Smallville has always been the kind of show you could revisit and still find little secrets hiding in the shadows. Everyone knows about Clark Kent’s awkward years, the rise of Green Arrow, and even that surprise Cyborg cameo. But what if I told you Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Martian Manhunter all popped up in Smallville Season 1, and almost nobody noticed?
Before the Arrowverse ever existed, Smallville (2001–2011) was the DC show. Ten seasons of Clark stumbling toward his Superman destiny made it one of the most talked-about series of its time. The show didn’t shy away from dipping into the comic book toybox either. Across its run, fans got to see Hawkman, Zatanna, Aquaman, and even a Justice League lineup that felt like a Saturday morning cartoon come to life. But there were three major omissions: Bruce Wayne, Diana of Themyscira, and Hal Jordan. Or so we thought.
If you rewind to Smallville Season 1, Episode 6 (“Hourglass”), you’ll find one of the creepiest moments in the series. At around the 42-minute mark, Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum, forever the best Lex on screen) is shown a chilling vision of his future. The scene is set in a field of corpses. The detail that slipped by most fans is that among the bodies is a charred Batman, cape still visible in the ashes. Right beside him: Wonder Woman’s unmistakable bracelets, Green Lantern’s corpse complete with his glowing ring, and even a Martian Manhunter skull. Did Lex really take out half the Justice League in this timeline? Smallville left that one hanging.
The irony is Smallville was nearly a Batman show from the start. Back in the early 2000s, Warner Bros. flirted with a Bruce Wayne TV series that never made it past the pitch stage. Instead, the studio rolled the dice on Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins in 2005. Fun fact: Shawn Ashmore was lined up to play young Bruce in that scrapped series. He later turned up in Smallville as Eric Summers, the power-stealing teen from Season 1’s “Leech.” So technically, Batman was always circling Smallville’s orbit.
Fans almost got even more. Steven DeKnight, who later went on to Marvel’s Daredevil, revealed in an interview that Smallville was close to spinning off a full Justice League series. “There were a couple of different plans that never quite came to fruition,” he explained. The idea would’ve followed Justin Hartley’s Green Arrow leading a team in Metropolis, giving refuge to superpowered young heroes like Cyborg, Bart Allen, and Aquaman.
The spinoff would’ve sprung out of the Smallville Season 6 finale, with Green Arrow returning to help Clark in the final battle and setting up his team. DeKnight even teased Brainiac’s return in a new form, joking about recasting him with another Buffy alum or even as a woman. “I had a master plan for Brainiac showing up in the spin-off that I won’t tell you what it is, because you never know, a spin-off may happen in the future, and I will use this. But it was awesome,” he said. Sadly, the plan never made it past early talks.
So yes, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Martian Manhunter were technically in Smallville, even if their appearances were more “blink and you’ll miss it” than full-blown arcs. And while fans never got that Justice League spinoff, Smallville still managed to be the ultimate DC training ground, paving the way for the shows that came after.
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