I'm Calling It: Mr. Oz is NOT Jor-El or Ozymandias. He's PA KENT!

[stephens2177]

I've got it,it's 2 ppl working together,one known for his intelligence,and seemingly dead himself,and the other a powerful guy who can pass as a Kryptonian,and has ties to alternate realities.

Metron and Black Zero



BTW I hope you all know my typing skills are pure shit at this point,and can you can figure out what I'm writing,even if it reads like shit.

[Soubhagya]

If it turns out to be so i don't like it. Not one bit.

It will be the last nail in the coffin of Jonathan Kent. Now he is a villain. Oh great!
Thanks a lot DC. Pa Kent is lost forever.

I don't like this idea of giving undue importance to Zor-El as the one who taught/inspired Superman to do the things that he does: Using his powers for the benefit of everybody. In Action Comics #1 Zor El's role was to just send him by spaceship. Kents were the one who taught him to use his powers for good of everybody.

Look at Man of Steel: (maybe?). Or in Superman movie where the most he told was not to use his powers for own benefit. ( not for touchdowns). Or in many places being guided by the hologram of Zor-El.

I like the idea that Pa Kent is the one who taught him to use his powers to help others. Instead of using Clark for their benefit they selflessly raised and taught him. They are the reason of his morale calibre and his heroism. They show the good in humanity. Such love and compassion in mere farmers in a far off farm shows how much humanity is worth saving.

I can live with their reduced role in Superman's formation but a villain? I think we lose something great about Superman. The bridge between two worlds.

[Super4Ever]

If it turns out to be so i don't like it. Not one bit.

It will be the last nail in the coffin of Jonathan Kent. Now he is a villain. Oh great!
Thanks a lot DC. Pa Kent is lost forever.

I don't like this idea of giving undue importance to Zor-El as the one who taught/inspired Superman to do the things that he does: Using his powers for the benefit of everybody. In Action Comics #1 Zor El's role was to just send him by spaceship. Kents were the one who taught him to use his powers for good of everybody.

Look at Man of Steel: (maybe?). Or in Superman movie where the most he told was not to use his powers for own benefit. ( not for touchdowns). Or in many places being guided by the hologram of Zor-El.

I like the idea that Pa Kent is the one who taught him to use his powers to help others. Instead of using Clark for their benefit they selflessly raised and taught him. They are the reason of his morale calibre and his heroism. They show the good in humanity. Such love and compassion in mere farmers in a far off farm shows how much humanity is worth saving.

I can live with their reduced role in Superman's formation but a villain? I think we lose something great about Superman. The bridge between two worlds.

Zor-El is his uncle. You're thinking of Jor-El.

[Soubhagya]

Zor-El is his uncle. You're thinking of Jor-El.

OK my bad. Zor-El is Kara's father isn't it? Wrong spelling.

[AntoKent17]

Mmmm... Is Mr.Oz really a villain?
He captivated a bunch of people but we really don't know his true motives so far... he's yet to kill anyone at this point...

He is definitely Jor-El. I'm told he is the Rebirth Jor-El. But we'll see (my friend giving me informations is as confused as we are at this point)

Jurgens saying his identity never changed pretty much reminds me the DC Comics denying the new 52 Superman being the result (almost entirely) of the lawsuit.

I can guarantee you Mr. Oz was Ozymandias in the first place. Then he was Pa Kent but Dan really fought against that idea.
A compromised was found in Jor-El. That's my take.

The line which Mr.Oz is referring to Superman as "Clark" is nothing but a confirmation of that. At that time he was definitely Pa Kent.
In my opinion (Mr. Oz being Jonathan) would have made no sense.
Not that Mr. Oz being a "version" of Jor-El does anyway...

[Sacred Knight]

I'm thinking he's going to be more of an anti-villain. And I don't know if its going to be entirely his fault. While his intelligence has obviously remained, I think its going to be revealed that he's gone through some serious crap since being "saved" that might have compromised some of his other faculties.


