Dr. Lawrence Garner is a villain appearing in three episodes of the television series Smallville. He was portrayed by Martin Cummins.
Dr. Garner is the founder and head of the Summerholt Neurological Institute, a Metropolis-based research facility specializing in neurology. When Ryan James, a young boy with telepathic abilities, began experiencing headaches and nosebleeds, Garner offered to help him. He took Ryan and kept him prisoner at Summerholt, where he experimented on the boy.
In "Ryan," Dr. Garner has Ryan tell him what image he's looking at and even presses him on despite Ryan clearly suffering a headache. When Ryan tricks him into leaving the room, Garner tracks Ryan to a room where Ryan manages to call his friend Clark Kent and beg for his help. Clark, with the help of his friend Chloe Sullivan, traces the phone call to Summerholt.
When his parents are unable to get in contact with the facility, Clark heads to Summerholt himself and demands to see Ryan. When Garner denies that Ryan is at the facility, Clark finds evidence proving otherwise and frees Ryan, taking him to the Luthor Mansion. When he returns home, Clark finds Garner waiting for him with the authorities and a warrant to search the Kent Farm, and Garner gives him until the next morning to bring Ryan to him.
Garner arrives at the Kent Farm the next day, hoping to take Ryan back, only to be barred by Clark and his father Jonathan Kent. Lex Luthor arrives with a court order granting the Kents temporary custody of Ryan, forcing an angered Garner to leave the farm.
In the Season 3 episode "Delete," Garner is confronted by Lex, who asks him to help him recover his missing memories.
In "Memoria," Lex has been meeting with Garner, who has been subjecting Lex to an experimental memory treatment involving lowering a patient into a kryptonite-based solution. Lionel Luthor later gets Garner to stop Lex's treatments in exchange for exposing Clark to the same procedure as part of his efforts to discover Clark's secret. When the procedure goes awry due to Clark's vulnerability to kryptonite, Garner is caught in the resulting explosion and left in a coma.