Official : Bendis gets both books

[bigstupidjellyfish]

I love how Jimmy takes a picture of where Superman was in the last panel.

[Superlad93]

Superman got that "I know damn well that kitchen light ain't still on" dad look lol

Great bit of character acting, humor, and personality right here. Particularly love Jimmy's change in poster from the first panel to the last. The headline almost writes itself.

Story-wise, this is very much what I wanted to see. Have to wonder if this Phantom Zone business is what leads to Superman deciding to switch up the game plan beyond what he's normally known for similar to what MM and Jor-El suggested? This little moment was kind of a small scale version of what MM was talking about: the galactic conversation finding Earth, and Superman being someone that the people of Earth have a level of trust and reverence for unlike anyone else.

[Dispenser Of Truth]

So Scott Snyder all but confirmed that the Superman books under Bendis are going to see the return of Conner Kent.

(Also the return of Superboy Prime somewhere, who I both would love to see Bendis handle and desperately hope he doesn't - that could be hysterical if handled properly given the response he's gotten, but at the same time, god, even if he wrote the best the best Prime story of all time, can you IMAGINE the scale of the backlash if on top of how much so many hate him already he brought this guy into the mix?)

[Sacred Knight]

I just hope its a Conner who belongs to this continuity. I don't want Bendis to get any ideas from his X-Men stuff and permanently bring in a displaced version from another world/timeline.

[Hopeful Hero]

Speaking of, is this continuity Conner the one with the leather jacket or is it Johns t-shirt wearing one?

[Miles To Go]

Speaking of, is this continuity Conner the one with the leather jacket or is it Johns t-shirt wearing one?

Johns version, although he's wearing a Superman costume in the Supersons of Tomorrow storyline.

[Sacred Knight]

Speaking of, is this continuity Conner the one with the leather jacket or is it Johns t-shirt wearing one?

They were both the same character. Technically. Johns took liberties with his makeover which I'll always contend near ruined the character, but canonically, it was always the same character. He just changed his costume and lost all semblance of his original characterization/personality when he found out (retcon) that Lex was his human donor instead of Westfield.

Edit: On retrospect maybe I was being too literal and you just meant what visual and inspiration will be taken...in which case the answer is unknown at this period. His origin will very likely be Johns' because its so ingrained, but his appearance, how he acts, who knows.

[Hopeful Hero]

They were both the same character. Technically. Johns took liberties with his makeover which I'll always contend near ruined the character, but canonically, it was always the same character. He just changed his costume and lost all semblance of his original characterization/personality when he found out (retcon) that Lex was his human donor instead of Westfield.

Agreed. Which is why I was asking which of the two it was I don't necessarily consider Johns Superboy the same as the jacket wearing version that I prefer even though they are. Completely different personality imo but thanks for the heads up Sacred and you too Miles.

[Sacred Knight]

Gotcha. I edited that last part in there realizing what you probably meant, albeit too late.

It is worth mentioning though that Bart just recently returned in his original identity of Impulse, and in his return splash he looked as young as he was when he first debuted. If they're going back to basics with him, who knows if they might not try something similar with Kon.

[Superlad93]

Lol what if Conner comes back as the new Superboy Prime

Seriously though, thinking about it, I'm not even surprised that Bendis will likely be the guy to bring back Conner. Despite all of the complaining to the contrary, Bendis, like Snyder said in the interview, has been nothing but accommodating of past continuity, and the fact that he makes such a direct references to Tomasi and Gleason's run, specifically Sons of Tomorrow, where Conner says to Superman "you don't know me yet" seems pretty cut n dry.

This does seem to confirm though that Conner's effectively being rebooting, and I'm sure Bendis will be blamed for that even though it was a thing set up by Tomasi, Gleason, and Tynion about a year ago.

[Sacred Knight]

I still wonder if he'll be rebooted or not. Doomsday Clock is still on the table a possible ready-made deus ex machina for Bendis to use to just drop the original back in.

"He's not in your memories of what happened when you died and came back to life? Well that's just because continuity was still messed up, here, have him back." Heck its the same line of thinking that could bring back the Kents, even though I don't want them back.

[Superlad93]

Eh, I mean, it's not like it's not possible. I'm not really ruling much out, but it just kind of seems like there's a pretty deliberate story being crafted as far as saving Tim's soul goes, and a large part of that seems to be him actually meeting his friends (I remember future Tim saying to find them). If there is a Young Justice book (and that's very likely) then I'd imagine one of the bigger story beats will be building a bond with his friends that avoids his fate as Batman.

But I dunno, nothing about it is really tangible yet, and I can't see to care beyond the idea of how awesome it will be to have Prime while writers like Bendis and Snyder are within striking distance of him. That's the hype right now.

[Sacred Knight]

Can't say I'm following much what Tim has been going through outside of checking out what happened back when he was Jor-El's prisoner. So I can't really speak to any of that. Just from my personal standpoint though I wouldn't see it much making sense to reboot just Conner when everyone else from that era is basically being brought back as they were at some point during the post-Crisis era.

But then again it didn't make sense to single out Superman with Rebirth and not do the "history graft" with him right away like they did with everyone else. So who knows.

[Last Son of Krypton]

Conner is going to be re-introduced as a 20-something or what? I mean... in the post-Reborn timeline, DoS happened almost like 15 years ago.

[Superlad93]

Well, to be fair, everyone else from that era didn't end off with their brands becoming toxic, and each either had a fallback identity (Impulse and Red Robin) or remained the owner of their brand (Wonder Girl). To my knowledge, Conner is the only person Tim didn't recognize when older Tim talked about his friends, so there's that too.

My honest guess is that they wanna start fresh in the hopes of giving him an identity and brand not predicated on the Superboy name, and also something that works as it's own thing in the same way Impulse and Nightwing does. I'm still thinking it'll just be Kon-El, and Young Justice will be the recognizable brand they all call home. I've been noticing how absolutely none of the creators who have answered questions about him have ever called him Superboy or even "the older Superboy." It's always Conner Kent.

Conner is going to be re-introduced as a 20-something or what? I mean... in the post-Reborn timeline, DoS happened almost like 15 years ago.

Post-Reborn he wasn't one of the Supermen that appeared 15 years ago. It was Steel, Eradicator, and Cyborg Superman. There's a picture from the artist who drew the issue that had Conner in the original image, and he was asked to take it out. This plus hypertime future Conner telling Superman that he doesn't know him yet gives more credibility to the idea that he's being created now and likely at whatever age Tim is (mid to late late teens I think).