Early Years

Lex attended boarding school from an early age. He also frequently played with the children of his parents' powerful friends, the Teagues, the Queens, and the Swanns.

In 1989, when Lex was nine years old, Lionel took him to Smallville on a business trip at the insistence of his mother. Fatefully, they arrived on the day of the meteor shower. The meteorites seemingly cured Lex's asthma but caused him to go bald, in addition to apparently super-charging his immune system. Lex has not been sick since. Days before his first trip to Smallville he overheard his father conversation with Robert Queen, Edward Teague and Virgil Swann, discussing something called Veritas. Veritas was mentioned again the day he boarded the helicopter to Smallville, two days after the death of the Queens. Alexander as a boy, playing with Jason Teague and Oliver Queen and Patricia Swann.Added by Days after returning from the hospital after the Smallville Meteor Shower, Lex befriended a young dark haired boy who was living in the Luthor Mansion for a short period of time.

Lex's brother Julian was born when Lex was eleven years old (c. 1991). Their mother Lillian suffocated Julian in early infancy during a bout of severe post-partum depression. Lex discovered the murder and took the blame, fearing his father would harm his mother but knowing he would not be harmed, as he was Lionel's only remaining heir. He then repressed the memory and grew up believing that he really had killed his brother. His father resented Lex for years until Lex's memories surfaced during treatment at the Summerholt Institute and he told his father what had really happened.

After the death of his mother in 1993, Lex was raised without real affection, parenting, or love. Instead, Lionel lavished Lex with money and gifts and sent him away to expensive, exclusive boarding schools. Even though his nanny, Pamela Jenkins promised to stay and raise Lex, Lionel forced her to leave. Years later, she returned to see him, seeking his forgiveness before she succumbed to her cancer. Lucas Grabeel as Lex Luthor c. 1996. In 1996, while at Excelsior Academy Preparatory School, he and his friend Duncan Allenmeyer were bullied by Oliver Queen. Lex eventually turned on Duncan to gain Oliver's acceptance and beat him up so brutally, Duncan stumbled into the street and was hit by a car. Lex expressed regret at betraying Duncan but never forgave Oliver for the way he treated them. Lex graduated from Excelsior in 1998.

In 1999, Lex took Amanda Rothman to Club Zero knowing she would see her fiancé Jude Royce flirting with other girls. When Jude attacked Lex, Amanda shot and killed him. Lionel handled the incident in such a way that Lex's name stayed out of the papers.

Like his father, Lex graduated from Princeton with a Bachelor's degree in biochemical engineering in less than four years and was taking a break from graduate studies at Yale in 2001 when he was sent to live in Smallville to manage the Smallville Fertilizer Plant #3.[33]