DC’s New Superman, Jon Kent, Comes Out as Bisexual in Upcoming Comic

[Jely4me]

"Look guys, we're not REALLY creatively bankrupt and just copying Clark Kent because Jon's bi now and Clark wasn't!"

Its a patronizing move, if its anything at all. DC and Taylor are basically asking readers, of whom most are long-time and been around the block a time or two, to believe that the motivation for this is progressiveness and not a gimmick to give weight to a larger poorly conceived and implemented idea. You wanna give meaningful representation? Go ahead and write Diana in a real time same-sex relationship. I'll give credit for that, an actual addition to an already fully three-dimensional character and her lore and whom the move is inherently supported. This? Lipstick on a pig to justify the most moronic decision they've ever made in the Superman mythos by replacing the real deal.

Spot on. What’s been done to Tim Drake is a travashamockery as well. Headline ought to read, ‘DC, in an effort to remain relevant, has needlessly demolished a secondary character in another attempt to appease ‘woke’ readers and garner a sales bump.’ ‘Night DC, always have the trades and back issues..

[Writerblog]

Again, two can play at this game.DC being silent, reverse Jon's age, pair him or Cat with opposite gender so they don't have to ackbowledge them Bi?

That also means they're not not bi, and we will keep reminding people that they are, whether through posts or fan art. DC can't say otherwise and so are other people because Bi people do date the opposite sex.

People believe in what they want, but DC has been very strong on making Selina being straight and only that. There is not point on a charcter being bi if the writers doesnt play it. Being bi is a different experiene from being gay or straight.
They are very open all the time, even while married to opposite gender. It's different way of life

[SiegePerilous02]

Spot on. What’s been done to Tim Drake is a travashamockery as well. Headline ought to read, ‘DC, in an effort to remain relevant, has needlessly demolished a secondary character in another attempt to appease ‘woke’ readers and garner a sales bump.’ ‘Night DC, always have the trades and back issues..

Someone really has to explain how Tim liking boys as well as girls "demolishes" his character when it doesn't change his character in any substantial way whatsoever. He can still hook up with Steph again if that is still important to people for some reason.

[Sacred Knight]

The irony is that if I felt Jon was an at all well constructed character I'd say he's the perfect character to do this with. Romantically he's an extremely blank slate. Its just unfortunate he's a blank slate everywhere else. Well, outside the stuff Taylor and others filled in with Clark's characteristics.

[Vordan]

You can still go back. Easily. Its not happening in a week, a month, or maybe even a year but it can still happen. It wouldn't be as big a deal as people make it out to be. Twitter gets mad for a little bit? Its the same thing as what's going on today. People mad that he's bi to begin with today won't even be thinking about it tomorrow. Out of sight out of mind. Same thing if they back track. One, comics are still not that big a deal to the layman. Two, if you're just making him a kid again you're not saying that "We changed our minds, he's straight". He's still him, when he gets older he'll still have the same desires as he did when he was erroneously aged up. It would not at all be a PR nightmare. Not even if it wasn't framed respectfully which it very much could be.

Getting rid of him would be harder, but that's still possible too. Again, how much does larger society really care about comics to make this a headache for DC? Not much. Even with the increased noticeability thanks to the films, still not much. And from DC's perspective of their bottom line, does losing him hurt Superman? Not really. All the changes his lore has gone through and this would be the backbreaker? No way. He'd be fine. At least in no worse a spot as they're constantly putting him in.

I can't say 100% it will happen. But I don't buy for a second it 100% will not or cannot.

Honestly I think Clark is more likely to get killed off or erased than Jon at this point. They don’t know what to do with him and haven’t for a very long time, his sales are mediocre and have been for a while, the upcoming reboot is making him black so they’re already resorting to gimmicks they’d never do with Diana or Bruce, and frankly a lot of the people at WB/DC plain don’t like him hence why they keep just making him evil.

