Smallville remains one of the most beloved comic book TV shows ever made and, for many DC fans, Tom Welling is their Man of Steel and Michael Rosenbaum is the Lex Luthor. There were also several strong female leads, a surprise given when the show was produced.
Smallville had a lengthy run, kicking off in 2001 before wrapping up in 2011 following a memorable 10 seasons (which somehow didn't see Clark Kent take flight and suit up until the final episode). Still, fans were left eager for more and eventually got a comic book sequel detailing the hero's early adventures as Superman.
There never were any spin-offs - it's easy to imagine things being different had the show been produced today - but we did come close to seeing an episode revolving around a "female Justice League."
As KSiteTV first reported, Smallville writer Bryan Q. Miller recently appeared on the Derek Russell of the Super House of El podcast where he revealed scrapped plans for a team featuring Lois Lane (Erica Durance), Kara Kent (Laura Vandervoort), Zatanna (Serinda Swan), and Jayna (Allison Scagliotti) of the Wonder Twins.
The show's writers started working on the episode during the first half of Smallville season 10 and, as Miller puts it, "Being able to put those characters together that we had played with individually was a lot of fun, and it went away."
As for why it went away, there were some similarities to another season 10 episode ("Collateral") and, ultimately, "there was no time."
Welling and Rosenbaum have spent years teasing plans for an animated revival and, in an interview last October, the actor confirmed the project's fate remains in the hands of Warner Bros. Discovery and DC Studios.
"I'll tell you where it's at: We need Warner Bros. and DC to let us do it," Welling admitted. "We've got Al [Gough] and Miles [Millar,] who are very busy doing a TV show called Wednesday. But they created Smallville, they want to write it. We just need to go ahead from DC and Warner Bros."
"Listen, this is a passion project. It's not going to be a blockbuster, it's for the fans," he added. "All the actors want to do the voices of the characters - we're all in. We just need them to let us use the property."
When we recently spoke to Welling for his new movie Mafia Wars, the actor admitted he'd now like to wear Superman's costume on screen.
Unfortunately, we'd imagine the ship has sailed given DC Studios' DCU plans (which don't appear to include any Multiversal shenanigans).
You can watch that interview below.