And I don't know about the identity situation anymore. I'm not willing to guarantee anything. I mean, Jurgens' initial tweet was cryptic. He didn't say what the "bad idea" that got turned into something good was. We assume it has to do with Oz, and we assumed it had to do with the identity, but those still were just guesses. Now he's saying outright Oz's identity never changed. What to believe? Well, its not impossible to imagine that indeed Johns always intended him to be Jor El and all that other stuff pointing to Adrian and Jonathan were misdirection. Oz calling Superman "Clark" was never irrefutable proof of anything in regard to a Jonathan connection, nor was the Ozymandias symbolism and the name. They were possible hints but so early in the game its just as possible they were deliberate misdirection all along. Its entirely possible that the "bad idea" that Jurgens talked about being changed into something good has to do with the storyline surrounding Jor-El, as opposed to Oz's identity in of itself. Hell, its even possible he was talking about something else entirely in the pipeline for Action #1000 and forward.

I'm not completely naïve, I know creators are fully capable of telling little white lies. And maybe this is one of them. But while its obvious that certain plans were sure to have changed between Johns/JRJR Superman run and Rebirth, because Rebirth wasn't even conceived back then, looking at things closely it really isn't all that certain that Oz's identity absolutely had to have been one of those changes. I'm willing to take Jurgens' word on this one.

[The Learner]

I don't think Oz calling Superman "Clark" can be considered as a definitive proof of him being Pa Kent. There are two things we have to consider before making assumptions. First, we saw in the last action comics issue Oz using heat vision. Pa Kent is a human and he has never had any powers in any of his iterations as far as I know. Second one is Oz's intelligence. He managed to capture and nullify the powers of a nigh omnipotent being. This alone trumps any of Lex's feats, and Lex is among the most intelligent people on Earth. Kon was a reasonable candidate, but he isn't anywhere close to Oz as far as intelligence is concerned. All this considered, Oz cannot be anyone other than Jor-El. Hopefully Jor-El will not be a villain Superman will need to banish into the phantom zone or something.

[Rich Johnston]

I think DC's upcoming lenticular cover showing Jor-El is part of a misdirect on their part. Here's why I feel Jonathan Kent is Mr. Oz.

1. He refers to Superman as "Clark," not "Kal-El" as Jor-El would do or "Superman" as Ozymandias would do.

2. Oz says he "taught" Clark things. That seems more appropriate for Pa Kent to say rather than Jor-El as Jor-El played a minimal role in raising his son even if Kal-El didn't leave Krypton until he was two.

3. Finally, the biggest clue is Mr. Oz's name itself. Mr. Oz is NOT a reference to Ozymandias.

Mr. Oz
as in "The Wizard of Oz"
as in "transported from Kansas"!

It's possible that Ozymandias is involved in Doomsday Clock as part of a war between him and Dr. Manhattan, but I just don't see Mr. Oz as being Ozymandias, and really, there's no way that DC would allow Jor-El to be alive. Marvel would sooner bring back Uncle Ben.

Anyway, I think, based on my reasons above, Mr. Oz being Pa Kent is one of those "staring you right in the face" things that we tend not to notice. I wouldn't even be surprised to learn that it was DC who leaked the spoilers to Bleeding Cool regarding Mr. Oz being Jor-El.

So what do you guys think? Is it more likely to you that Mr. Oz is Pa Kent?

DC Comics did not. But I don't think it's Pa Kent or Jor El. I think it will be revealed to be Jor El and then revealed that it's actually Roz-Em. Possibly by way of Amos Ameswell.

[Sacred Knight]

Hopefully DC's not that stupid. Whether one likes the very idea or not of going down this well, the backbone of this story will be an intended extreme emotional resonance. You lose all that make the whole journey a massive waste of time to first say its Jor-El and then later reveal it was a trick and its actually some no-name Kryptonian used long ago that no one remembers. It'd the ultimate middle finger to anyone following a tale.

[Comic-Reader Lad]

You guys have said that Dan Jurgens made a comment that Mr. Oz's true identity has never changed.

That does not preclude the idea that Oz could be Pa Kent. In fact, it seems to me that it confirms it.

Tyiing Watchmen into the DC Universe was the afterthought, so it seems as if Mr. Oz was meant to be Pa Kent in his New 52 appearances, then following the Rebirth Special, it might have been considered to change him to Ozymandias, but then Jurgens protested against that, so it went back to Pa Kent with Jor-El being thrown out there as a misdirect.

As for Mr. Oz's powers -- obviously Pa Kent never had powers. He also never had a secret headquarters in another dimension or wherever Mr. Oz resides, so obviously something happened to Pa Kent after he died.

