In issue #10 of GRAYSON, Lex Luthor made an appearance and turned the book on its head. However, this appearance is a lot more important than many people realize. Sure, this history between Luthor and Grayson is pretty recent, going back to 2013 in the DC event "Forever Evil," but it's a bit overlooked.
Forever Evil
While Dick Grayson is currently traversing the world as an agent of Spyral, he wouldn't be where if it weren't for Lex Luthor and the Crime Syndicate. Before said events in Forever Evil, Dick Grayson wasn't a super-spy. He was Nightwing, the one-time Robin for Batman, who went on his own to fight crime, where he has a successful run as a vigilante, all on his own.
All of that changed when he was captured by Superwoman, a member of the Crime Syndicate, who traveled to the main DC Universe and tried to take over the world. After being captured, Nightwing was unmasked and shown to the world that he was actually Dick Grayson, but that wasn't the only plan they had for him.
Aside from revealing his identity, the Crime Syndicate was gathering other villains from the DCU to work with them and tear the heroes down, bit by bit. Unmasking Nightwing was just a small part of their larger plan to keep the heroes on their toes.
The Death of Dick Grayson
They placed an unmasked Nightwing in "The Murder Machine." While it's one of the most ridiculously named items in all of comics, the plan was to murder Grayson. However, bad guys plans rarely play out the way the villains expect them to.
Lex Luthor had been actually working with the heroes, believe it or not, and when he and his group found Grayson, he smothered him, for the greater good. Lex Luthor killed Dick Grayson.
This led to Lex getting quite the beat-down from Batman, as one would expect. Luckily, Lex's plan wasn't finished just yet. His plan wasn't to kill Dick Grayson, but to make "The Murder Machine" think Grayson is dead and smothering Grayson made his heart stop.
Lex quickly brought a bloodied, beaten, and tortured Dick Grayson back to life. It was all part of his plan because apparently, Lex is two steps ahead of everyone else.
Anyway, the heroes saved the day and evil was vanquished. However, Nightwing can't exist anymore since the world knows that Nightwing is Dick Grayson, so Grayson kept up the "I'm dead" ruse and became a secret agent. That brings up to GRAYSON #10.
The Return of Lex Luthor
Even though Lex Luthor was on the cover of this month's issue of GRAYSON, seeing him inside the issue was still quite the shock. Many fans has the same expression Grayson had on his face in the panel below.
So Grayson was supposed to be meeting a contact, but it turns out that contact was the man who technically killed him. Through a conversation between the two characters, Grayson realizes that Luthor has a step up from him. Spyral's hypnos technology doesn't work on Luthor because it's Lexcorp property.
Controlling Spyral
That's not all Luthor has over Grayson...
Luthor has made a few modifications to the technology as well, ones that let him control the user, putting Grayson in an incredibly odd spot. The man who once killed him (and brought him back to life) now has the ability to control his actions.
Are we seeing the Lex Luthor of old return or is this just a Lex Luthor who wants to be one step ahead of everyone else, while also learning to be a hero? "Hero" may be a bit of a stretch, since Lex did try to kill Dick later in the issue.
Regardless, it's extremely important to the GRAYSON series and changes a lot of the dynamic of the book. At any point in time, Lex has the ability to control Grayson, like a puppet. We'll have to keep reading to find out where this book will go and what Luthor's continue involvement in it will be. What did you think of the issue?