connor should've been the next Superman

[13th Superman]

Frankly, if Clark is leaving Earth for an extended period, having Kara, Connor, and 10-year-old Jon trying to work together to pick up the slack would have been a way more interesting direction for the story to go. That interplay could have been awesome.

This. This right here. I've always thought whenever Supes wasn't around in Metropolis, Kara and Conner would fill in for him together.

[Sacred Knight]

There should be no "next Superman" in any current canon. DC's insisting on finding that out the hard way. That said, in a situation where they force the stupid idea, Conner's certainly earned it a hell of a lot more. But Kara would have earned it the most.

[Adekis]

There should be no "next Superman" in any current canon. DC's insisting on finding that out the hard way. That said, in a situation where they force the stupid idea, Conner's certainly earned it a hell of a lot more. But Kara would have earned it the most.

I can get behind that. In both Jerry Siegel's original "Death of Superman" from the Silver Age and in "Final Days of Superman," Kal approaches Kara to carry on his mission.

But like I said, ultimately I'm a Clark / Kal purist. I don't really want anyone but him to be the Main Super.

[rpmaluki]

I can get behind that. In both Jerry Siegel's original "Death of Superman" from the Silver Age and in "Final Days of Superman," Kal approaches Kara to carry on his mission.

But like I said, ultimately I'm a Clark / Kal purist. I don't really want anyone but him to be the Main Super.

I like/love all the Super characters but this is how I feel 100% of the time.

[Superlad93]

For me, Kon becoming Superman has the same appeal as Dick becoming Batman. They don’t want the job which is precisely why it’s so interesting that they do wind up in the role. It’s something they’re forced into and have to try to make work for them, to assert their independence while still wearing and honoring the mantles of their predecessors.

That's literally what PKJ is characterizing Jon as actually, and I ultimately think it works better for Jon.

The irony being that Conner is an actual clone yet is allowed to escape the intense gravitational pull that is becoming Superman while Jon can't. For me, it's always felt like a failure or a "bad future" (at least for him) when Conner becomes Superman. That's like the acknowledgement that he is ultimately a tool with a function that he either falls in line with, or stops mattering. Him becoming literally anything else sounds more like self actualization to me. Pinocchio becoming a real boy, so to speak.

For Jon, it's more so the idea of balancing legacy and expectations with his own self identity. But, maybe most perfectly, it's a story about growing up. One of the ideas PKJ has brought up is that part of the reason Jon doesn't want to be Superman is because it implies that his dad will no longer be around, and Jon doesn't want that. Remember, Jon grew up in part think of his dad as Superman in the same way that you or I think of him. The idea of that change and understanding of that reality and responsibility while also putting an inherent limit to your dad and personal hero's capability is massive, and it's only something that really works when the character had a childhood and is Clark's kid.

In short Conner being Superman is like lost fight for personhood. Jon becoming Superman is finally getting your shit together and being an adult.

[Blue22]

Funny. The loss of personhood is how I've seen it with Jon. It's not an ideal situation for either of them. It's one I would never want for either of them. But at this point, Conner feels like the one who could have done this without the literal grooming into New 52.0 Clark that Jon has had to suffer through for the past few years.

To think, the actual clone is currently less of a clone than the real boy xD

[Sacred Knight]

In the hypothetical they chose Conner, it would have went the exact same way, because it already kinda has before. Remember, turning a character into Clark 2.0 was what Johns essentially did to Conner during his TT era. Granted the ultimate aim wasn't to make him inherit the mantle in an actual lore direction, but that was how they had Kon "grow up" too. Thankfully they've rolled back on a lot of that though.

[Superlad93]

Funny. The loss of personhood is how I've seen it with Jon. It's not an ideal situation for either of them. It's one I would never want for either of them. But at this point, Conner feels like the one who could have done this without the literal grooming into New 52.0 Clark that Jon has had to suffer through for the past few years.

I think that's fairly subjective given the fact that "New 52.0 Clark" is really just shorthand for "young Superman still learning the ropes", and that's not something inherent to Clark.

Based off what PKJ is talking about, and how he's mentioned that Jon is something of a "man out of time", and a person who feels like he has "no anchor" due to his life being just so got damn strange, and I can't ultimately see the idea being to make him a copy of his dad beyond the already firmly established idea that he's a similar sort of "aw shucks" unironically nice person that his dad is (he literally quotes his father as both a kid and teen). But that's so surface level, and getting stuck on that as an issue seems, I dunno, dumb to me. The real meat and potatoes is in the combination of his strange ass life juxtaposed with his legacy and almost prophetic Arthurian destiny that he himself can't even imagine having.

[Alpha]

Funny. The loss of personhood is how I've seen it with Jon. It's not an ideal situation for either of them. It's one I would never want for either of them. But at this point, Conner feels like the one who could have done this without the literal grooming into New 52.0 Clark that Jon has had to suffer through for the past few years.

To think, the actual clone is currently less of a clone than the real boy xD

Yup. That's all folks

[Sacred Knight]

I think its Vordan whose said this before (apologies if I'm wrong) and I agree with him though...I still think its not much of a change for Jon in the first place. I'm not defending any of it, but at the same time he's always been little Clark. Now he's just bigger little Clark.

