Smallville Star Explains Why He Did Not Reprise His Clark Kent More Often in Arrowverse

Superman didn’t need to be psychic to know something was off. Yes, Tom Welling was again and again asked to reprise his role of Clark Kent from the immensely popular television series Smallville in the Arrowverse after the show’s 10 seasons concluded. However, Welling only returned to play the part of the young Superman a single time, because he knew that the tone the new CW series were all giving off was wrong where Smallville’s version of Clark, aka Kal-El, was concerned. Welling elaborated during a segment for his and Michael Rosenbaum’s Talk Ville podcast by saying:

“I think I was asked to be in a lot of the other shows after Smallville ended, I was asked to sort of appear in them as Clark. And their tones… never felt like their tone was the same as Clark was or what Smallville was. And I still believe that in the crossover [Crisis on Infinite Earths] what you see Clark doing and giving up his powers and being with Lois for their family, that might not be the Clark from Smallville because it’s a multiverse.”

Welling portrayed a version of Clark Kent during The CW’s Crisis on Infinite Earths TV crossover event, in which Earth-167’s Superman had given up his Kryptonian powers to have a family with Lois Lane (Erica Durance). Now, while it was fantastic to see Welling and Durance again, this is certainly not Smallville’s beloved Earth-1 Clark Kent, as Welling alluded to.

Die-hard fans of the show know that Clark was repeatedly taught immutable lessons over the years, one of which was that he could NOT relinquish his abilities under any circumstances. Despite that, though, The CW still swooped in and ultimately disrespected the character, Smallville and the fandom by unraveling all of what Clark learned over the course of 10 seasons in a brief four-minute cameo (below):

Michael Rosenbaum Is Proud of His Smallville Farewell

Matching wits with Tom Welling’s young version of Clark Kent each week on Smallville was none other than Lex Luthor, who was brilliantly played by Michael Rosenbaum. But while Welling portrayed his character for all 10 seasons of the show, Rosenbaum stepped away from the series and left an irreplaceable chasm behind after the conclusion of Season 7. The powers-that-be replaced Rosenbaum with two full-time villains in Season 8, Tess Mercer (Cassidy Freeman) and Davis Bloome, aka Doomsday (Sam Witwer), but the show couldn’t go on without Lex Luthor, apparently.

And without Rosenbaum, Season 8 resorted to using another actor to play Lex, whose face was hidden to try and conceal the fact Rosenbaum was gone. But Rosenbaum did return for the series finale — bald cap this time around instead of shaving his head — to close the book on his Lex Luthor. And the actor is proud of the way his character departed Smallville to this day, as he revealed in an interview with Screen Rant (below):

“I don’t know. I didn’t watch the show, not one episode after I left. In fact, I didn’t watch many episodes while I was on the show. That’s why we’re doing Talk Ville Podcast with Tom [Welling]. We watch every episode, and I’m forced to watch them. But I watched the series finale, and I invited some friends over. My friend Joe, who had kept watching the show, and my other friend were telling me what’s happening. Because I didn’t know what the hell was going on, I’m going, ‘Wait, Lois and Clark are getting married?’ And they started explaining to me.”

Rosenbaum continued by saying in the same interview (below):

“But when I watched it, I go, ‘It’s got a good energy to it.’ I loved my scene with Clark and Lex. I thought that was really good, and it was a nice way to end it. I love that I killed my sister [Tess Mercer – Cassidy Freeman]. For someone who shot for just one day, to see that, I was proud of it. I was happy, and I was glad that it was all over.”

All 10 seasons of Smallville are available to stream and/or binge-watch on Hulu, at the time of this writing. And be sure to check out Mr. Clark Kent himself, Tom Welling, and “the best” Lex Luthor ever (Michael Rosenbaum) each week as they host “the ultimate Smallville rewatch podcast” together, which is aptly titled, Talk Ville. And new episodes of Talk Ville drop every Wednesday.