Smallville fans never saw Tom Welling fully take on the role of Superman before the series ended, and Tom Welling has now revealed why.  The series never intended to show off Superman completely.

Entertainment Weekly shared Welling’s comments about Smallville and the finale of the The CW series:

“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 was literally something that the entire series was behind in not doing that. We did things on that show where we didn’t call them powers, we called them abilities — you weren’t allowed to say powers; you just weren’t because Clark didn’t know they were powers, he just knew he had those abilities, so little things like kept us grounded and kept us faced onto the story we were telling about this character, not what he could do with these abilities.”

The finale almost did feature more of Clark Kent in his full Superman gear, but Welling went to the head of Warner Bros. Television, Peter Roth, to stop that from happening. He revealed the following:

“Our series finale was supposed to be, in the first act, Clark puts on the suit and flies around, saves Lois on a plane, and does this other stuff. It was a call that I had with Peter Roth, who is the head of Warner Bros. Television, who’s a good friend of mine and we have a great relationship. I said, ‘That’s not our show, Peter.’ He’s like, ‘No, it’s going to be great,” and I go, ‘Yeah, but just think about what we’ve been doing. If we just jump into that, we haven’t earned it.’”

Were you sad that Tom Welling didn’t fully come out as Superman on the finale of Smallville? Tell us what you think.