As happy as fans were to see Smallville 's Clark Kent (Tom Welling) return in Crisis on Infinite Earths , there was some backlash over the decision to have the hero give up his powers. Now, we know why...

Despite some strange creative decisions in its later seasons and a disappointing finale, Smallville still gets a lot of love, and there was understandably a lot of excitement to see the show's version of Clark Kent (played by Tom Welling) return in the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover.

Unfortunately, his screentime was brief, and many fans were left disappointed after learning that this version of Superman had willingly decided to give up his superhuman powers.

Now, executive producer Marc Guggenheim has said it was a tribute to the classic Superman II.

"We discussed a nod to, believe it or not, Superman II," Marc Guggenheim tells Fake Nerd Podcast. "It wasn't relevant to the story that we were telling in terms of getting into the specifics of it, and there are certain things that I believe are best left for the fans to discuss and debate."

"I don't believe in giving the fans the entire picture all the time," the showrunenr added, "But the idea that Clark would give up his powers in order to have this kind of life, that really resonated with all of us, and I think it really resonated with Tom [Welling]. It just makes sense."

While his time as Superman had reached its end, it was important to Guggenhem to show Smallville fans that this version of the Man of Steel had seen plenty of actions before that happened.

"It was one of the reasons why it was so important for us to show you those Daily Planet articles that Lois wrote. We very much wanted to tell the audience that the promise of Smallville was, 'He's going to become Superman.' We wanted to make it very clear that that did happen, that he did become Superman, that he did have all these adventures, but they are left to your imagination."

That's an explanation which does make sense, but Superman choosing to no longer protect the world just so he can live a normal life understandably doesn't sit right with many fans. In many ways, Clark is a character who deserves a happy ending like that, but it's not in the Man of Steel's nature to just give up and leave his responsibilities behind...right?

Then again, Smallville's Superman was always something of a unique case, so this one is bound to be debated for quite some time to come despite what Guggenheim has to say here.

What do you guys think?