High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Lionel Luthor is a fictional character in the television series Smallville, portrayed continuously by John Glover. Initially a recurring guest in season one, the character became a series regular in season two and continued with that status until he was written out of the show in the seventh season. In Smallville, Lionel Luthor is the father of Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) and founder and CEO of LuthorCorp. Although the character of 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 represents the first time the character has become an intricate part of a Superman adaptation. Series developers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar created the character for Smallville to provide an antithesis to the parenting style of Jonathan Kent and Martha Kent.