[Superlad93]

I think its Vordan whose said this before (apologies if I'm wrong) and I agree with him though...I still think its not much of a change for Jon in the first place. I'm not defending any of it, but at the same time he's always been little Clark. Now he's just bigger little Clark.

Exactly. I see some people on here so willing to go the extra mile to look at beyond surface level contrasting aspects of Jon's personality...when he's a kid, but they don't extend the same sort of olive branch when it's literally the same situation but he's now 17 to 18. It's so...selective.

In reality Jon Kent at baseline was created to be and remains to be the quintessential "chip off the ol block". That's Jon. Yes. Hello. Hi. The differences beyond the surface level are based on the context.

[Tzigone]

I'm a Clark / Kal purist. I know I can't be the only one. Maybe bringing it up in this thread is counter-productive, I don't know. But to me, if you want a younger version of Superman, young Clark is right there, just a little bit earlier on the timeline.

For me, Clark should be the only Superman. It's his identity. I feel that way about many of the heroes. Moreover, I think it's demeaning to other characters to say that stepping into Clark's boots and his identity is the greatest thing they can ever do, rather than one day making their own names just highly regarded as Superman's (in-universe). That they can't make their mantles just as great is ridiculous, and frankly, making the character interchangeable and the mantle the important part just makes it easier to kill off any of the characters. Great for DC and IP, but not at all what I want.

And I think it especially important for Kon, who was created to "replace Superman" that he not do that and instead forge his own destiny and be his own hero.

Mind you, I also don't want Kon and Clark (or Kara and Clark) to have a child-parent dynamic and strongly preferred it back when Clark had a more "adult cousin" role to Kon. An occasional mentor figure, but them nowhere near the top 5 most important figures in each other's daily lives.

[Blue22]

In the hypothetical they chose Conner, it would have went the exact same way, because it already kinda has before. Remember, turning a character into Clark 2.0 was what Johns essentially did to Conner during his TT era. Granted the ultimate aim wasn't to make him inherit the mantle in an actual lore direction, but that was how they had Kon "grow up" too. Thankfully they've rolled back on a lot of that though.

As one of the few defenders of Geoff Johns' Conner (and by extension his counterpart from the YJ Cartoon, since those two are VERY similar), I think the similarities between him and Clark were about as superficial as the current differences between Jon and Clark. Conner did A LOT of changing between Young Justice and Teen Titans. But aside from his appearance and the fact that he was now being raised in Smallville by Clark's parents, the two still couldn't have been any more different in the place where it really counts. Their personalities. The thing that truly separates them as characters.

The only thing I can really accuse Conner in that era of being is not as fun as he was in the YJ run. But hey. This was right off the heels of Graduation Day and Teen Titans was always gonna be a more serious story than Young Justice so I was willing to let that go. That said, I didn't read the Superman books at the time and don't know if he made any appearances there too. But just from reading him in Teen Titans, he most definitely was not the same kind of mini Clark that Jon is now.

Exactly. I see some people on here so willing to go the extra mile to look at beyond surface level contrasting aspects of Jon's personality...when he's a kid, but they don't extend the same sort of olive branch when it's literally the same situation but he's now 17 to 18. It's so...selective.

In reality Jon Kent at baseline was created to be and remains to be the quintessential "chip off the ol block". That's Jon. Yes. Hello. Hi. The differences beyond the surface level are based on the context.

Except he wasn't. In fact there were two separate occasions where Jon either pointed out that he wasn't his Dad or he was encouraged by someone else (namely Lois) to not be his dad. And it showed in how he acted and how he interacted with others. He was about as similar to Clark as Damian was to Bruce. And....yeah the similarities are there between those two as well. It's inevitable with fathers and sons. But it was always to effect of "Yeah, I can tell that that's his dad" rather than "He's just his dad but younger". There is a difference.

And the same used to feel like it rang true for Jon. But the older he gets the more he inches closer to being exactly what I never wanna see from legacy characters. And if that actually was the intent from the very beginning then he really is a completely superfluous character.

[Celgress]

ABJ for me - Anybody But Jon

I'd rather they not replace Clark but if they are deadset on doing so let Connor take over, or Kara, or, heck, Val Zod, even a time-warped alternate version of Young Clark would be a better choice than Bland Teen Jon the mini-me Superman who apparently received (physical or psychological) nothing from his mother.

[Quinlan58]

Weirdly enough, I think Kara a) deserves to be Clark's successor more than either Kon or Jon and b) is much better off in her Future State status-quo (though preferably a mentally healthier one) than as Clark's successor anyway.

As for Kon and Jon, I have to agree with the ones saying that it feels regressive to have Kon be the replacement. I also feel Jon as Clark's successor in Future State has been underwhelming, with a character arc that goes from something that could conceivably be an exciting new Superman (SoM #1) to renouncing his previous actions (SoM #2) and turning into a carbon copy of his father except nonsensically as an atheist (SM/WW). So, between all the options as they currently exist, I'll pick Clark.