Cut Lex Luthor A Check - Television Tropes & Idioms

"Do you remember what the villains from Captain Planet were like, how they'd steal an oil tanker and deliberately run smack into a beach to teach the sea lions a lesson in complacency? Do you remember wondering why they didn't just sell the oil at huge profits and not have to get beaten up by a big blue man in little red pants?"

— Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw

"We evil magicians have to make a living too."

— Professor Hinkle, Frosty the Snowman

A villain who constantly fails at beating the heroes never realizes their intellect and hard work might mean they'd get a lot more done if they did an honest day's work; any attempt at going straight is simply a ruse to lull heroes into a false sense of security. This may be more a factor of maintaining the Status Quo, particularly those with a conceit of realism ), and it's usually mentioned that the Mad Scientist is mad after all. Sometimes glossed over at a villain's death with "If only he'd used his powers for good, instead of for evil." This is a dying trope as comic book characters became more complex (and innate powers became more common than Applied Phlebotinum), but was extremely common for many villains decades ago.

Consider, for a moment, the Trope Namer: Lex Luthor. His earliest incarnations were generally focused on using his mad scientist inventions for the sort of schemes typical in the Golden Age and Silver Age, with the goals of pure monetary gain, "ruling the world" (largely for the aspects of monetary luxury such a position would include), or eliminating Superman as an obstacle to monetary gain... the question is then raised as to why he just doesn't sell his amazing inventions legally.

In the Post Crisis world, however, Luthor was recreated as a Corrupt Corporate Executive (though still retaining a great deal of scientific intelligence), already a multi-billionaire captain of industry before even meeting Supes. Now, having far more cash than a man could ever spend in one lifetime (and certainly a huge chunk of it acquired entirely legally), Luthor's only want is power, and while he certainly has a great deal of it already, he wants more... and Superman, he feels, is standing not only in his way, but in the way of human progress itself (if only because he is one of the few things with more power than Lex).

The current Luthor is a far cry from a purely Mad Scientist (and possibly not even "mad" at all), he thus avoids the trope (though, it is subjective whether such avoidance represents a step forward for the character... to quote Neil Gaiman "It's a pity Lex Luthor has become a multinationalist; I liked him better as a bald scientist. He was in prison, but they couldn't put his mind in prison. Now he's just a skinny Kingpin.")

When this is avoided, the turn to the side of good (or at least, not-actively-evil) is usually planned well in advance. Heroes may even precipitate it by simply asking "And Then What?"

Sometimes this trope is subverted by villains who start out using their talents for legitimate gain, but who end up becoming villains for one reason or another.

Compare Reed Richards Is Useless. See also Science Related Memetic Disorder and Sanity Has Advantages for the possible justifications of this trope.