He's my least fave Superman. I liked him as Clark though.
In the annals of tv/movie Supermans, Tom Welling's Superman is not even in the same league as those other Supermans, imho.
Welling was a lightweight actor, and the weak acting was apparent throughout the series. The cast around Welling was decent though, especially Rosenbaum, he was good.
Welling's acting was ok and I thought that was good enough in the beginning. But the acting didn't get better. I didn't really see any growth.
In his one on one scenes with Rosenbaum, particularly later on when Lex was becoming his foe, it was clear to me that Welling's Clark was no match for Rosenbaum's Lex. Sadly, Welling's Clark paled in comparison to Rosenbaum's Lex. Welling didn't do justice to the character.
My feelings with Superman is he hasn't not been written well in connection to his legendary status. I mean in terms of personality and being humble and all that stuff they have nailed it IMO though Superman is a character that I think have said before doesn't work well as a secondary character in someone elses story. It does take away form the character. When you write him as a random superhero instead of THE superhero, the granddaddy of them all who was basically the first superhero it doesn't really feel right.
Like in Crisis it seems strange to see Superman just sort of standing in the background were he might as well be Killer Frost or Atom or any of the other more regular variety superheroes on the show. As for the fight I don't mind she won but he should have made a bigger difference in the story or if you want you do that thing were the fight ends in drawl so the fans of each character sort of goes away happy seeing their favorite get in some good punches but not at the expense of fans of the other character. This is one of things that they have done successful in the MCU. When Captain America fought Iron Man they didn't have won win and the other loose. In the end they both kind of lost to Zemo but it wasn't some issue built around who has more strength or anything like that.
Jason
You have a good point.
I thought that Superman was suppose to be the superhero's superhero. Isn't Superman suppose to be larger than life?
One of the issues that I have with Tyler Hoechlin's Superman is that his Superman is a bit player. In
Supergirl, he plays second fiddle to Supergirl. His Superman is small scale. I know it is not Hoechlin's fault. It's the nature of his role in that show.
Christopher Reeve's Superman was grand. It was epic. It was done right. The John Williams music definitely helped the cause. On a side note, when Williams' music was played on
Smallville, it made up for the weakness of Welling's Clark/Superman, even if just momentarily.
I understand there is a big screen vs small screen aspect to such a comparison. I am not saying the Superman character cannot do well on tv. Superman should be humble but he should also have gravitas.