While many grew up hearing Michael Rosenbaum as the voice of The Flash on Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, the actor is arguably more well known on the DC block for his run as Lex Luthor on Smallville. Among his costars on the WB-turned-CW series was John Glover, who played Lex’s father, Lionel Luthor, whose parenting skills left much to be desired. In real life though, Rosenbaum and Glover are on great terms with one another, as evidenced by the former leaving the latter a sweet birthday message, which in turn prompted Glover to share the birthday love with a fellow DC legend.
Let’s start off with the first message, with Rosenbaum taking to Twitter to wish Glover a happy 79th birthday by using a still of their two Smallville characters together. Take a look!
happy birthday to the worst fake dad a guy can have. but a terrific dad in real life. love you johnny. @RealJohnGlover pic.twitter.com/fHywZzRUaOAugust 7, 2023
Ironically, Lex and Lionel Luthor’s respective narrative arcs unfolded oppositely of one another, with Lex starting out as Clark’s best friend and Lionel initially serving as the show’s main antagonist by trying to uncover Clark’s secrets. As Smallville got deeper into its run, those positions changed, with Lex embracing his destiny of becoming Clark’s arch-nemesis and Lionel becoming one of Clark’s allies. While Lionel was killed off at the end of Season 7 and Lex seemingly met the same fate that season too, both Rosenbaum and Glover returned for Smallville’s 10th and final season, with Lex being revealed to still being barely alive, and Glover instead playing a Lionel from another universe. At least we can take comfort knowing Rosenbaum and Glover’s relationship is a lot less complicated compared to this father/son duo.
Of course, anyone familiar with John Glover’s body of work knows that Smallville is far from his only DC Comics media-related credit, and I’m not just talking about his appearance in Shazam! a few years back. Prior to Smallville’s airing, along with being seen as Dr. Jason Woodrue in Batman & Robin, he also voiced Edward Nygma, a.k.a. The Riddler, in three episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, followed by an episode each of Superman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures. As it turns out, Paul Dini, one of Batman: The Animated Serie’ co-creators, shares the same birthday as Glover, so the actor shared his own social media most to commemorate the writer turning 66.
We share a birthday and @Paul_Dini wrote several of my riddler episodes. 🎂🎂🎂 https://t.co/KrkILQfaKUAugust 7, 2023
That’s a lot of DC love to throw around, though I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that all three of these men also have various Marvel credits on their resume. Dini worked on animated shows like Ultimate Spider-Man and Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H., Glover guest-starred in an episode of Agent Carter, and Rosenbaum played Martinex in the latter two Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Still, as far as Glover and Rosenbaum are concerned, Smallville remains one of their most popular projects more than two decades later, and if you’d like to revisit their versions of Lex and Lionel Luthor, the show can be streamed with a Hulu subscription.
For those of you with your eyes to the future, you look through our guides of upcoming DC movies and upcoming DC TV shows, and we’ll let you know if either Michael Rosenbaum or John Glover end up being recruited for any of these projects. For a wider look at the small screen side of things this year, our 2023 TV schedule is available for perusal.