Superman was conspicuously absent in the early days of the Arrowverse, but has become a more prominent part of the universe, with several actors playing different versions of the character on different shows and crossovers. At first, the lack of Superman was due to the main show being Arrow, which initially went out of its way to avoid superpowers.
This changed with the introduction of The Flash, but when Supergirl started, it seemed like a matter of time before Superman showed up in some form. The first season tried to avoid showing him while acknowledging he was part of the universe, but that was dropped by the second season.
Once Superman made his Arrowverse appearance, the producers didn’t stop with just one. So far, there have been six different actors that have appeared as some version of the Man of Steel, both old and young versions of the character and versions from different universes. Starting with small cameos and eventually becoming a lead in a spinoff, here are all the actors that have played Superman in the Arrowverse.
Tyler Hoechlin
Technically there were a couple of minor appearances in season 1, but the season 2 premiere of Supergirl finally introduced Tyler Hoechlin as the Superman of Earth-38, and therefore the main Superman in the Arrowverse. Though he’s only been in about a dozen episodes across the Arrowverse so far, Hoechlin is the one who has appeared most frequently, and will be playing Clark Kent in the spinoff Superman and Lois, currently set to start airing in early 2021.
Outside of the Arrowverse, Hoechlin has had a pretty busy acting career. He’s mostly known for his TV work, where he played Martin Brewer on 7th Heaven and later Derek Hale on Teen Wolf, but has also had some notable movie roles, from Michael Sullivan Jr. in Road to Perdition in 2002 to playing Abe in the 2020 Sundance hit Palm Springs.
Daniel DiMaggio
Daniel DiMaggio appeared as a 12-year-old Kal-El in the season 1 episode “For the Girl Who Has Everything”. This episode featured Kara having a hallucination, induced by the Kryptonian plant Black Mercy, of what life would have been like if Krypton had never exploded, which had Kara’s family intact and still living on Krypton.
DiMaggio is currently best known for his role as a regular on the ABC show American Housewife, where he plays Oliver Otto, son of the main characters Katie (Katy Mixon) and Greg Otto (Diedrich Bader).
Kevin Caliber
Of all the actors to play Superman in the Arrowverse, Kevin Caliber has the most insignificant appearance. He appears in the pilot episode of Supergirl, delivering her to the Danvers family. He’s seen only in silhouette, as the producers didn’t directly use Superman in the first season of Supergirl, instead making him an unseen character, possibly as a caution against DC’s notorious restrictions on what characters TV properties can directly use.
Outside of his small appearance in the Arrowverse, Kevin Caliber has appeared in a number of smaller roles. Most prominently, he plays Leo on The Haves and the Have Nots and is an actor and stunt performer on Job Guys.
Brandon Routh
Brandon Routh reprised his role from 2006’s Superman Returns in “Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Two”, playing an older version of his and Christopher Reeve’s Superman. In addition to being the future of that Superman, he’s also highly inspired by the version of Superman from the 1996 “Kingdom Come” Elseworlds story, as shown with this part of the story taking place on Earth-96.
This cameo appearance was simple because Routh was already in the Arrowverse, playing Ray Palmer/The Atom as a regular through season 5 of Legends of Tomorrow after his character debuted in season 3 of Arrow. In addition to his appearances as Superman and The Atom, Routh is also known for playing Todd Ingram in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Daniel Shaw in the series Chuck.
Adrian Hein
Adrian Hein is another actor who has a particularly small role as Superman in the Arrowverse - though unlike Kevin Caliber’s appearance, Hein’s face is actually shown. In the second part of “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, Hein appears as the Superman of Earth-75. The one scene he appears in is a recreation a scene from the “Death of Superman” story from 1992, with Earth-38 Lex Luthor having made it to Earth-75 on his Superman-killing spree.
Hein is mostly a stunt performer, having appeared in dozens of movies and TV shows since 2003. In addition to some stunt work in Arrow and The Flash, he’s also done stunts for movies such as Man of Steel, Captain America: Civil War, and Kong: Skull Island.
Tom Welling
The most surprising Superman appearance was Tom Welling, who plays the Earth-167 Clark Kent from the Smallville series. His only appearance in the Arrowverse proper was in “Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Two”, the same episode in which Routh and Hein also played alternate versions of Superman. This version of Clark gave up his powers and Superman identity, instead living with Lois and their kids on a farm in Smallville. When Lex Luthor confronts him and finds this out, Clark still takes him down with a single punch, and Luthor runs off, since killing a depowered Superman wouldn’t be as fun.
Tom Welling’s acting career has mostly been defined by Smallville, where he played Clark Kent from 2001 to 2011, with his acting career failing to take off during the show’s run. In recent years, he’s been more active, playing antagonist Marcus Pierce in season 3 of Lucifer and signing on as a lead in the upcoming series The Professionals.