By Frazier Moore
The Associated Press

NEW YORK - Tom Welling has learned firsthand: Being Clark Kent isn't easy.

That, above all, is the lesson of Smallville, which finds Clark, even more than the typical teen, consumed with awkward self-discovery.

Clark feels like an outsider without understanding why. He senses an emerging destiny, yet he's blind to his future as the Man of Steel. His plight is any teen's plight, writ large and shrouded in secrecy.

"You play this kid in school who's trying to be normal and has these abilities he thinks work against him," says Welling, who stars as that kid.

Big deal. What Clark really wants - the heart of schoolmate Lana Lang (played with winsome appeal by Kristin Kreuk) - remains beyond his reach. The pain it causes him proves he's not invulnerable.

Catching Clark at this formative, pre-Superboy stage has spelled success for Smallville (9 p.m. Tuesday, Channels 64, 26) (. Its second-season ratings are up by more than one-third.

When Welling landed the role, he clearly fit the blueprint for Clark: Boyish good looks, plenty of hustle - and no idea what he was in for.

For one thing, Welling was a former model who, apart from a six-episode guest shot on Judging Amy, came to Smallville with no acting experience.

"If you watch how Clark is now, he's a bit more comfortable. I'm a bit more comfortable, too. I don't know if there's a direct correlation, but I think there's a connection."

Christopher Reeve - who, for millions, personifies the man Clark grows into - has only recently seen Smallville. He approves.

"What they did was take the segment of Superman I on the farm and draw it out into a series," says Reeve, who, of course, starred in that 1978 film and three sequels.

Speaking from his home outside New York City, Reeve recalls scenes from the movie with young Clark (played by another actor) "kicking a football into outer space and racing beside a train. He has all these powers and doesn't know why."

Now 50, Reeve was paralyzed in a 1995 horseback-riding accident and has since spent much of his time as an advocate for research into spinal-cord injuries. But he returns as an actor to the Superman saga for a Smallville guest appearance Tuesday night.

He plays an astronomer who detects signals from Clark's doomed home planet, Krypton.

"Clark and I talk about what the meaning might be," says Reeve.

His scene with Welling was filmed in New York - a far piece from the countryside outside Vancouver that doubles as Smallville's Kansas heartland.

There, the 25-year-old Welling lives with model Jamie White, whom he married last summer. But being Clark Kent isn't easy.

"The show takes up so much of who you are, you can't do it unless you absolutely love it," says Welling.