Lex Luthor's Armor Makes Its Live-Action Debut in 'Supergirl'

01/30/2018 12:15 pm EST

Spoilers ahead for "For Good," tonight's episode of Supergirl.

A major piece of Superman's mythology made its live-action debut on tonight's episode of Supergirl, titled "For Good."

Lex Luthor's iconic green-and-purple exosuit, colloquially dubbed the "Lexosuit" by Winn Schott (Jeremy Jordan), showed up in action tonight, worn into battle by Lex's mother Lillian Luthor (Brenda Strong).

Lillian wore the armor after an assassination attempt she made on Morgan Edge (Adrian Pasdar) failed thanks to the timely intervention of her daughter, Lena (Katie McGrath). Donning the warsuit, Lillian makes herself an even more formidable threat -- but she is ultimately dispatched by Supergirl and Mon-El.

The warsuit first debuted in Action Comics #544 in 1983, but quickly became engrained the minds of a generation of fans who grew up with Super Powers action figures, including one of Lex in the armor.

The suit, created on Lexor (yes, a planet named after him -- it's a long story), only lasted for a couple of years before making its final appearance in the last pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Superman story, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's "For the Man Who Has Everything."

After John Byrne's post-Crisis Superman reimagining The Man of Steel, Luthor the mad scientist who was constantly hands-on trying to kill Superman was replaced by Luthor, the scheming billionaire who mostly sent others to do his dirty work -- and often had them killed afterwards to tie up loose ends.

This version of Luthor was not really suited to wearing an exosuit, but variations on the concept appeared periodically, usually as something worn by LexCorp security. Eventually, Lex would wear one himself briefly following the death of Superman -- but that was when he was suiting up to assist Team Luthor in helping to defend the city in the Man of Steel's absence.

The suit's next true appearance would be when Lex obtained a suit of armor from Apokolips and began using it as part of a scheme to blame Superman for a Kryptonite meteor shower. After using it a few times in various plots, the suit would be shelved, only for a sleeker, darker version to come out during Lex's battle with the Black Ring.

During The New 52 reboot, the armor was reinvented again; this time it was a variation on Kryptonian technology. Lex would use it during the Forever Evil event in his battle against the Crime Syndicate.

Later, a Mother Box-enhanced version would serve as his "Superman costume" when Rebirth began and, attempting to take over for the dead New 52 Superman, Lex tried to appoint himself the hero's successor.

While that version of the armor -- which was blue and featured a Superman sigil on its chest -- was showing up in Action Comics, Lena Luthor took possession of the green model for a while over in Superwoman and used it to, among other things, capture and torture her brother, who had shot her in a previous story.

You can check out a gallery of images featuring the armor on Supergirl in the attached gallery.

Supergirl airs on Monday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.

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