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Tom Welling played Clark Kent for 217 episodes across 10 seasons of Smallville. That’s an entire decade of screentime as Clark Kent, but despite that long tenure, he never wore the Superman costume. To be fair, we caught glimpses of Welling in the suit in the finale, but never a full shot of him in the costume.

It turns out there’s a reason for that, and it wasn’t just the “no tights, no flights” mantra.

Speaking to a crowd at Megacon 2025, Welling revealed the special clause he requested for his contract when he was first cast in the series.  “When they finally let me read the script after signing an NDA, I realized that this was not a show about Superman, it was a show about Clark Kent. I said this story before, but I had actually written into my contract that I wouldn’t put on the suit, because I wanted to stay Clark, and I wanted to tell that story. Clark didn’t know who he was going to be, and I didn’t know what I was doing, so it was kind of great.”

According to Welling, Warner Bros. Television tried to put him in the suit early in the show’s run. “It was probably episode 5, they wrote something where Clark puts a suit on, and it was a business affairs call like, ‘Yeah, I’m not doing it.’ I think if Clark would’ve put the suit on in the first 3 seasons, we would have never gone on. We kind of had to do that. I meet some people who come to my table and they’re dressed, and they’re like, ‘How come you didn’t want to put the suit on.’ And I hate breaking their heart being like, ‘I never wanted to.’”

If Welling’s episode count is correct, this would be ‘Hourglass.’ The episode featured a precog named Cassandra. It’s likely that her vision of Clark’s future would’ve put Welling in the Superman suit if he hadn’t put his foot down.

While Welling never donned the costume, there’s no denying his place in the franchise. Suit or no suit, Tom Welling will always be Superman in my eyes.

Here's how to watch all the Superman TV series and movies in order.