Smallville Tom Welling - Clark Kent/Superman : The Man Behind The Cape

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All the good it did him. Wonder how many job offers he's getting these days? At least by swallowing his pride and putting on the suit he'd have been immortalized instead of polarizing.

Yeah, we all feel for George and his struggle but if he were around in 2017 he'd be getting a **** ton of love.

You don't know if the suit being worn was an issue of pride, and you don't know that Welling's lack of involvement in substantial projects since Smallville is directly due to his not being sought after. He went through a divorce, got older, and was never really that invested in acting. He prefers producing and directing. Even so, he was in films like Parkland, Draft Day, and The Choice. Welling cared about the journey of his character and never cared about fame, so I think he's proud of telling Clark Kent's story and unconcerned about whether everyone loves and remembers him as an actor who wore a suit versus an actor whose character wore the suit at the end of Clark Kent's coming of age narrative.

Wearing the suit isn't everything. Brandon Routh and Dean Cain both wore it in Superman Returns and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, and it's not like their careers have been stellar. I think it's a mistake to frame Welling -- again not his character, Clark, who was depicted in the suit -- as making an alleged mistake that let himself down, when what you're really upset about is your sense that he let you down. You're projecting a lot onto Welling.

You do realize that was CGI. Just like Routh's shirt rip right.

If so, then if Routh is considered legitimate so should Welling.
 
You don't know if the suit being worn was an issue of pride, and you don't know that Welling's lack of involvement in substantial projects since Smallville is directly due to his not being sought after. He went through a divorce, got older, and was never really that invested in acting. He prefers producing and directing. Even so, he was in films like Parkland, Draft Day, and The Choice. Welling cared about the journey of his character and never cared about fame, so I think he's proud of telling Clark Kent's story and unconcerned about whether everyone loves and remembers him as an actor who wore a suit versus an actor whose character wore the suit at the end of Clark Kent's coming of age narrative.

Wearing the suit isn't everything. Brandon Routh and Dean Cain both wore it in Superman Returns and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, and it's not like their careers have been stellar. I think it's a mistake to frame Welling -- again not his character, Clark, who was depicted in the suit -- as making an alleged mistake that let himself down, when what you're really upset about is your sense that he let you down. You're projecting a lot onto Welling.



If so, then if Routh is considered legitimate so should Welling.
Routh put on the suit. Routh was Superman. Welling had to CGI everything plain and simple he refused to wear the suit or even fly. He was never Superman just the Blur. In fact he never wore the suit because he never wanted to be known as Superman. And he felt once he put the suit on it would be the end of his career.
 
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Routh put on the suit. Routh was Superman. Welling had to CGI everything plain and simple he refused to wear the suit or even fly. He was never Superman just the Blur. In fact he never wore the suit because he never wanted to be known as Superman. And he felt once he put the suit on it would be the end of his career.

Fiction vs. reality. I urge you to distinguish between the two. Welling can't fly. Routh can't fly. Routh "flew" in Superman Returns with the help of CGI, and so did Welling on Smallville. Welling's Clark was named and referred to as Superman on the show. His character, Clark Kent, wore the suit. Clark Kent wore the suit, was named Superman, and became Superman onscreen on Smallville.

As the actor who played this Clark Kent, Tom Welling therefore played Superman and can be seen looking like Superman on the show, fulfilling the iconography necessary and forever associating himself with the role. So even what you're saying about Welling avoiding it out of shame doesn't add up. Everything else you're saying about Welling's feelings are not based on any evidence I've ever seen. Produce some quotes that explicitly verify your claims.
 
As I said already WE DID NOT HAVE TO SPEND YEAR AFTER YEAR WATCHING HENRY OR CHRISTOPHER NOT FLY! As I said, it took Welling years of not flying and seeing everyone else fly like his cousin. Instead we got lame excuses of him "not embracing who he was". Henry's Superman is told he can possibly fly and he learns after one try. This isnt even about the flying; its just one piece of evidence against the show.
Smallville started out good but ended up being one stall tactic after another.

