Telling the story of a teenage Clark Kent (Tom Welling), 'Smallville' is widely renowned as one of The CW's most popular television shows. As Kent learns to harness his abilities and talents, all whilst remaining secretive about his true powers with those that he holds dearest, viewers saw the young superhero-in-the-making come to terms with balancing his life of normality with that of fighting crime.

Tom Welling says a fully suited Superman was never coming to 'Smallville'Tom Welling says a fully suited Superman was never coming to 'Smallville'

Working under the premise that this was a young superhero, but not somebody who was yet Superman, those behind 'Smallville' never allowed Welling to get fully suited up and combine all of his abilities to become the Man of Steel. Though it's something that they likely had many conversations about behind-the-scenes, the decision was one made for a variety of reasons.

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Welling explained: "It was something that we discussed before we ever shot the pilot with [creators] Al [Gough] and Miles [Millar]. We literally had a sit down where we talked about the show and I asked about the suit and the tights and the flying, and they said, ‘No, absolutely not,’ part of the reason being is that show is about a teenager trying to figure out who he is. They felt that once Clark put on the cape and the suit, life became too easy, in a sense. They wanted to focus on who this character was before that. And, at the time, because of where visual effects and special effects and stunts were, it would be too expensive. That’s mainly why they save that for movies, more or less."

It's certainly interesting to discover that the decision not to ever have Welling fully suit up was one made before the filming of the series' first episode. Part of the show's success was clearly down to the writers always having a firm grip on the type of story they wanted to tell; something a lot of creators could learn a lesson or two from nowadays.

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Whether or not we see Welling make a return to the character in the future is still up in the air, but many have campaigned for him to make a comeback in one of the shows that make up the 'Arrowverse'. With that being a world where many different universes and versions of characters can be brought into the fray following meddling with the time force, it's not out of the realm of possibility that we'd see Welling's Superman at some point in the future.