

Luthor also took action to regain control of his company. Following his near death and criminal charges, the Lexcorp Board of Directors voted to remove him as CEO, and appointed a mysterious Italian woman, the Contessa Erica del Portenza, to the post. The Contessa ran things differently than Luthor had, but for most of the company's employees this was a good thing. Luthor tracked the Contessa's actions within his company with great interest, before revealing himself to her in Monte Carlo. Lex began courting the Contessa, making her fall in love with him and positioning her to become his next wife, all the while slowly and surreptitiously wresting control of Lexcorp away from her. Eventually, the two were married in a quiet ceremony aboard Luthor's private yacht.

Now that he had virtual control over his company again, Luthor was ready to make his public debut. But there were still those pesky criminal charges against him to be dealt with. Fortunately, cosmic fate handed him an opportunity to not only deal with those, but to make as heroic a debut as his nemesis, Superman, had.

When an energy being known as the Sun Eater threatned Earth's sun, leeching its energy and cloaking the world in perpetual darkness and cold, Luthor reappeared. In a press conference, he blamed the destruction of Metropolis on an evil clone, and swore he would put the considerable resources of Lexcorp to bear finding a solution to the current crisis. Working closely with representatives of the Legion of Super Heroes (stranded in time, a thousand years away from their home in the 30th century), Lex tried to find a way to destroy the Sun Eater. Although the final solution came from another quarter, the people of Metropolis were sufficiently pleased with Luthor's attempts to help.

There was, however, the little matter of the destruction of Metropolis to be dealt with. Still playing his role of model citizen, Luthor turned himself in and went to trial. Things were not looking good for Luthor during much of the trial--Sun Eater or no, it was widely accepted that Luthor's technology had led to the destruction of Metropolis. However, Luthor was able to provide a unique but convincing defense: a renegade clone. It had been this Luthor clone, and not Lex Luthor, that had been responsible for the destruction of the city. The defense was regarded with some skepticism, until Luthor, in a surprise move worthy of Perry Mason or Ben Matlock, produced the clone for the court and all the world to see.

Needless to say, Luthor was acquited of all charges. But there was one other plus to the trial, from Luthor's perspective: the kryptonite ring.

A major piece of evidence in the trial, the kryptonite ring which Luthor had created from Metallo's original kryptonite heart had been in the Batman's custody. Superman had been ordered to retrieve the ring for use in Luthor's defense. When Luthor returned the ring after the trial, however, he gave Superman a fake, keeping the original ring for himself.

With the trial over and the kryptonite ring back in his posession, Luthor was free to concentrate on recreating his empire, and building it into a suitable gift for his heir. For Luthor had become a father when his wife, the Contessa Erica del Portenza, gave birth to a baby girl named Lena. Luthor was a devoted father, making sure to spend as much time with his baby as possible, and promising her that the city of Metropolis--and one day, even the world--would be hers.

In order to make good on his promise, Luthor had to eliminate all the competition, not the least of which was the Man of Steel. But Luthor also had to deal with the resurgence of Intergang, whose criminal activities Luthor had no problem with so long as he was controlling them.

Luthor also had Mayor Frank Berkowitz to deal with. Berkowitz had cracked down on the gang activity in Metropolis, which Luthor took as an insult since he had been in control of that activity. Luthor had Berkowitz assassinated, and kept his successor under a very tight leash.

After his daughter's birth, Luthor had his wife hidden away in a secret laboratory in Lexcorp and put in a medically induced coma from which his instructions were she should never awaken. However, she did manage to regain consciousness and escaped Luthor's lab, going into hiding herself. The Contessa conspired with geneticisist and all-around mad scientist Dabney Donovan to create a new Bizarro that broke into Lexcorp and kidnapped Lena. Superman tracked Bizarro to the new Hypersector development of Metropolis and managed to rescue Lena. Luthor was begrudgingly grateful to the Man of Steel for rescuing his heir.

When Franklin Stern, publisher of the Daily Planet, was forced to sell the newspaper due to low sales, Lex Luthor bought the great metropolitan daily. Within a matter of days, he fired the etire staff and closed the newspaper down. Luthor then offered jobs at his own news agency, LexCom, to Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, and a few other ex- Daily Planet staffers--although Clark Kent was not one of them.

After several months of runing LexComm, Luthor decided to sell the Daily Planet back to Perry White--for exactly one dollar! Everyone was mystified as to why Luthor did this, and nobody believed him when he said it had been done for "old time's sake."

The truth was that Luthor had made this deal--and made it possibe for Clark Kent, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, and all the rest to go back to their old jobs-- for a far more sinister reason. He made a special arrangement with Lois Lane, telling her that she would, at his request and at any time, kill a story of his choosing. And, she could not tell anyone else--even her husband--of the deal. It would be some time before the ramifications of that deal would come to haunt her...