Clark still flew earlier in life than any of the other Supermen. Every story should be allowed to have its own narrative rules. On Smallville, flight was something that was linked to one's mindset. There are countless examples of flight or other powers being treated that way in fiction. In Peter Pan, you have to be able to think happy thoughts. In Harry Potter, abilities require a proper psychological frame of mind and lots of practice. The same is true of characters with abilities on Once Upon A Time.

It's fair and understandable for you to not like that this was the route Smallville chose, but it doesn't diminish the fact that Clark on the show was actually ahead of the curve when it came to developing his powers, debuting as Superman, forming a committed and mature romantic relationship (as if pining for Lois in SI and II or SR is different than pining for Lana), and defeating foes as well as making friends compared to many other live action versions.
 
Clark still flew earlier in life than any of the other Supermen. Every story should be allowed to have its own narrative rules. On Smallville, flight was something that was linked to one's mindset. There are countless examples of flight or other powers being treated that way in fiction. In Peter Pan, you have to be able to think happy thoughts. In Harry Potter, abilities require a proper psychological frame of mind and lots of practice. The same is true of characters with abilities on Once Upon A Time.

It's fair and understandable for you to not like that this was the route Smallville chose, but it doesn't diminish the fact that Clark on the show was actually ahead of the curve when it came to developing his powers, debuting as Superman, forming a committed and mature romantic relationship (as if pining for Lois in SI and II or SR is different than pining for Lana), and defeating foes as well as making friends compared to many other live action versions.
Not true Routh's Superman changed that when he was flying at around 12 years old in Superman Returns.
 
Not true Routh's Superman changed that when he was flying at around 12 years old in Superman Returns.

Really? All I recall is Clark superjumping around the cornfield and briefly floating. No sustained flight. On Smallville, Clark did the same thing (floating) when he was 14 years-old (see: "Metamorphosis"). Clark in Superman Returns was not shown to be able to sustain flight when he was a tween.

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Yes they did watch the movie again when he fell through the barn he discovered he could fly. In the deleted scene he held it and also learned how to land properly.

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Yes they did watch the movie again when he fell through the barn he discovered he could fly. In the deleted scene he held it and also learned how to land properly.

When Clark fell through the barn, he discovered he could float. That's it. The film does not go on to show that he can sustain flight. Deleted scenes aren't canon.
 
QFT, you said it so much better than I could. Henry and Chris found out they could fly and they went for it; Henry's Supes got back handed by a mountain and it didn't stop him from getting up and trying again.
Welling found out he should be flying and spent another 6yrs not being able to do it.

The show explained why Clark couldn't do it. It was psychosomatic. Lots of abilities in fiction are portrayed that way, and it's beautiful because it takes something physical and turns it into something that can mean so much more. To me, it made it more satisfying and thrilling to see him finally fly just because I knew what it meant for him in terms of his identity development and growth as an individual. Also, given the show's emphasis on Nietzsche, it's important to note the alignment of the Nietzschean ideas of the Super-man found in his famous work Thus Spake Zarathustra ("The Spirit of Gravity"):

And when I saw my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound, solemn: he was the spirit of gravity—through him all things fall. Not by wrath, but by laughter, do we slay. Come, let us slay the spirit of gravity! I learned to walk; since then have I let myself run. I learned to fly; since then I do not need pushing in order to move from a spot. Now am I light, now do I fly; now do I see myself under myself. Now there danceth a God in me.

Verily, I learned waiting also, and thoroughly so,—but only waiting for myself. And above all did I learn standing and walking and running and leaping and climbing and dancing. This however is my teaching: he who wisheth one day to fly, must first learn standing and walking and running and climbing and dancing:—one doth not fly into flying!


Again, you can prefer something less metaphysical (e.g. mind over matter), but it doesn't make what Clark achieved on Smallville any lesser. At least, not in my opinion. Having said that, it's clear to me that we're unlikely to reach any common ground with this. It's a subjective preference, after all. We can agree to disagree.
 
