Superman: son of Kal-El

[Vathlonian]

My friend has contacted rich johnson


He calls the EVS rumors bullshit but says that johnson heard “something” similar to EVS’s rumors was going down

[Will Evans]

My friend has contacted rich johnson


He calls the EVS rumors bullshit but says that johnson heard “something” similar to EVS’s rumors was going down

What does that mean? That’s a contradiction.

[Vathlonian]

What does that mean? That’s a contradiction.

Jon is being turned into a gay Superman but DC has no plans for retiring Clark, nor is all too worried about preserving Superman’s trademark?


That’s my hunch

[Myskin]

I don't know whether the rumors are right but I actually think that the Superman trademark, or - to say it better - the Superman corporate brand is more central to Jon than his own characterization. And not in a good way. Allow me to explain (long post about Rebirth, volcanoes on Earth-3 and Legion, of course).
As I may have said elsewhere, I basically stopped reading Superman comic books on a regular basis some time ago and these days I find the corporate drama more interesting than the comics themselves. I still read some issues from time to time, but it is mostly to follow DC's editorial moves than anything else, and storywise I am never under the impression that I am missing something unmissable.

There is one specific straw which - as far as I am concerned - broke the camel's back, that is the Superbro/SuperDad merging. No matter how much time passes, I still think that THAT was the moment when any narrative plausibility concerning Superman's character development crumbled. Yes, I know that DC editors backed themselves in a corner with Convergence, Superman & Lois, DCYou, etc. and there weren't many ways out of that situation. At the same time, though, I can't see why I - just a reader - should be concerned with a problem they created themselves. The issue with the merging was not that SuperDad - who is NOT pre-Ne52 Superman, but a new character which mixes elements from Byrne Superman with completely new features - basically nullified Superbro (it was never a merging, they just killed Superbro without openly saying that). The main issue is that it was the moment when they basically declared that character development doesn't matter anymore. One character can get a different character's memories and life and they don't have to show it or explain or narrate it, they just SAY that this is the case and the readers should accept it and fill all the void for themselves. It's not that DC has never done something like that in the past - I think of CoIE, for example - but, as far as I am concerned this is the first time they have done it in such inconsistent way. It's as if the story's protagonists were action figures, rather than characters.

Anyway, the merging is actually part of a larger problem concerning DC and superhero books these days. For a series of reasons which I am not exploring here (sales becoming thinner, movie synergy, etc), it's clear to me that in the latest years DC has basically stopped believing in comic books. I find it quite revealing that some time ago Jim Lee openly stated that the introduction of new characters in current comics is aimed at creating new IPs for movies, TV series, etc. The situation has been quite clear for a while, so no surprise here. But I find it quite interesting (and disheartening) that they are not even pretending to be interested in the organic development of their fictional universe anymore. I mean, in narrative terms. I have my problems with the triangle era, but one thing's for sure - even when they were creating events for purely commercial purposes (the Death storyline, for example), I always got the impression that they were telling a STORY. Maybe a story with a direction I was not interested in, but a story nonetheless. That's not something I see these days. What I see is that they can introduce completely new characters, change someone's characterization out of the blue, abruptly modify the direction of a storyline but without ever telling a story with a specific end in mind. Some characters - I am thinking of Conner Kent - are just, well, "there" without doing anything remarkable. The readers - well, long time readers - understand what the real reasons behind some choices are (are they pushing Calvin Ellis so much because of movie synergy? Possible). But the problem is that readers should NOT be focused on this. It's the story, the organic character development, the direction which should really count. And DC should be loyal enough to give readers something worth reading. Reading superhero comic books these days is more or less like watching a movie in which the product placement is more important than the story itself.

(to be continued in the next post)

[Myskin]

(continuing from the previous post)

Keeping that in mind, the problem with Jon is that he is the most obvious byproduct of this approach. I won't pretend I have ever liked him, but when he was introduced in Jurgen's series some years ago I could still understand what he was about. Jurgens' Lois and Clark was a separate corner of the DCU, with some specific dynamics which I didn't like but I could understand. Basically we had an alternate take on Superman in which secrecy played a fundamental role - towards people at large, toward Jon himself etc. So... It was a STORY. Not a particular strong/interesting one IMHO, but there was a coherence. But again, think of how many bizarre changes the character went through in the following years. All of a sudden, the character was not part of its own separate universe anymore - he was regular Superman's son, with several consequences (the Superboy ID, friendship with Damian, a different past etc.). Then he became older, with a different characterization. Then he became a legionary (basically incorporating a huge chunk of Superman's history) and he was straight. Now he is Superman, and maybe, just maybe, he is gay.