I think DC has said that in the Rebirth continuity, Clark lost his parents during his senior prom. Do we know the full details of Pa's death? Is there any way he could have been taken away and transformed into Mr. Oz by either Ozymandias or Dr. Manhattan?

[Comic-Reader Lad]

DC Comics did not. But I don't think it's Pa Kent or Jor El. I think it will be revealed to be Jor El and then revealed that it's actually Roz-Em. Possibly by way of Amos Ameswell.

As big a Superman fan as I am, I actually had to look up both Roz-Em and Amos Ameswell. Here's what I found from the website Supermanica:

Roz-Em

A Kryptonian exiled in space by Jor-El after he impersonated his brother Nim-El in order to steal ultra-powerful weapons. Escaping his punishment, Roz-Em travels to the time of Superboy and persuades Clark and the Kents that he is actually a Superman version of Superboy formed during a freak Red Kryptonite accident.

Convinced that two versions of himself can not exist on Earth, Superboy sadly agrees to leave the planet forever, however Jonathan Kent finally realizes the hoax and sends Krypto to retrieve the Boy of Steel. Roz-Em is dispatched to the Phantom Zone for all of his crimes of impersonation (Adv No. 304/1, Jan 1963: "The War Between Superboy and Superman!").

Amos Ameswell

An enemy of Supergirl, Amos Ameswell claims to be a magical wizard and capitalizes on a mysterious invention he devises to project Phantom Zone images over a television set, resulting in frightening and realistic ghostly images (Adv No. 395, Jul 1970: "The Heroine of the Haunted House!"). He later dusts Supergirl with a destructive powder that makes her think that everything she touches is falling apart by paranormal means. Kara finally understands that there is nothing magical about Ameswell and takes him off to jail (Adv No. 396, Aug 1970: "I Am a Witch!").


Rich, thanks for clearing up that it wasn't DC who leaked the Jor-El revelation to you.

I guess you're just having a bit of a joke, but your idea of linking Doomsday Clock and Mr. Oz back to two obscure Silver Age stories is kooky enough to be fun, but no way DC would ever do this. I wouldn't mind seeing a one-shot spoof special along these lines, though.

It seems to me that Geoff Johns is going full serious on this one. He seems to want something that will reestablish the DC Universe as being a positive, inspirational place, and having Superman defeat the poster children of dark deconstructionism -- the Watchmen characters -- and redeem his adoptive father in the process, would seem to accomplish just that.

[Truman Burbank]

You guys have said that Dan Jurgens made a comment that Mr. Oz's true identity has never changed.

That does not preclude the idea that Oz could be Pa Kent. In fact, it seems to me that it confirms it.

Tyiing Watchmen into the DC Universe was the afterthought, so it seems as if Mr. Oz was meant to be Pa Kent in his New 52 appearances, then following the Rebirth Special, it might have been considered to change him to Ozymandias, but then Jurgens protested against that, so it went back to Pa Kent with Jor-El being thrown out there as a misdirect.

As for Mr. Oz's powers -- obviously Pa Kent never had powers. He also never had a secret headquarters in another dimension or wherever Mr. Oz resides, so obviously something happened to Pa Kent after he died.

I think DC has said that in the Rebirth continuity, Clark lost his parents during his senior prom. Do we know the full details of Pa's death? Is there any way he could have been taken away and transformed into Mr. Oz by either Ozymandias or Dr. Manhattan?

Pa Kent with superpowers would be one of the stupidest things DC could ever do. It's against the entire purpose of Pa as a character. I don't think a living Jor-El is the best idea, but trying to twist Pa Kent into a near-omnipotent character is ridiculous.

It's also completely ignoring the various clues that have been laid out in the books leading up to the reveal. When would Pa have ever used the Kryptonian battle suit?

I have believed from the start that "Mr. Oz" was being used as a Wizard of Oz reference rather than Ozymandias (because people seemed to forget that Ozymandias was the BAD GUY, so why would he ever help Superman?), but Pa Kent is not a character that makes any sort of sense for this story (or at least this part of it - Doomsday Clock might be a different situation).

The Jurgens quote can just as easily be one to diffuse the people claiming Oz was supposed to be Ozymandias, since certain websites speculated and got everyone believing that was the direction of the story.

[thefiresky]

Its Jon from the future.

[The World]

It's Superman who's become the Time Trapper from the future.

[Sacred Knight]

Its Old Biff From The Future!