In late 2019, Smallville returned for one scene only in The CW’s multi-show Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover, as Tom Welling and Erica Durance reprised their roles as Clark Kent and Lois Lane in an episode of Batwoman. The scene took place on “Earth-167” and was written by Smallville veterans Don Whitehead and Holly Henderson, but many fans were left wondering why we didn’t get to see that the characters from Smallville were restored at the end of the crossover, where we learned that other Earths such as the ones occupied by Swamp Thing, the Titans, and Brandon Routh’s Superman had been brought back into the multiverse by Stephen Amell’s Spectre.

Andy Behbakht of Multiverse of Color had Arrowverse showrunner Marc Guggenheim on his Showrunner Whisperer podcast which dropped part 1 today, and he addressed the omission.

“Why didn’t we have Smallville? I’ll be honest with you. I think it was two reasons,” Guggenheim responded. “Number one, it never occurred to me until I got the question on Twitter that people think we did blow up the Smallville universe. So part of it was that, and part of it was, we’d obviously seen Clark and Lois in episode two. For the most part, the ‘going around the horn’ [closing sequence] was to see all the universes and all the characters that we didn’t get to see,” he continued.

Guggenheim confirmed that if he had it to do all over again, that it would be “awesome” to have a shot of Lois and Clark on the farm kissing within that sequence. “But yeah, sorry, I dropped the ball on that,” he admitted. Additionally, under SAG rules, an actor gets paid for each episode they appear in, and Tom Welling was only contracted for the second episode. “We certainly didn’t have the money for that, but that really wasn’t a factor. It, quite frankly, just didn’t occur to me,” Marc said.

You can listen to the entire Showrunner Whisperer conversation with Marc Guggenheim here or on the YouTube embed below.

Four years later, fans are still discussing the return of Tom Welling as Smallville’s Clark Kent in the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover that aired on The CW, and earlier this week, Tom Welling spoke about that opportunity at a live TalkVille event held in Hollywood.

“They had asked me to kind of bring Clark into some of the other shows, and it didn’t feel right,” Tom recalled. “But when they sent me [the “Crisis” script] they were like, ‘just read it.’ It was one scene, and I read it and I was like [sigh] ‘this is a really good idea’.”

Tom talked about how the Batwoman crew wasn’t familiar with the Kent Farm location, so he was helping them at the same time. But as for playing Clark again?

“It was really fun, because I was able to kind of bring Clark back again, but a little more grown up,” he said, noting that he tried to have mannerisms like John Schneider had as Clark’s human father Jonathan Kent on Smallville, with the gloves and the way he walked. “My favorite part of the whole thing was Jon Cryer and he says ‘I’m Lex Luthor’ and I’m like ‘you’re not Lex.” That line was a lot of fun… one of the easiest lines I’ve ever said, because this is Lex Luthor,” he continued, pointing at Michael Rosenbaum on stage.

Most importantly, Welling seems happy with where the Crisis on Infinite Earths story took Clark. 

“It was really great, and I thought as a fan of Clark, this fits the tone in which would see him again,” he affirmed.

You can watch video from the event below.

Arrowverse architect Marc Guggenheim has been releasing a fantastic Substack newsletter called LegalDispatch in recent months, and with this week’s edition, he answered some Smallville-related questions regarding the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover — specifically, what Michael Rosenbaum‘s Lex would have done if he had shown up, and also, if there were more plans for Erica Durance to appear as Lois beyond her brief scene with Tom Welling.

Being transparent, Marc answered some of those questions! First, regarding what role Michael Rosenbaum’s Lex would play:

Well, here’s the thing. By the time we’d engaged with Michael about appearing in Crisis — thanks in huge part to Stephen Amell’s efforts — we’d already shot the Smallville reunion scene in Hour 2. Nevertheless, I was eager to get Michael’s Lex into the story if I could, so my brain started working on options that could be fit into the episodes that we were still shooting.

I forget the story impetus for them, but I noodled with a version where Michael’s Lex would interact with Jon Cryer’s Lex, which I think would’ve been quite entertaining had it come to pass.

Also, was there any temptation to have Erica Durance’s Lois Lane appear in more than one episode?

There was absolutely a temptation for sure. As with most things, however, we were subject to the limit of a combination of screentime, story requirements, money, shooting schedule, and the actors’ personal schedules.

You can read this week’s LegalDispatch here.