So... Without taking business logic into account (yes, I know that there was plans for a Superman family cartoon way back, and I know that Superman & Lois exists), am I the only one who is seriously perplexed at how abrupt and, quite frankly, illogical, these "jumps" from one status to another one are? Do you remember the volcanogate, with Superboy prisoner inside a volcano on Earth-3 for, I don't remember, 5-6 years? Many Bendis haters said that he had destroyed the character by making him too gritty in comparison to his previous, puppy-eyed characterization. But the real problem was actually the opposite. That is, Bendis made the character spend a long period inside a hellish prison, but when the character went out he was NOT emotionally scarred as he should have been. He basically kept his positive attitude (with some changes) even if it didn't make sense story-wise. In all probability, the volcano's purpose was just to quickly get an adult, but still relatively positive, Jon to have him replace regular Superman. I think that Bendis' entire run was strongly editorially mandated (no matter what they say in the interviews) for reasons which don't make much sense story-wise but are clear corporate-wise.

Personal tastes aside, that's the fatal structural weakness of Jon, maybe since its inception. More than an organic character, he is an IP which they can fill with whatever they want according to the corporate purposes they have in mind. Can they make him gay? Of course. But they could just as easily make him straight, or a villain, or God, or a new Pariah (à la CoIE). No direction would be more coherent than another one, because he is more or less a blank state which never had a specific characterization if not for his relationship to Superman (and sometimes IMHO at the expense of Superman). Heck, even if at this point we have had teen Jon longer than kid Jon they could actually even de-age him. It would make zero sense - especially if they are planning to build some romantic relationships in the current series (does anyone remember how weird it was when adult Bart Allen reverted back to kid Bart Allen even if he had had a girlfriend in his Flash series? Exactly). But just suppose they are producing a cartoon about kid Jon? They'd do it in a heartbeat.

We can only speculate about the reason why they are pushing Jon so much and I am not even pointing my finger at any specific editor/writer here, because I don't think that one specific individual - Didio, or Lee, or Bendis, or Jurgens - has the entire responsibility (heck, I actually think that 5G would have made the Superman/Superboy relationship a bit more coherent, maybe). I just think that the approach they have chosen (or maybe the powers-that-be dictated) is probably the worst not for Jon, or Superman, or even DC, but for superhero books in general and, of course, for the readers.

[Last Son of Krypton]

(continuing from the previous post)

Keeping that in mind, the problem with Jon is that he is the most obvious byproduct of this approach. I won't pretend I have ever liked him, but when he was introduced in Jurgen's series some years ago I could still understand what he was about. Jurgens' Lois and Clark was a separate corner of the DCU, with some specific dynamics which I didn't like but I could understand. Basically we had an alternate take on Superman in which secrecy played a fundamental role - towards people at large, toward Jon himself etc. So... It was a STORY. Not a particular strong/interesting one IMHO, but there was a coherence. But again, think of how many bizarre changes the character went through in the following years. All of a sudden, the character was not part of its own separate universe anymore - he was regular Superman's son, with several consequences (the Superboy ID, friendship with Damian, a different past etc.). Then he became older, with a different characterization. Then he became a legionary (basically incorporating a huge chunk of Superman's history) and he was straight. Now he is Superman, and maybe, just maybe, he is gay.

So... Without taking business logic into account (yes, I know that there was plans for a Superman family cartoon way back, and I know that Superman & Lois exists), am I the only one who is seriously perplexed at how abrupt and, quite frankly, illogical, these "jumps" from one status to another one are? Do you remember the volcanogate, with Superboy prisoner inside a volcano on Earth-3 for, I don't remember, 5-6 years? Many Bendis haters said that he had destroyed the character by making him too gritty in comparison to his previous, puppy-eyed characterization. But the real problem was actually the opposite. That is, Bendis made the character spend a long period inside a hellish prison, but when the character went out he was NOT emotionally scarred as he should have been. He basically kept his positive attitude (with some changes) even if it didn't make sense story-wise. In all probability, the volcano's purpose was just to quickly get an adult, but still relatively positive, Jon to have him replace regular Superman. I think that Bendis' entire run was strongly editorially mandated (no matter what they say in the interviews) for reasons which don't make much sense story-wise but are clear corporate-wise.

