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Why we never got to see Tom Welling as Superman in Crisis on Infinite Earths

March 30th, 2020 by Marc Comments

You may all recall just at the end of 2019 – remember 2019 and how much we didn’t appreciate how great it was? – The CW brought us the biggest TV event of all time in the form of the Crisis on Infinity Earths event.

The series attempted (and succeeded to varying results) to stitch together the DC universe from all the old TV shows, cartoons and right up to the most recent movies.

It was a big project and one of the returning characters we were most excited for was Tom Welling… Smallville’s Clark Kent himself.

Now, fans of Smallville will recall that after all the seasons it ended with Clark almost revealing himself as Superman, It certainly divided audiences:

So, when we heard Welling was returning for the crossover event we hoped that maybe, just maybe, we’d see him put on the full cape and red and blue.

But, alas, when he appeared in the series he simply frustrated Jon Cryer’s Lex Luthor by revealing that he was no longer Superman and had retired to spend his life with Lois and their children.

It was fitting. And a little disappointing.

But now executive producer Marc Guggenheim has revealed that the whole thing and how it played out was a nod to the original Superman II.

“We discussed a nod to, believe it or not, Superman II,” Guggenheim says.

“It wasn’t relevant to the story that we were telling in terms of getting into the specifics of it, and there are certain things that I believe are best left for the fans to discuss and debate.”

“I don’t believe in giving the fans the entire picture all the time,” he added.

“But the idea that Clark would give up his powers in order to have this kind of life, that really resonated with all of us, and I think it really resonated with Tom [Welling]. It just makes sense.”

“It was one of the reasons why it was so important for us to show you those Daily Planet articles that Lois wrote. We very much wanted to tell the audience that the promise of Smallville was, ‘He’s going to become Superman.’ We wanted to make it very clear that that did happen, that he did become Superman, that he did have all these adventures, but they are left to your imagination.”

It’s long been a hope for fans of Smallville to see Welling put the suit on – although you may or may not know there was a comic series that continued after Smallville ended and even had a Batman cameo – and many were disappointed to never see it happen for real.

But, honestly, there’s something cathartic on knowing that in some corner of the DC universe Clark and Lois had the adventures, beat the aliens, monsters and threats and settled down to have a farm and a family.

Don’t you think?

Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….