Season 8 Of Smallville

Lex went missing after the collapse of the Fortress of Solitude and was not found. He was presumed dead. Lex knew that in case he didn't return from the Arctic, he had to pick someone to run LuthorCorp; he appointed Tess Mercer as his potential successor. Tess Mercer and Clark Kent both stated that they believed that Lex is still alive. When the Crystal of Knowledge was stolen by an unknown criminal, one of Tess's assistant believed that Lex was responsible, yet Tess thought it was someone else toying with her.

Oliver thought he had found Lex after tracking many emails that were sent to Tess Mercer. He went to Cuba, thinking he had located Lex in an empty warehouse but instead found Lana Lang who was also looking for Lex. Lana told him that massive amounts of LuthorCorp technology was there just two hours before, hinting that Lex was there, but she herself was unsure if he was alive. Lex was later seen viewing the wedding video of Chloe and Jimmy's wedding involving the massacre.

Lana later revealed to Tess that Lex had in fact implanted cameras behind both of her eyes when he rescued her from an accident a couple of years previous and was using her as his eyes and ears until she used a device to block the transmissions. Tess also revealed that he was relying on Project Prometheus to survive after the collapse of the Fortress.

Lex killed all of his previous staff and employed new ones apart from Regan Matthews who still closely worked with Lex. After Lana stole Project Prometheus from him, he sent Regan to locate it and return the research back to him so that he could control the project but Regan was killed by Tess.

Still using view screens and cameras, Lex relied on life support through tubes and breathing machines. His face was partially scarred. He wore a meteor rock ring with an L insignia. He used Winslow Schott to assist him in his revenge against Tess Mercer and Oliver Queen. Watching a view screen connected from Schott’s puppet eye, he monitored Schott's setup of a meteor-rock bomb on the roof of the Daily Planet. Knowing Lana had stolen his Prometheus suit, he set Clark and Lana up so that she would have to absorb the meteor rock to diffuse the bomb, and as a result, never be able to go near Clark again. Chloe Sullivan gave Clark a tracker to locate him and Clark traced him to a truck where he went to confront him. However, the truck blew up before he was able to approach. It was later revealed that Oliver put a toy bomb of Schott's in the truck to blow it up and seemingly kill him. Clark later visted the charred truck and scattered what he believed were the remains of his former friend.