10 Insane Rules TV Shows Weren’t Allowed To Break
7. No Tights, No Flights - Smallville
Smallville was a massive success, especially in its earlier seasons. This paved the way for modern superhero television, with the Arrowverse owing a lot of its narrative genetics to the superhero drama.
Its stripped back nature meant that audiences did not get a chance to see iconic pieces of Superman lore onscreen (at least initially), such as his ability to fly and his costume.
These particular aspects of the character were part of a rule created by the showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar because they wanted to strip Clark to his bare essentials and showcase who he was before he became the legendary hero.
The rule made sense for a while, but as the show went on and began to introduce numerous pieces of DC mythos, it began to lose its narrative significance and became a source of frustration for the show's fans. Ultimately the payoff promised by this rule was lacklustre, as we never got to see Superman in his full-costumed glory bar a brief, CGI-driven sequence at the very end of the show's final episode.