Smallville Nearly Received A Justice League Spin-Off Series

"Smallville" ran for 10 seasons, but its impact can't be measured only by how long it stayed on the air. The CW's Arrowverse doesn't exist without "Smallville." Now, "Arrow" did not share a continuity with "Smallville" and it recast its Oliver Queen (Justin Hartley played him on "Smallville," Stephen Amell took the lead on "Arrow"). But still, even without "Arrow" being a proper "Smallville" spin-off, The CW greenlighting a Green Arrow show clearly happened because "Smallville" had introduced the character to their audience.

But there could've been a Green Arrow-led TV series much sooner, one starring Justin Hartley. During "Smallville" season 6, writer Steven DeKnight was working on a Justice League spin-off.

Beginning in season 4 of "Smallville," Clark Kent (Tom Welling) slowly begins meeting other DC superheroes. In "Run," it's Bart Allen/Impulse (Kyle Gallner). Season 5 had Arthur Curry/Aquaman (Alan Ritchson) in "Aqua" and then Victor Stone/Cyborg (Lee Thompson Young) in, well, "Cyborg." Then season 6 brought in Green Arrow (Hartley) as a recurring character.

That culminated in "Smallville" season 6, episode 11, "Justice" (written by DeKnight). Bringing back Bart, Arthur, and Victor, the episode revealed that after they'd left Smallville, they'd all crossed paths with Oliver. He brought them together as a league to fight against Lex Luthor's (Michael Rosebaum) 33.1 human experimentation program. (Green Arrow was the ringleader because WB had barred Batman from appearing on "Smallville," to Tom Welling's lasting regret.)

"Justice" wasn't just a guest star reunion, it was a backdoor pilot. In the "Smallville: The Official Companion Season 6" book, DeKnight says the original plan was that Oliver and his team would return in the "Smallville" season 6 finale, leading into their own show. That series never happened, but what would that show have been like?

DeKnight's pitch for the series was less traditional Justice League, and more akin to the X-Men. As he put it:

"It was going to be basically Green Arrow, Cyborg, Flash, a couple of other DC characters living in Metropolis. The idea was that Oliver Queen was basically giving refuge to young people with superpowers, kind of in a Professor X kind of way, putting together this team and also trying to help out these people, like he says in 'Justice' about how he helped out Victor Stone and Bart and Arthur Curry."

At least one considered villain for the show was a returning Brainiac (James Marsters), "quite possibly in a different form, played by a different actor," said DeKnight. He added they might have cast a different "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" alum, perhaps even a woman. (Picture Sarah Michelle Gellar as Brainiac!)

DeKnight did not say why the spin-off didn't happen, but the ideas didn't exactly go to waste. Instead, the Justice League stayed a recurring part of "Smallville" itself. Oliver Queen came back in "Smallville" season 7 and became part of the main cast from season 8 onward. And as the seasons went on, the show kept introducing more and more classic DC heroes, from Supergirl (Laura Vandervoort) to Martian Manhunter (Phil Morris) to Blue Beetle (Jaren Brandt Bartlett) and Booster Gold (Eric Martsolf).

The "Smallville" season 7 episode "Siren," about Oliver recruiting Dinah Lance/Black Canary (who almost got her own "Batman: The Animated Series" episode) into the Justice League, feels like an episode that would've been at home in DeKnight's spin-off. Same thing with the season 10 "Smallville" subplot about General Slade Wilson (Michael Hogan) trying to compel masked vigilantes to register their identities with the U.S. government.

Eventually, the "Smallville" season 11 comics went further than the concluded TV show could ever afford, introducing Batman, Wonder Woman, and many more. "Smallville" was the story of Clark Kent becoming Superman, but the Justice League is a vital part of that story, spin-off or no spin-off.