system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[DC] Lex Luthor has used various forms of control against Superman, including straight-up mind control. Why doesn't he use Superman more tactically and less like a blunt object?

It seems that every time Luthor has Superman under control — either through coercion ("obey me or Metropolis dies") or through mind control (spores, magic, etc) — he only seems to use Superman as a means of force. And in pretty much every case, Superman's allies are able to break that control one way or another, and Lex loses.

Now, I have nothing against Lex using Superman that way but it seems to me that Lex is missing out on a golden opportunity. Rather than sending Superman out into the world (where his allies will notice his subversion and work to save him), why doesn't Lex pump him for information? Literally sit him down in a chair and ask him some questions:

* Do you have an Earthly, human identity, and if so, who are you?
* What are the real names of every other hero, and where are their bases of operation?
* What are the known weaknesses of all the other heroes?

Etc, etc, etc. Then, once Lex has gotten every bit of information he can from Superman, he hands Superman a lead-lined inertron box with an inertron chain attached to it. He tells Superman to put the chain around his neck, fly out to the event horizon of a black hole, then cross the horizon and open the box. He does as he's told, the box opens exposing the kryptonite inside (which is now chained to him), and Superman falls into the black hole.

Lex wins. He defeats Superman through intellectual means (thus showing Superman who is the real super man) and he (Lex) effectively now runs the whole planet via the information he got from Superman.

My IQ is dwarfed by Lex's, so what am I missing from this scenario?
gpt
As to those questions, Lex doesn't ask them out of a combination of his sheet unmitigated ego and simple pragmatism.

>Do you have an Earthly, human identity, and if so, who are you?

Lex dogmatically believes he doesn't, to the point that when someone  wrote a computer algorithm that proved Clark Kent was Superman, he had them fired. His ego doesn't allow for the possibility because if he was Superman he'd never lower himself to be anything less.

>What are the real names of every other hero, and where are their bases of operation?

What would be the point of that? Lex doesn't particularly care about them.

>What are the known weaknesses of all the other heroes?

These tend not to be secret.

Anyway simply disposing of him wouldn't be a sufficient monument to said ego. Either killing him personally or being able to wield him as a blunt instrument is a more fitting victory to Lex's way of thinking.