Batman/Superman: World’s Finest by Mark Waid and Dan Mora

[The Frog Bros]

He can but I’m with Ascended in that historically he has been a lousy mentor and it should not be easy to him. There’s some delicious irony in that the guy you think would be a great mentor actually sucks at it despite being great at pretty much everything else. My personal take is that Jon is the one time he gets it right, both because he makes sure to remember where he failed with Kara, Kon, etc, and also because he has a co-mentor to help him: Lois. Lois is the one who compensated for Clark’s failures as a mentor and her involvement is what helps Clark succeed with Jon where he failed with the rest.

That’s how it should be in my ideal headcanon anyway, but practically speaking Rebirth, like Ascended said, just made Clark into a perfect father figure and mentor.

Sorta like how some of the greatest athletes make lousy coaches. Ted Williams, Larry Bird, Wayne Gretzky come to mind. They're so good at what they do and a lot of it comes so naturally they find it hard to teach others and can't understand why others can't just go out and do it like they did. Teaching/mentoring is a whole other level.

[Vordan]

Sorta like how some of the greatest athletes make lousy coaches. Ted Williams, Larry Bird, Wayne Gretzky come to mind. They're so good at what they do and a lot of it comes so naturally they find it hard to teach others and can't understand why others can't just go out and do it like they did. Teaching/mentoring is a whole other level.

That’s a great comparison, think I’ll use that myself going forward to justify why I don’t think Clark should be a great mentor.

[The Frog Bros]

That’s a great comparison, think I’ll use that myself going forward to justify why I don’t think Clark should be a great mentor.

Enjoy!

Royalties? lol

[Frontier]

I think Clark can be a good mentor, but there can be growing pains.

[Ascended]

Can't the guy improve at being a parental figure and mentor?

Its not like Bruce is the best or most supportive father despite wanting to have a family.

Clark can, and presumably he would have over the course of Jon's life. My problem is that this change, which would be a total 180 from Clark's established history and character, came out of nowhere and writers pretended that this was always who he was.

It's a retcon, not development, and it's a retcon that I believe makes Clark less interesting, less dynamic, and lowers the quality of his mythic story. One of his greatest, most subtly nuanced and ironically powerful flaws is gone and his life and character are that much more perfect now. And flawless, perfect people with perfect lives are fine for religious texts I suppose, but they make for piss poor entertainment.

I hold Clark's flaws and the things he wants but will never have very closely. We all should, they're the shield we hold up to keep the "too perfect" complaints from becoming truth. They're the things that make Superman work. Without them he can't function as a narrative character.

This isn't even about Jon getting dropped in at ten years old, retconning the past decade of the Kent household (though I disagree with that issue too, it's still sorta besides the point here). If the comics mentioned how much effort Clark had put into changing his natural inclinations and being a good dad, that'd be one thing. But again, writers pretended that Clark had always been good with family. The "dad" struggles he has with Jon (both "now" and in flashback) are normal, mundane "dad" things that we all go through with our boys, not the specific challenges that Clark himself would face based on all of his prior history.

If Tomasi had written dialogue where Lois says "Damn Smallville, you were not great at the whole 'father' thing at first but you're really turning that around. Y'know that good dads are sexy?" and Clark replies "Yeah, I didn't do enough for Mon and Kara and Conner and I couldn't let myself do it again to Jon, so I put in the work to change. But I was always sexy!" then okay. Clark's journey and development is acknowledged even if we didn't see it happen in real time. Tomasi, and most subsequent writers, have written Clark as being the World's Greatest Dad because he's Superman and can do no wrong.

It's why I don't have an issue with Clark and Lois letting Jon go off for a summer road trip with grandpa. Bringing back Jor-El, aging up Jon, those are big screwups and different discussions and the execution of the scene leaves a lot to be desired, but Clark letting his kid roam space with his stranger of a father? Of course he would. Ma and Pa let Clark go into the friggin future with a bunch of kids and no adult supervision. Letting Jor-El take the kid was a mistake, something a bad parent would do. And that's what Clark is. Yeah, totally in line with the guy who put his brother in the Zone, his cousin up for adoption, and let his "little brother" clone be raised by the creepiest talent agent known to DC.

And Bruce is a piss poor father too, absolutely. But DC doesn't pretend otherwise, they acknowledge that fact and allow it to influence the characters, not throw a blanket over it and say "No, Bruce was always a great father, Dick and Jason and Damian and the others never had any reason to complain at all!"

[Vordan]

I wasn’t going to buy it because I never had that much love for Stan Lee’s reinventions, but someone told me Waid wrote a story with Lee’s Superman in the Tales from Earth 6 one shot and that made me curious enough to check it out. I’m glad I did because folks: it’s great!




Waid basically retells the Action Comics #2 story where Superman forces an arms dealer to fight in a war he’s been profiting off of. It’s a great modernization of that Golden Age story, which acknowledges how hard it would be for Superman to actually stop that kind of thing, but thankfully doesn’t end with the cliche of Superman giving up like you’d expect. There’s also some Plutonian here with how he emotes and his (ex) relationship with Lois. Would love to see Waid write more of this guy!