But that is also not happening because he has so much content coming. S&L (which Jon is also a part of), MAWS, the Tomorrowverse, the two video game franchises where he’s there albeit evil, etc. Likewise once Jon made the jump outside of comics that pretty much guaranteed he would stick around. Jon is in YJ, S&L, and I still think he’ll be Cavill’s replacement as the DCEU Superman down the line. There’s a Super Sons movie that’s apparently coming and he might be in the Krypto movie as well.

Jon getting erased wouldn’t help Clark either because he wasn’t there for the 2000s and Superman still was mostly trash in terms of content. Get you hate him and want him erased, I certainly feel the same way about certain other characters, but the odds are slim to none. Damian got killed off by his own creator and he came back, don’t see Jon getting scrubbed.

[ZuLuLu]

As someone who was against the aging up of Jon, I don't get where the idea Jon sales are bad, as far as I can tell he selling at about the same as Clark, and his digital sales are better.

While Batman usually tops the digital rankings the week of its release, Jon's Superman, Robin, and Nightwing are the only DC books whose sales stay in the top 100 a week or 2 after their release.

[Somecrazyaussie]

Why is it that comics always resort to having characters being either queer or bi-sexual the last few years? There are other sexual orientations/identity types apart from those two. If anything, Jon should be pan-sexual.

[Badou]

He is an awful character since the age up and I don't really see what making him bi does to fix that. He just feels so redundant to me since Bendis got his hands on him. Kind of feels like a desperate attempt to make him have some kind of hook given his lack of personality or interesting qualities? Or feels like the Superman franchise trying to play catchup to the Batman franchise a bit.

A bit strange they didn't make Connor bi with the Tim stuff, but I guess the headline of "Superman comes out as bi" or "Superman's son comes out as bi" makes for a much better headline to grab people's attention.

[Restingvoice]

People believe in what they want, but DC has been very strong on making Selina being straight and only that. There is not point on a charcter being bi if the writers doesnt play it. Being bi is a different experiene from being gay or straight.
They are very open all the time, even while married to opposite gender. It's different way of life

Oh this is not about believing, or about depicting it realistically, this is about fighting back their active erasure by keeping it alive in public or at least fandom awareness.

[Superlad93]

Honestly I think Clark is more likely to get killed off or erased than Jon at this point. They don’t know what to do with him and haven’t for a very long time, his sales are mediocre and have been for a while, the upcoming reboot is making him black so they’re already resorting to gimmicks they’d never do with Diana or Bruce, and frankly a lot of the people at WB/DC plain don’t like him hence why they keep just making him evil.

But that is also not happening because he has so much content coming. S&L (which Jon is also a part of), MAWS, the Tomorrowverse, the two video game franchises where he’s there albeit evil, etc. Likewise once Jon made the jump outside of comics that pretty much guaranteed he would stick around. Jon is in YJ, S&L, and I still think he’ll be Cavill’s replacement as the DCEU Superman down the line. There’s a Super Sons movie that’s apparently coming and he might be in the Krypto movie as well.

Jon getting erased wouldn’t help Clark either because he wasn’t there for the 2000s and Superman still was mostly trash in terms of content. Get you hate him and want him erased, I certainly feel the same way about certain other characters, but the odds are slim to none. Damian got killed off by his own creator and he came back, don’t see Jon getting scrubbed.

As I understand it, this just made Jon indestructible.

Tom King was *very* candid about how he planned on killing Bunker in Heroes In Crisis, and DC looked at him and basically said "there's no way in hell we're killing off a gay Hispanic hero character". So if Bunker of all characters gets DC to raise an eyebrow and say "we can't get rid of him", one can only image how protective they'd be over Honest-To-God-Queer-Superman.

To be honest, I don't even know how they change his name to anything other than Superman. The headline is "Superman is now bi! He's a Superman for you!" You change that to "just kidding. His names like Solar-Guy now, but he's still totally bi" and you have a **** storm. It's the reason why Miles IS Super-Man. You don't change that kid's name to anything else, and you make sure there's a book that proudly features him on the stands at all times.