He never became Superman. He refused to wear the suit even in the last episode. All he agreed to wear was a shirt that they could CGI when he did the shirt rip. He never wanted to be Superman which is why I had a problem with SV.

Again, the "he" to which you are referring is Tom Welling who is not Clark Kent. Tom Welling is an ACTOR who played a CHARACTER named Clark Kent. Clark Kent was a character on a show called Smallville. The character, Clark Kent, became Superman because he chose to wear the suit in the last episode. Clark Kent wanted to be Superman. He, Clark Kent, wanted to wear the suit a year before he officially became Superman. The show was interested in exploring how a person like Clark ends up wearing a suit that looks like that (they explored the evolution of its design as it was just generated by the Fortress or long extinct ancestors), and how he develops a dual identity and a working secret identity so that it's possible for him to go public.

The show was a prequel. You wouldn't have Anakin be Darth Vader before the end of the Star Wars prequels or include Luke and Leia doing their thing in Rogue One, because those stories are about the interesting stuff that made everything else possible. Basically, I would appreciate it if you and others would please try to stop confusing actor with character and your fanservice wishes with storytelling and character development.
 
I followed Smallville religiously from Ep1 to the very end, and I still don't understand the incessant complaints that we didn't see him either as Superman or doing more Superman-like things during the course of the last few seasons.

The show was never about Superman. It was about the teenage (and subsequent twenty-something) Clark Kent, and the trials, tribulations, mistakes and discoveries that he went through which eventually enable him to become the Superman we know and love. The moment he became Superman, Smallville fulfilled its brief and the show (almost literally) ended as it had achieved its purpose. Tom Welling understood that and stated as such in many interviews; he even alluded to the fact that pre-2001, when he was only just auditioning for the show, the fact that it was about Clark and not Superman made it more appealing to him. No-one ever promised that we would see Tom playing a fully fledged Superman in the show, be it for a short or long period of time - but what we got was pretty close in terms of character by the time we'd made it to Season 10. People came up with their own expectations of what the show was about and when they weren't met, there was a misjudged sense of being cheated.

I think a major part of the problem is that Tom Welling was physically such a good fit for the role that people found it hard not to envisage him in the suit. When Superman Returns was released in 2006 as Smallville was hitting season 6, Tom didn't really look that much younger or physically inferior to Brandon Routh despite the fact that one was playing a 20yr old Clark Kent and the other playing a 30-something Superman/Clark. Both were 6"2/6"3, well built, perfect facial features for Superman, etc. There was a sense that if he looks so much like Superman, why not go the whole hog? Yet to do so would have meant sacrificing the story which Smallville was trying to tell and it would have become another Superman series.

By contrast, Gotham - which is currently airing - takes a similar premise to Smallville and shows the evolution of a young Bruce Wayne. Yet because he's still only around 13 or so, there's no expectation that we're going to see him fully suited up as Batman anytime soon.
 
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Again, the "he" to which you are referring is Tom Welling who is not Clark Kent. Tom Welling is an ACTOR who played a CHARACTER named Clark Kent. Clark Kent was a character on a show called Smallville. The character, Clark Kent, became Superman because he chose to wear the suit in the last episode. Clark Kent wanted to be Superman. He, Clark Kent, wanted to wear the suit a year before he officially became Superman. The show was interested in exploring how a person like Clark ends up wearing a suit that looks like that (they explored the evolution of its design as it was just generated by the Fortress or long extinct ancestors), and how he develops a dual identity and a working secret identity so that it's possible for him to go public.

The show was a prequel. You wouldn't have Anakin be Darth Vader before the end of the Star Wars prequels or include Luke and Leia doing their thing in Rogue One, because those stories are about the interesting stuff that made everything else possible. Basically, I would appreciate it if you and others would please try to stop confusing actor with character and your fanservice wishes with storytelling and character development.
The key difference is Anakin at least put on the Darth Vader suit. Welling refused to put on the suit for one simple reason he did not want to be known as Superman and thought it would kill his career. That's the reason why I don't see him as Superman had that never come out I might have been fine with things but since that did come out I can't see him as Superman.
 
