Smallville's Tom Welling Is Very Proud Of Arrow And The Flash

Smallville veteran Tom Welling said during a recent Buzzfeed interview that he's "very proud" of Arrow and The Flash, the DC Comics series that followed the end of Smallville and kicked off a superhero revolution on network TV.

"It's a compliment," Welling said of the crop of superhero shows that have come in a steady stream since the end of his decade playing Clark Kent. "I'm very proud of shows like Arrow [and] The Flash....They're able to ground these characters so that the viewer can relate on a human level to people who used to be only in two dimensions."

Of course, there's a seemingly never-ending stream of rumors that Welling will return to reprise his role as Clark Kent -- or to play some other character -- on any given show at any given time. It's never seemed particularly likely, since the rumors always named anonymous sources or cited a supposed statement from The CW's Mark Pedowitz that never happened.

These days, Welling told Buzzfeed, he likes to explore characters whose worlds aren't larger than life.