Clark Kent is sticking around for Smallville's upcoming ninth season, but will the show's original Lex Luthor ever return?

Sources are telling our friends at Airlock Alpha that the writers of Smallville want to bring Michael Rosenbaum back for season nine.

Rosenabuam left the show last May after seven seasons as the villainous Luthor. Rumors about the actor returning to the show have been floating around the Internet for months. This season, a stand-in whose voice and face were altered and hidden by a high tech-looking breathing mask – a la Darth Vader – appeared as Lex Luthor in a few episodes. The character apparently died in an explosion in the Feb. 5 episode "Requim," but that doesn't mean he won't reappear on the show, especially if Rosenbaum agrees to reprise the role.

Michael Rosenbaum's Lex Luthor is history, the great John Glover is no longer chewing the scenery, and the last few seasons seemed to stretch the "Young Man of Steel" concept about as far as it could go. If you're like me, you stopped DVR-ing Smallville even before last season's dismal Kryptonite gum episode, "Hero," which brought the show's penchant for product placement to an all time low. But, for me, Smallville has always been like a Quarter Pounder value meal from McDonalds -- cheesy, full of fat and empty calories, but wholly familiar and comforting. That's probably why I tuned in to watch this season's opener back in September, and I'm glad I did.

Today's stream of Smallville-related news continues. We reported earlier that the show's former producers, Al Gough and Miles Millar, are writing a movie version of the Robotech TV series. Now, it looks like their small screen predecessors are looking to the big screen for inspiration.

Actually, Smallville has never shied away from ripping off borrowing ideas and concepts from movies. Just last week, Chloe (Allison Mack) experienced a memory meltdown right out of Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. This Thursday, the show will dip into J.J. Abrams territory with a monster attack shot in Cloverfield POV style. That's monster's name, of course, is Doomsday.

In one of the rowdiest panels of the Con, the stars and writers of the CW's Smallville took to the stage on the last day of the convention. Moderated by Joseph Loeb, the panel featured Allison Mack (Chloe), Justin Hartley (Green Arrow), new stars Sam Witwer (Doomsday), Cassiday Freeman (Tess), and showrunners Kelly Souders, Brian Peterson, Todd Slavkin and Darren Swimmer. It was a panel full of spoilers, fan appreciation, and a good amount of name plaque requests.

Some of what is upcoming during season 8 can be found after the jump.

In early May, we told you that Smallville was looking at adding two new characters to fill in the void left my some major departures (read here Lex, less Lana, and no more Lionel, since the character got killed). The two characters were that of Doomsday, the only DC Comics character to have killed Superman, and Tess, a female villain set to take care of Lex's estate.

Gossip columnist Michael Ausiello reports on his website that the show finally cast both roles. Battlestar Galactica's Sam Witwer was cast as a reviewed/revamped version of Doomsday while newcomer Cassidy Freeman will play Tess.

Slight spoilers about both roles coming up!