Personal tastes aside, that's the fatal structural weakness of Jon, maybe since its inception. More than an organic character, he is an IP which they can fill with whatever they want according to the corporate purposes they have in mind. Can they make him gay? Of course. But they could just as easily make him straight, or a villain, or God, or a new Pariah (à la CoIE). No direction would be more coherent than another one, because he is more or less a blank state which never had a specific characterization if not for his relationship to Superman (and sometimes IMHO at the expense of Superman). Heck, even if at this point we have had teen Jon longer than kid Jon they could actually even de-age him. It would make zero sense - especially if they are planning to build some romantic relationships in the current series (does anyone remember how weird it was when adult Bart Allen reverted back to kid Bart Allen even if he had had a girlfriend in his Flash series? Exactly). But just suppose they are producing a cartoon about kid Jon? They'd do it in a heartbeat.

We can only speculate about the reason why they are pushing Jon so much and I am not even pointing my finger at any specific editor/writer here, because I don't think that one specific individual - Didio, or Lee, or Bendis, or Jurgens - has the entire responsibility (heck, I actually think that 5G would have made the Superman/Superboy relationship a bit more coherent, maybe). I just think that the approach they have chosen (or maybe the powers-that-be dictated) is probably the worst not for Jon, or Superman, or even DC, but for superhero books in general and, of course, for the readers.

When Jurgens was pitching to have baby Jon survive Convergence and making his way into main continuity, his selling point to DiDio was that they can make Jon whatever they want. This is the root of the problem with his "character" as well as approving characters surviving dead timelines (it wouldn't have come to pass under a different editor with a little more care about continuity). It was a deeply flawed pitch.

[Myskin]

When Jurgens was pitching to have baby Jon survive Convergence and making his way into main continuity, his selling point to DiDio was that they can make Jon whatever they want.

Interesting - and thanks, because I didn't know about this detail (which I see more or less as a confirmation of what I have written above).
I also keep in mind that Jon is the 3rd/4th attempt at introducing into regular continuity a new Superboy and/or a Super-child (including Cir-El, a Super-Lad character conceived by Jim Shooter under Didio's mandate and Chris Kent, who is basically a blueprint for Jon). I vaguely remember more or less confirmed rumors (maybe on Bleeding Cool) that DC had wanted to introduce a Superboy/son for a very long time, I guess for the very same purpose they are now putting Jon Kent under the spotlight. I'd say that most people who loudly criticize Didio for "ruining Jon!11!! fail to realize that without Didio - a strong supporter of the Super Sons series - Jon wouldn't have had the same push he got since its creation.

[Last Son of Krypton]

Interesting - and thanks, because I didn't know about this detail (which I see more or less as a confirmation of what I have written above).
I also keep in mind that Jon is the 3rd/4th attempt at introducing into regular continuity a new Superboy and/or a Super-child (including Cir-El, a Super-Lad character conceived by Jim Shooter under Didio's mandate and Chris Kent, who is basically a blueprint for Jon).

SuperLad was conceived to have a Superboy owned by DC after the S&S families were suing DC over the original Superboy. Cir-El and Chris were temporary and never meant to stuck around. Only Jon was introduced to be around long term.

I vaguely remember more or less confirmed rumors (maybe on Bleeding Cool) that DC had wanted to introduce a Superboy/son for a very long time, I guess for the very same purpose they are now putting Jon Kent under the spotlight.

Never heard that. It would be weird as DC had kryptonians/humans unable to have children together, and, also, DiDio being against legacy characters that make the main heroes looking older.

I'd say that most people who loudly criticize Didio for "ruining Jon!11!! fail to realize that without Didio - a strong supporter of the Super Sons series - Jon wouldn't have had the same push he got since its creation.

Aging up Jon to 10 from being a baby was also DiDio's idea. He had more input to both versions of Jon than people give him credit for.

[witchboy]

Interesting - and thanks, because I didn't know about this detail (which I see more or less as a confirmation of what I have written above).
I also keep in mind that Jon is the 3rd/4th attempt at introducing into regular continuity a new Superboy and/or a Super-child (including Cir-El, a Super-Lad character conceived by Jim Shooter under Didio's mandate and Chris Kent, who is basically a blueprint for Jon). I vaguely remember more or less confirmed rumors (maybe on Bleeding Cool) that DC had wanted to introduce a Superboy/son for a very long time, I guess for the very same purpose they are now putting Jon Kent under the spotlight. I'd say that most people who loudly criticize Didio for "ruining Jon!11!! fail to realize that without Didio - a strong supporter of the Super Sons series - Jon wouldn't have had the same push he got since its creation.

Didio can be responsible for both keeping Jon around, and then ruining him.
I hate to go so far as to say Jon is ruined even if I'm not happy about the age up, but hypothetically at least he can be responsible for both.

