WATCH: Michael Rosenbaum and Tom Welling ‘working on’ bringing us a Smallville animated show

May 1st, 2021 by Marc Comments

Long, long before The CW kicked off the Arrowverse, there was Smallville.

Starting off as the chronicles of Clark Kent (Tom Welling) growing up in the town of Smallville with a young Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) as his best friend.

The series, while an unusual take on the mythology, Smallville was a massive hit and is still a big hit with fans rediscovering it for the first time. The 2001 series ran for ten years and explored so much of the Superman and DC mythology with Doomsday, the Justice League and so much more getting their own slant in the show.

Read our retro review of Smallville here.

In fact, the series had something of a concluding in last year’s Crisis on Infinite Earths even on The CW:

However, while this ending was well received because it was great to see Clark and Lois (Erica Durance) from Smallville back, many fans felt that because it still didn’t give us the Superman we never got to see as Smallville famously ended without seeing Welling put on the red and blue (here).

And then, to see Welling return and to find out that he gave up his Super powers once he had kids… well, understandably, this didn’t sit well with man fans who counted this as their Superman.

And yes, we know there was a comic book series that saw this Superman get his full power and even introduced heroes like Batman (here), but we still always felt that the series deserved more. I mean, the lore is all there and the fandom is still around and wanting it back.

On a related note, Youtuber Comicstorian has made a five-hour-long video of the entire Smallville comic series which you can watch here:

Now, however, there may some hope.

A couple of years back (here), we heard that a Smallville animated series was something the cast was interested in, with Rosenbaum saying at the time: “I said to Al [Gough, one of Smallville’s creators] we should do an animated Smallville. That would be huge! I mean, Smallville: The Animated Series, with all the real voices? And I wouldn’t have to shave my head! We’ve got to do that. Can you imagine us on mics doing the same dialogue?”

But now, answering questions on social media, Rosenbaum has revealed that he and Welling have had the idea of an animated series and that they are trying to make it happen.

Now, clearly this is not in any way a confirmation that this may happen, but it seems to be that with Smallville still being a fan-favorite then The CW has an opportunity to make something very cool for the fans, after all, Smallville originally aired on The WB which more or less is what The CW came from plus, we know that The CW have already released animated entries in The Arrowverse on CW Seed, including Deathstroke, Vixen and Freedom Fighters: The Ray, so this is certainly not out of the question…

As for the fact that Crisis on Infinite Earths wrapped up the Smallville story? Well, there’s over ten years of stories in there with Welling as the Man of Steel or they could just ignore it – multiverses, baby.

What say you all? Would you watch all the returning cast (well, except Alison Mack – Google it, if you want) in a Smallville animated series set during the Superman years? Let me know your thoughts, folks…

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….