Superman #224 (2006)

When he was eighteen, Lex and his fellow students from Smallville High were sent to a camping trip in the woods. He made no effort to know his fellow students, much less befriend them, because Lex felt his intelligence terrified them. The only person to reach out to him was Clark. In their final day at the camp, the students were told to climb a hundred-feet cliff as a rite of passage. During the climb, Lex's safety line broke but Lex reached the top, with Clark cheering him along the way and holding his hand. Lex believed that he had only survived that experience thanks to the hatred he felt towards his own parents, a hatred that only healed once he killed them. Lex Luthor has hijacked a Lear Jet and is heading to the Alaskan Tundra to find and kill his enemy, the leader of the Secret Society. Suddenly, the jet is intercepted and taken down by a squadron of O.M.A.C.s and Lex is forced to continue is journey on foot. He falls to an underground cave and stays there for a few minutes, hoping to avoid detection by the O.M.A.C.s and retrieve his Warsuit from the wreckage. An O.M.A.C.s finds him, which forces Lex to shoot an ice wall with a gun he had kept for self-defense. This causes an avalanche that damages the O.M.A.C. and reverts it to its human form, but Lex quickly kills him. As he returns to the jet's wreckage, Lex remembers his experience at Smallville and focuses on his hatred towards Superman, the only thing driving him forward after all these years. He equips his Warsuit, destroys the remaining O.M.A.C.s and with no more obstacles in his way, resumes his dark journey. At the Daily Planet, Lois tells Clark to attempt to convince Perry to give Clark his old job back, but Clark feels that doing so would be unfair to Jimmy, who has developed admirably as a reporter, not to mention that Clark feels that his current position has benefits. Speaking of Jimmy, he has received information from the Alaskan police that a man resembling Lex has hijacked a Lear Jet and killed the pilot. To avoid detection from Lex's surveillance satellites, Superman flies at low altitudes across the Nevada desert but he is soon attacked by Black Rock, who had sensed his energy signature. A battle ensues in the skies of Las Vegas and Superman does his best to keep Lucia focused on him instead of letting her target bystanders, even if that leaves him vulnerable to her attacks. Although he endures terrible pain at Blackrock's hands, Superman refuses to give up and begins to thing on the things he cares about, like Lois, Jimmy, and his home. Those are the things that push him forward and give him the strength he needs to win. He grabs Blackrock and traps her in a room built with material that block all kinds of radiation, including the energy Blackrock needs to sustain herself. The stone loses its power and Lucia is defeated. Once Lucia is delivered to the police, Superman returns home.