[Sacred Knight]

He is an awful character since the age up and I don't really see what making him bi does to fix that. He just feels so redundant to me since Bendis got his hands on him. Kind of feels like a desperate attempt to make him have some kind of hook given his lack of personality or interesting qualities? Or feels like the Superman franchise trying to play catchup to the Batman franchise a bit.

A bit strange they didn't make Connor bi with the Tim stuff, but I guess the headline of "Superman comes out as bi" or "Superman's son comes out as bi" makes for a much better headline to grab people's attention.

The only thing it does is mask how one-dimensional he is. Actually I take that back, this is his one dimension. He had nothing before this as an adult that wasn't explicitly taken from Superman, and repurposed as something he was but Clark wasn't quite. But its a temporary mask. It'll give a boost for a month or so and that's it. It doesn't solve the main issue, that there is nothing of true substance that makes him genuinely unique to the actual Superman to remotely justify sharing the name with, much less replace. Just being bisexual isn't a magic bean that will make up for him being both a symbolic and literal hijacking of the Clark Kent/Kal-El/Superman character.

He's like the anti-Miles Morales. Everything Marvel did right to create, foster, and make Miles a legit Spider-Man worthy of the name is everything DC has done comically wrong with Jon Kent. He's more like Riri Williams, and even she is a better character.

[trooper_thorn]

As someone who was against the aging up of Jon, I don't get where the idea Jon sales are bad, as far as I can tell he selling at about the same as Clark, and his digital sales are better.

While Batman usually tops the digital rankings the week of its release, Jon's Superman, Robin, and Nightwing are the only DC books whose sales stay in the top 100 a week or 2 after their release.

According to Comichron the orders for #1 were 68k and the orders for #2 were 40k (roughly a 41% drop in sales). Typically the first book will sell far better than any other and then decline until it reaches stability about 8-9 months in (1 year at the longest).

If we assume that it will follow the standard sales trajectory then you're looking at it being in the 20k range at best by the end of the year. As for digital rankings, they're useless unless they've started releasing actual numbers.


Anyhow, they must be worried about the numbers to be doing this so shortly after the Robin gimmick.

[king81992]

Wouldn't there been a better synergy with Tim coming out if they had done that with Connor.

Yes. Its kind of unpopular to say it,but I always thought Kon was in the closet. The way he chased skirt reeked of over compensation. The writers probably didn't mean for it to feel that way, but that's how it felt to me.

[garazza]

The only thing it does is mask how one-dimensional he is. Temporarily. It'll give a boost for a month or so and that's it. It doesn't solve the main issue, that being that he's not Superman and won't ever be accepted with that title, and its because there's nothing that makes him genuinely unique to the actual Superman to remotely justify replacing an icon with him. Just being bisexual isn't a magic bean that will make up for major factors of this failure to launch.

Make no mistake, this character is not Miles Morales. The very comparison is an insult to Miles and the nuance and organic growth of that character. Jon as he exists now is more comparable to Riri, and he's worse than her.

Seriously, Jon could've very easily haven been the next Miles. The funny thing is that Riri's character was rehabed and became better when Bendis left.

[Writerblog]

According to Comichron the orders for #1 were 68k and the orders for #2 were 40k (roughly a 41% drop in sales). Typically the first book will sell far better than any other and then decline until it reaches stability about 8-9 months in (1 year at the longest).

If we assume that it will follow the standard sales trajectory then you're looking at it being in the 20k range at best by the end of the year. As for digital rankings, they're useless unless they've started releasing actual numbers.


Anyhow, they must be worried about the numbers to be doing this so shortly after the Robin gimmick.

This was decided months ago, things on comics get planned for months on advance

Sales aren't great, #2 already on 40k