Why Smallville's Black Suit Superman Is So Different From The Comics
While Smallville season 9 did incorporate Superman's black suit, the DC drama did it differently both in story and design execution. Before the Arrowverse began, Smallville was the resident DC TV show on The CW as it told Clark Kent's origin story before becoming the Man of Steel. Even though it is more common now for superhero shows to adapt most costumes from the comics, Smallville did its own spin with some of their heroes, including Tom Welling's character. In many cases, their superheroes had more modernized uniforms meant to allude to their comic counterpart. When it came to Clark's costumes, Smallville put him in a lot of red and blue wardrobe, with the red-jacket/blue-t-shirt eventually becoming his first proto-Superman outfit.
By Smallville's end, the show broke its "No Tights, No Flights" rule as Clark suited up as Superman in the series finale. Even though Doomsday was Smallville season 8's big bad, the series never adapted the iconic Death of Superman arc. Given that this Clark wasn't Superman yet, their showdown can be regarded as round 1, especially as he would take on Doomsday in the Smallville season 11 tie-in comic. But Smallville did still find a way to adapt the Man of Tomorrow's black suit, with their own twist to it. In the comics, the black costume was Superman's regeneration suit that he wore after he was killed by Doomsday. Despite Smallville season 8 not ending with Doomsday killing the future Man of Steel, Clark does "die" spiritually.
After Davis Bloome (Doomsday's human half) kills "Jimmy Olsen" in the finale, the Last Son of Krypton takes his death incredibly hard, which leads to him giving up on being Clark Kent. While the Smallville showrunners had teased that two major characters would die in the eighth season, they also alluded there would be a metaphorical death, which became Clark. Seeing his own humanity as a weakness that prevents him from being Earth's ultimate protector, he declares that Clark Kent is dead. This sets up Clark's shift from being the Red-Blue Blur to The Blur, which is where Superman's black suit comes into play in Smallville season 9.
Smallville's version of the iconic black costume consisted of a twin-tailed trench coat (serving as a cape of sorts) while wearing a black t-shirt with a silver House of El logo on it. In the first few episodes, Clark was fully committed to his role as The Blur, having trained more with Jor-El while also trying to master the power of flight finally. Throughout Smallville season 9, Clark does eventually re-embrace his humanity primarily because of Lois Lane, while still protecting Metropolis as The Blur. Even though it wasn't a recovery suit, the black uniform did, in its own way, pay homage to the comics as Welling's Superman was dead, metaphorically speaking.
Despite Clark's red-blue uniform being iconic in itself, it was still a huge surprise that Smallville adapted the black suit. Out of the three proto-costumes Clark wore before becoming Superman, the black Blur suit was the most comic book-y out of all of them. Clark's season 9 look was the closest thing Welling's character had to a Superman-y look, despite the black-and-grey. While Superman's black suit has been depicted in other DC media, Smallville season 9 does deserve credits in how they tackled it and why they made the reasoning behind it so different from the comic books.