Summary
- Clark's powers and abilities in Smallville were awe-inspiring, as he fought against major villains and constantly evolved his powers.
- Smallville showcased Clark's wide array of powers, including super speed, heat vision, freeze breath, and invulnerability, making him the most powerful member of the Justice League.
- Some of Clark's most remarkable displays of power included leaping tall buildings, tunneling through the ground, crushing coal into diamond, and pushing away an entire planet to save the Earth.
Tom Welling's Superman showed great abilities in Smallville's best villains include Doomsday, Darkseid, General Zod, and, obviously, Michael Rosenbaum's Lex Luthor. Every villain brought out a different side of Clark, who had to keep evolving his powers to stop each new foe.
Thankfully, Clark had a wide array of powers to pull from to keep Smallville, Metropolis, and the whole world safe. Clark's powers included super speed, heat vision, super hearing, freeze breath, invulnerability, and many more. Those abilities made Welling's version of Clark Kent quite formidable, with the hero being easily the most powerful member of Smallville's Justice League, standing a step above characters like Impulse and Aquaman. While Clark had some of his powers already from the start of the series, the hero slowly developed them or learned new abilities as the seasons went by, and with that came some truly amazing displays of power.
10 Clark Leaps Tall Buildings In A Single Bound
Season 8, Episodes 6, 17 & Season 9, Episode 12
Before he could fly in the comics, Superman was known to "leap tall buildings in a single bound," which also holds true for Smallville. The series had a strict "No tights, no flights" rule to keep the focus on Clark's journey to become Superman and not on his destination, which kept flight scenes to a minimum. In the later seasons of Smallville, Clark moved from his small hometown to Metropolis, with the cityscape allowing him to jump to the top of buildings on multiple occasions. Clark was seen leaping to the top of buildings to investigate, meet Zatanna, save a falling Chloe, and more.
9 Clark Tunnels Through A Hole Underground And Sends Someone Flying
Season 6, Episode 9
Smallville saw a few unconventional uses of Clark's powers, and one such instance was when Clark fought with someone underground. Clark fights Jed McNally, who is forcing immigrants to work on his farm and traps them with his powers to open tunnels in the ground. After getting pulled underground by McNally, Clark digs his own tunnel at super speed and punches the villain so hard that he goes flying from the hole and lands on the surface. The scene shows that Clark is as much of a threat underground as he is anywhere else.
8 Clark Crushes Coal Into Diamond
Season 5, Episode 12
In the comics and other media, Superman has been shown to have the power to transform coal into diamond thanks to his super strength. Smallville also shows that Welling's Clark Kent has the necessary power to accomplish such a feat. Clark applies enough pressure that he turns a piece of coal into a diamond to propose to Lana Lang in the series, which happens in the same episode that ultimately sees Clark walk back on the proposal after going back in time, with the episode ending with Jonathan Kent's tragic death.
7 Clark Punches Bizarro Through The Atmosphere
Season 7, Episode 1
Bizarro is one of the most powerful foes that Clark went up against in Smallville. In the series, Bizarro was a Phantom Wraith that escaped the Phantom Zone and absorbed Clark's DNA to create a host body that was his equal. Despite being extremely powerful, Bizarro was still a step below Clark, who got into some earth-shattering fights with the villain, including a moment where he punched Bizarro so hard that he was sent flying into the atmosphere, showing Superman's raw strength.
6 Clark Swims Faster Than Aquaman To Get Ahead Of Him
Season 5, Episode 4
Alan Ritchson played Aquaman in Smallville, with the character being one of the series' most powerful heroes. While Aquaman's raw strength did not make him one of Smallville's strongest characters, Arthur Curry's abilities underwater made him one of the most interesting heroes in the series, a threat like no other. Despite his ability to swim great distances at incredible speed, Aquaman was beaten by Clark in one Smallville scene, which saw the young Superman swim faster than him to get ahead of the escaping hero, who stopped dead in his tracks after getting surprised by Clark.
5 Superman’s Arctic Breath Causes A Snowstorm
Season 9, Episode 17
While many of Clark's powers were slowly introduced throughout the series, Clark developed his Arctic Breath off-screen in Smallville. Clark got an individual episode to discover and master his super breath, and sometime after that, he seems to have developed the ability to use its variation, the Arctic Breath, which allows him to freeze people and objects. In the series, Clark uses his Arctic Breath at one point to create a snowstorm over Seattle, showing how powerful his ability is.
4 Superman’s Heat Vision Vaporizes An Enormous Wave
Season 7, Episode 1
While in early episodes, Clark had a hard time controlling his heat vision, later seasons would see Welling's character become more comfortable with the power, which led to some impressive displays of how far the ability could go. Perhaps the most exciting use of his heat vision was when Clark — at super speed — used his heat vision to vaporize an enormous wave before it could take any lives and leave a path of destruction. The scene showed that Clark was nearly mastering all his abilities, with the perfect combination of his super speed and heat vision showing how powerful Clark had become.
3 Superman Moves So Fast To Save Chloe From Checkmate That Time Appears To Slow Down
Season 9, Episode 16
Clark's super speed was one of the powers he most frequently used in Smallville. Throughout the series' ten seasons, Clark would get to accomplish many impressive feats with his super speed, like running from one city to another in seconds, stopping speeding bullets, and many more. However, his most exciting display of super speed is when Clark breaks into Checkmate to rescues Chloe, which features a montage of Clark moving so fast that time seems to slow down around him as he makes his way through a room full of agents and stops a bullet from killing Chloe.
2 Clark Resists Getting Pulled Into The Phantom Zone
Season 5, Episode 1
Smallville showed that Clark can resist getting hit by incredibly powerful villains and much more. However, the most impressive show of Superman's endurance in the series might be the time Clark managed to resist getting pulled into the Phantom Zone. Not only did Clark use his strength to punch a hole into the ground to hold onto, but his resistance was tested like never before when he managed to go against the gravitational pull of the Phantom Zone and send two of Zod's followers flying into it while Clark remained on his feet, staring at the Phantom Zone portal.
1 Superman Pushes Apokolips Away From The Earth
Season 10, Episode 22
Smallville's series finale saw Welling's Clark Kent finally fulfill his destiny: becoming Superman. The final episode of the Superman prequel series included some impressive displays of power from Clark, which included the hero saving Lois and the Air Force One, but one of them rose above all. Superman simply managed to push away an entire planet, with Clark stopping Apokolips from crashing down on Earth and sending it back into space single-handedly. Clark saving Earth from Apokolips stands as his biggest display of power in Smallville, which is only fitting, as it happened when the character finally became Superman after ten years of honing his powers throughout the series.
