The Justice League is DC’s premiere superhero team, and while the squad has shown up in multiple live-action projects, the team almost appeared on TV before the Arrowverse and in relation to one of the best superhero series of all time, Smallville. While DC has faltered on the movie side with the DCEU, the shared DC universe on TV — the Arrowverse — mostly thrived for around a decade. Multiple popular heroes from DC Comics got their chance to shine in the Arrowverse, with characters like Green Arrow, Superman, Supergirl, the Flash, and more teaming up across the Arrowverse’s many series.

While the Arrowverse is the best DC live-action shared universe, the franchise was not without its faults. The Arrowverse failed its Justice League. The team was created, but not named, in the final episode of the Arrowverse’s major Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover event. Formal adventures for the Arrowverse’s Justice League had been planned but were abandoned with the end of the franchise in the years that followed, with the team barely leaving a mark. That was not the first time DC attempted to get the Justice League on TV, as a Justice League series was once in the works.

DC Almost Made A Justice League Spinoff From Smallville

The Team Appeared In The Superman Prequel Series

Smallville is one of the most popular superhero series of all time. The TV show followed Tom Welling’s Clark Kent over his ten-season journey to becoming Superman. While Clark only donned his Superman suit in the series’ final episode, Welling’s DC hero teamed up with several famous DC characters throughout Smallville‘s ten seasons. Among them were heroes that included Justin Hartley’s Green Arrow, Alan Ritchson’s Aquaman, Kyle Gallner’s Bart Allen, and more. While the team’s members appeared multiple times over the years, Smallville season 6, episode 11, “Justice,” was essentially a backdoor pilot for a Justice League spinoff series.

Recently, the writer and director of Smallville‘s “Justice” episode, Steven DeKnight, took to Twitter to remember the Justice League spinoff that never was. After a fan tagged the director and said that they would have loved to see the episode lead to a spinoff for the team, DeKnight reminded fans that could have very well happened, saying, “It almost did!” After the episode, Hartley’s Oliver Queen continued to be a regular player in Smallville until the end of the series, with other Justice League heroes coming back or debuting until the show was over.

What The Smallville Justice League Spinoff Show Would’ve Been About

Heroes And More Have Been Revealed

DeKnight’s recent comment is far from the first time he has mentioned the original plans for a Smallville spinoff centered on the Justice League. Eight years ago, in 2016, KryptonSite shared some exciting details about what the Justice League series would have entailed. The information came from an interview with DeKnight for Smallville: The Official Companion book for season 6, which had never been released before. Smallville season 6 was the one responsible for the biggest setup of the show’s Justice League, with its “Justice” episode. As such, DeKnight had a lot to say about the lost Justice League series.

The creative mentioned how a couple of ideas were explored for Smallville‘s Justice League and that the team at DC had started to put together a spinoff at one point. DeKnight then went further into what the planned Justice League series would have featured. According to him, “It was going to be basically Green Arrow, Cyborg, Flash, and a couple of other DC characters living in Metropolis.” That seems like a simple continuation of what was presented in Smallville, but DeKnight went further. The creative envisioned Hartley’s Oliver Queen acting as some sort of Charles Xavier to young heroes.

Like the X-Men’s Professor X, Green Arrow would have taken in young people with powers and given them a home, assembling his own superhero team. Originally, the plan was for Green Arrow to return to help Clark Kent in Smallville season 6’s finale and for that to lead into the Justice League spinoff, which never happened. DeKnight was supposed to co-create and serve as the showrunner of the Justice League series, with plans for Brainiac to come back for the project. DeKnight said he had big plans for Brainiac but would not reveal them in hopes of a possible revival.

Why DC’s Justice League Show Didn’t Happen

A Couple Of Reasons Could Explain It

No one involved with the project has revealed why the Smallville Justice League spinoff series did not work out. However, there might be a simple reason for that. Based on Smallville‘s timeline, the Justice League series was being planned in 2007, which was when Smallville season 6 came out. At the time, it could have simply proven impossible to bring the Justice League to life on the small screen for over 20-episode seasons due to budget concerns. Smallville did its best with special effects, but the Justice League series might have been too costly due to its multiple heroes.

DC’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, has a long history of cutting TV plans due to ideas for characters being developed for movies. In the 2000s, there was talk of uniting Christian Bale’s Batman from 2005’s Batman Begins and Brandon Routh’s Superman from 2006’s Superman Returns. Perhaps DC was workshopping the idea of a Justice League in movie form with the two before the idea fizzled, and the DCEU came years later with 2013’s Man of Steel. That would have explained why Smallville‘s Justice League spinoff never happened, though an official reason remains unknown.

The Smallville Season 11 Comics Gave The Justice League A Good Payoff

Batman And Wonder Woman Met Tom Welling’s Superman

While the Justice League series never ended up taking off, Smallville found a way to end the team’s story on an exciting note. Smallville ran for ten seasons; however, the show’s story was continued in the Smallville Season 11 comics. The comic books told the next adventures in the life of Welling’s Clark Kent after he became Superman in the Smallville series finale, and a lot of the events presented in the comics included the Justice League.

The Smallville Season 11 comics included several familiar heroes from the show while going a step above. Major DC stars like Batman and Wonder Woman were finally introduced to Smallville‘s world, meeting and befriending Welling’s Superman. The comics saw the Justice League take on multiple extraordinary threats, with the series ending on its version of one of the biggest events in DC history, Crisis on Infinite Earths, which the Arrowverse would adapt into live-action years later. While the Smallville spinoff series focused on the Justice League never happened, at least the team had exciting adventures in another medium.