The key difference is Anakin at least put on the Darth Vader suit. Welling refused to put on the suit for one simple reason he did not want to be known as Superman and thought it would kill his career. That's the reason why I don't see him as Superman had that never come out I might have been fine with things but since that did come out I can't see him as Superman.

The "key difference" is you, once again, refuse to acknowledge the difference between ACTOR and CHARACTER. Do you see how you used the name "Anakin" when you talked about Darth Vader but used "Welling" when you talked about Clark/Superman. Clark Kent put on the Superman suit in the series finale of Smallville. It happened. And until you can actually provide me with a real quote from a reputable source that confirms that Tom Welling refused to put on a suit that was made just for him for the series finale, then that line of argument doesn't stand up well either.
 

Smallville Lois And Clark/Superman Poster.
 
I followed Smallville religiously from Ep1 to the very end, and I still don't understand the incessant complaints that we didn't see him either as Superman or doing more Superman-like things during the course of the last few seasons.

The show was never about Superman. It was about the teenage (and subsequent twenty-something) Clark Kent, and the trials, tribulations, mistakes and discoveries that he went through which eventually enable him to become the Superman we know and love. The moment he became Superman, Smallville fulfilled its brief and the show (almost literally) ended as it had achieved its purpose. Tom Welling understood that and stated as such in many interviews; he even alluded to the fact that pre-2001, when he was only just auditioning for the show, the fact that it was about Clark and not Superman made it more appealing to him. No-one ever promised that we would see Tom playing a fully fledged Superman in the show, be it for a short or long period of time - but what we got was pretty close in terms of character by the time we'd made it to Season 10. People came up with their own expectations of what the show was about and when they weren't met, there was a misjudged sense of being cheated.

I think a major part of the problem is that Tom Welling was physically such a good fit for the role that people found it hard not to envisage him in the suit. When Superman Returns was released in 2006 as Smallville was hitting season 6, Tom didn't really look that much younger or physically inferior to Brandon Routh despite the fact that one was playing a 20yr old Clark Kent and the other playing a 30-something Superman/Clark. Both were 6"2/6"3, well built, perfect facial features for Superman, etc. There was a sense that if he looks so much like Superman, why not go the whole hog? Yet to do so would have meant sacrificing the story which Smallville was trying to tell and it would have become another Superman series.

By contrast, Gotham - which is currently airing - takes a similar premise to Smallville and shows the evolution of a young Bruce Wayne. Yet because he's still only around 13 or so, there's no expectation that we're going to see him fully suited up as Batman anytime soon.

Exactly, the show was always about the journey to becoming Supetman. Personally what we got in the finale totally worked for me. I only ever needed a shirt rip for the final shot. The rest was a bonus.

It's crazy how perfect Tom was for Superman. If he had never done Smallville and been cast as Superman in 2004 I'm sure people would have been happy with the choice based on the look alone.
 
It's crazy how perfect Tom was for Superman. If he had never done Smallville and been cast as Superman in 2004 I'm sure people would have been happy with the choice based on the look alone.

Totally. Part of me always wished that he had been considered for a Superman film (and if the rumours are true, Brett Ratner did indeed met with him and consider him when he was temporarily tasked with one of the many pre-2006 attempts at creating a new Superman film) - he was physically a great fit, and by all accounts everyone has said how nice, helpful and reliable a guy he is, so he would have been a good ambassador for the role too.

He looks a lot more mature since Smallville ended - aged a bit, got rid of the boyish haircut and worked on the stubble. I'm surprised given his looks and height/build that he hasn't been nabbed for some other superhero role.

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Maybe one day in a Kingdom Come movie aye :cwink:
 
Glad to see him return to our screens in a recurring role.
 
Not surprised there. Of course he had a say about the suit as he was one of the producers in the show's final 3 seasons. The original version sounds more interesting than the one onscreen.

Smallville may not killed his career, but not wearing the suit almost did.
 

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