It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s…finally Tom Welling in the Superman suit! DeviantArt user Buffy2ville created strikingly realistic fan art of Tom Welling, who played Clark Kent on the WB/CW series Smallville for 10 seasons, as an aged Superman in full regalia, flying through a city scene. The GIF depicts a present-day Welling, 48, sporting the classic Superman side part hairstyle and a take on the Supersuit similar to the one from Zack Snyder’s DC Extended Universe films, such as Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, as he soars through what could very well be Metropolis.
The animated image is wish fulfillment for Smallville fans, who increasingly bemoaned the show’s “no tights, no flights” rule for its star, the longer the young Superman series went on. Seeing a present-day version of Welling in tights and flying is the stuff of Smallville fantasies. The show’s creators, Al Gough and Miles Millar, were strict about Smallville‘s version of Clark Kent never donning the iconic red cape. Instead, the series focused on how Clark became the famous superhero.
Welling Fan Art Flies in the Face of Smallville’s Cardinal Rule
That rule became tough to follow once Clark graduated from high school and presumably college in the show, and began working at The Daily Planet. He started dating his love Lois Lane (Erica Durance), and by Season 9 of the series, “no flights, no tights” had become somewhat of a hindrance for Smallville, rather than a fresh, guiding principle for the show. The writers tried to skirt around it by having citizens of Metropolis dub Clark “The Blur” and giving him not one, but two, cool jackets that were decidedly not capes.
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During the show’s series finale, we got the closest we would ever get to seeing Welling in the supersuit. In Smallville‘s final scene, Welling’s Clark dashes to the top of The Daily Planet building to diffuse “a bomb in an elevator uptown.” As Clark prepares to save the day, we see the Superman costume’s chest plate under his dress shirt and tie.
This Fan Art May Be the Only Time Fans See Welling in the Supersuit in Live-Action
When Welling reprised his role in Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Two, it was back to the flannel shirts his character was so well-known for. His Clark wasn’t even Superman anymore. He revealed to Superman & Lois’s Clark (Tyler Hoechlin), Lois (Bitsie Tulloch), Iris West-Allen (Candice Patton), and Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer) that he gave up his powers to have a family with Lois.
The only other way we may see a version of Welling in Superman’s blue tights and red cape is through an animated sequel series he’s developing with Smallville co-star Michael Rosenbaum. However, given the recent WGA Writers Strike and the new leadership at Warner Bros., the Smallville sequel’s fate is uncertain, despite Rosenbaum telling Deadline that “the whole [Smallville] cast would like to do it.”
Smallville is now streaming on Hulu.
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