[witchboy]

My friend has contacted rich johnson


He calls the EVS rumors bullshit but says that johnson heard “something” similar to EVS’s rumors was going down

That makes me wonder if the something similar is that it will be Conner who will be gay or bi.

[DragonPiece]

With how much Taylor preaches about this superman reflecting the future and what not, I won't find it that shocking if Taylor decides to make Jon bi-sexual, or maybe he'll just say is gay and retcon/ignore his relationship with saturn girl. And for people saying this will end the Krypton bloodline or whatever, Kara still exists and Clark and Lois can just have another kid that goes through time travel shenanigans :P.

[Myskin]

SuperLad was conceived to have a Superboy owned by DC after the S&S families were suing DC over the original Superboy. Cir-El and Chris were temporary and never meant to stuck around. Only Jon was introduced to be around long term.

Yes, I know. But the BC (?) mention (which of course I can't find again and I don't even remember where I saw, precisely) struck me, especially after Chris Kent's storyline which lasted longer and was more articulate than Cir-El and has many points in common with Jon's (including the aging and him being born in some sort of temporal limbo).
I am under the impression that - as far as Superman is concerned - DC tends to follow a trial and error path, proposing the same concept in-story two or even three times with slight modifications until they get it right or people simply get used to it. It happened with Chris Kent/Jon Kent, Truth/Truth (with the same title, too!) and even with their endless attempts at merging Silver Age with Bryne Age (with all the consequences we know). Or - maybe - these comic books are just awfully repetitive.

Never heard that. It would be weird as DC had kryptonians/humans unable to have children together

Kryptonian physiology has never been 100% well-defined, as far as I know. They can't even decide whether Superman has been Superboy in the past, how can they be so specific about his procreating skills?

[HsssH]

Yeah, I think that some of those Superman-like character being short-lived does not really matter. We see certain things that attempt to change status quo repeating again and again. Until DC feels like they got it right this time.

DiDio being against legacy characters that make the main heroes looking older.

Do we have any explanations why he green lighted Damian? You know, the one kid that actually matters in all this thing? I do remember reading stories that WB sent a letter, or something like that, to bring him back after Morrison killed Damian, but why Didio was ok with introducing Damian in the first place?

That makes me wonder if the something similar is that it will be Conner who will be gay or bi.

I'll be surprised if we won't get romantic Tim/Conner story in the near future.

[Last Son of Krypton]

Yes, I know. But the BC (?) mention (which of course I can't find again and I don't even remember where I saw, precisely) struck me, especially after Chris Kent's storyline which lasted longer and was more articulate than Cir-El and has many points in common with Jon's (including the aging and him being born in some sort of temporal limbo).

I am under the impression that - as far as Superman is concerned - DC tends to follow a trial and error path, proposing the same concept in-story two or even three times with slight modifications until they get it right or people simply get used to it. It happened with Chris Kent/Jon Kent, Truth/Truth (with the same title, too!) and even with their endless attempts at merging Silver Age with Bryne Age (with all the consequences we know). Or - maybe - these comic books are just awfully repetitive.

It feel coincidental, both "Truth" stories and Chris/Jon are the product of different circumstances, not DC trying to push the same concepts till they work. The past management didn't wanted SM being married let alone having a child.

Kryptonian physiology has never been 100% well-defined, as far as I know. They can't even decide whether Superman has been Superboy in the past, how can they be so specific about his procreating skills?

Yeah, but it was their way to close the door to a potential child after SM was married in the main continuity.

Do we have any explanations why he green lighted Damian? You know, the one kid that actually matters in all this thing? I do remember reading stories that WB sent a letter, or something like that, to bring him back after Morrison killed Damian, but why Didio was ok with introducing Damian in the first place?

Originally, Damain was supposed to die in the first arc he was introduced. Even when he came back as Dick's Robin, he wasn't supposed to stick around. DC was into Duke Thomas as the new Robin (Scott Snyder's pitch) but WB pushed back and asked to bring back Damian.

[witchboy]

With how much Taylor preaches about this superman reflecting the future and what not, I won't find it that shocking if Taylor decides to make Jon bi-sexual, or maybe he'll just say is gay and retcon/ignore his relationship with saturn girl. And for people saying this will end the Krypton bloodline or whatever, Kara still exists and Clark and Lois can just have another kid that goes through time travel shenanigans :P.

Gay and bi men can have biological kids even in the real world, so I can’t see it being this huge insurmountable issue. Especially since I can’t imagine DC is in any hurry to make Superman a grandfather.
If it absolutely had to happen, there’s Jon being bi and actually having kids with a woman, or using a Kryptonian gestation chamber or a surrogate mother.