"Is it all over?"
By the time Deathstroke and the others arrived at the Fortress of Doom, Luthor had already seen the outcome. After all, when the Mercenary and Batwoman appeared together, it meant there was no one left for them to deal with.
The bald man sounded a little wistful as he said it. Darkseid had been hairless too, and with him gone, there was one fewer powerful bald man in the universe. How lonely.
But Luthor knew this outcome had been inevitable. Darkseid was not like him.
First of all, he was not human. More importantly, he lacked the necessary connections and relationships. Death was unavoidable.
When Luthor had launched the Year of the Villain, he had actually left himself room to turn back. He had never killed any members of the Justice League, nor had he shown any intention of destroying or ending Earth. At the end of the day, he had merely been exploring another path for humanity.
So after failing, he apologized and yielded. Deathstroke had no intention of killing him, Superman spoke up for him, and that was that.
It sounded rather childish, but the Justice League was made up of people. Its principles favored rule by people rather than rule of law. Besides, the law would have been useless anyway. He had left behind no incriminating evidence, and he was absurdly rich.
Using all that, he had successfully gotten himself out of trouble. Not only had he cleared his name on the spot, he had even wormed his way into the Justice League as an unofficial member.
Of course, there was another factor: he did not possess anything that Deathstroke would kill to obtain. Deathstroke valued his mind and scientific expertise more.
Perhaps that was the key to surviving.
But the Dark Tyrant