Lionel Luthor

Lionel Luthor
Smallville character
First appearance	"Pilot"
Created by	Alfred Gough Miles Millar
Portrayed by	John Glover
Information
Relatives	Lex Luthor, Tess Mercer, Lucas Luthor

Lionel Luthor is a fictional character portrayed by John Glover in the television series Smallville. The character was initially a recurring guest in season one, and became a series regular in season two and continued until being written out of the show in season seven. The character returned to the show in season ten again as a recurring guest role as a parallel universe (Earth-2) version of the character. In Smallville, Lionel Luthor is the father of Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum), and founder and CEO of LuthorCorp. Lex Luthor's father was first introduced in Superman comics by Jerry Siegel in 1961 and has since appeared in other Superman-related media under different names. Smallville is the first appearance in which the character has been an intricate part of a Superman adaptation. Series developers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar created Lionel Luthor for Smallville to provide an antithesis to the parenting style of Jonathan Kent (John Schneider) and Martha Kent (Annette O'Toole).

During the story of Smallville, Lionel evolves from being a nemesis of Clark Kent (Tom Welling) who develops multiple schemes to uncover Clark's secrets, to becoming an ally who eventually dies to protect Clark's secret from his own son. Lionel has a strained relationship with Lex and regularly tries to test him. He attempts to develop a romantic relationship with Martha Kent following the death of Jonathan Kent, helping her advance toward the United States Senate.

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