[Frontier]

I wasn’t going to buy it because I never had that much love for Stan Lee’s reinventions, but someone told me Waid wrote a story with Lee’s Superman in the Tales from Earth 6 one shot and that made me curious enough to check it out. I’m glad I did because folks: it’s great!




Waid basically retells the Action Comics #2 story where Superman forces an arms dealer to fight in a war he’s been profiting off of. It’s a great modernization of that Golden Age story, which acknowledges how hard it would be for Superman to actually stop that kind of thing, but thankfully doesn’t end with the cliche of Superman giving up like you’d expect. There’s also some Plutonian here with how he emotes and his (ex) relationship with Lois. Would love to see Waid write more of this guy!

This seems pretty fun .

[Vordan]

This seems pretty fun .

Waid managed to bring out something interesting for me in how Salden is heroic for selfish reasons. All he wants is to get Earth to focus on space travel so he can go home. It’s an interesting way of establishing him as an antihero who does GA Superman acts but for self-serving goals.

[Ascended]

I never read the Just Imagine stuff back in the day, though the Wonder Woman design was legit.

This looks fun though. So...Stan Lee's Superman is an alien just waiting for earth's technology to advance enough to get him home? So....white Icon, basically?

[Vordan]

I never read the Just Imagine stuff back in the day, though the Wonder Woman design was legit.

This looks fun though. So...Stan Lee's Superman is an alien just waiting for earth's technology to advance enough to get him home? So....white Icon, basically?

Pretty much. I never had much affection for the Lee base concept, I found it derivative of countless other Superman knockoffs. Waid did something entertaining with him, now I can sort of see some potential in a Miracleman style Superman who interferes in human affairs to make life better but is motivated purely by selfishness.

[Vordan]

Decided to share this speculation here too since this is basically the Waid on Superman thread:

Should come as no surprise that the two likely choices for the Big Bad of Testament are General Zod and Brainiac. Figured I’d write up reasons to support why it’s either of them.



Reasons why it’s Zod:

1. Hitch has said it will cover everything from Krypton to the LoSH. We already saw Krypton’s death in Birthright, why go back there? Because we didn’t see Waid’s version of Zod, that justifies a trip back to Krypton to see his origin and relationship with Jor-El. And the Legion? Well you’ll recall the infamous Byrne story which involved a Zod killing Pocket Zone Superboy, who has a connection to the Post Crisis Legion, with Superman retaliating by executing Zod and his comrades. Which leads into reason 2.
2. It’s been teased that Testament will deal with Superman’s no kill rule. Waid still hates Snyder’s Man of Steel and he also hates Byrne, both of those two had Superman kill Zod, Waid doing a big Zod story where Superman is tested but holds fast to his principles as a repudiation to those two is definitely the kind of thing he would try. Hitch also hates Snyder’s MoS and he’s the master of doing big superhero slugfests that feature a lot of urban destruction. Would not be surprised if Testament is Waid and Hitch doing their own take on how MoS should have ended.
3. Kaminski has said Zod will play a big role in 2023, but neither PKJ nor Williamson seem set to use him. However we know Kaminski is a huge supporter of Waid and I would not be surprised if Testament was what he was referring to, especially since 2023 is when Testament is set to come out per Hitch.



Reasons why it’s Brainiac:

1. Waid had no problems cribbing from the DCAU, I could see him adapting the DCAU origin for Brainiac as a Kryptonian AI which would mandate a trip back to Krypton for similar reasons as Zod. And of course Brainiac 5 has a self-evident connection to both Superman and Brainiac which would justify him and the LoSH being involved
2. Brainiac is the one villain Waid has said he really wants to do a big Superman story with to revamp him. He’s also a big enough threat to justify Superman wrestling with the ethics of whether or not to keep him alive.
3. Brainiac invading Metropolis is the perfect kind of setup for Hitch to draw, lots of urban destruction straight out of the Authority when the Skull Ship shows up over the city to bottle it

Frankly I think it’s Zod personally. Kaminski’s comments just make more sense if he was referring to Waid’s project and no one else as of right now seems to be using him. Plus Zod is set to appear in The Flash and what better time to try to get some synergy sales than a big Superman vs. Zod story by one of Superman’s most well-known writers which is all about wrestling with the impact of Man of Steel the same way The Flash is rumored to? Bonus points in that both serve as a kind of capstone for Zack Snyder’s era with The Flash erasing Cavill from the franchise and Waid doing a story that’s all about how terrible and wrong Snyder’s take is.

[Robanker]

I don't think being a great mentor would come to Clark naturally, but he'd have it down by the time Jon is Superboy. Why? He's a father, and Clark is the kind of person to understand how important that is and really focus on figuring out how to do it right. Hell, he had two great examples to follow and Lois to help him (and he help her, of course).

The idea that Clark couldn't grow into a good mentor/father figure is essentially trying to lock the character down and prevent any growth. In some situations, where the status quo spins in place, I understand. When he went from single to married to married with a ten/seventeen year old child, yes, he should have it better now.

The problem is we went from kind of aloof but well-meaning Clark to Superdad and didn't see the journey, so it was jarring. That said, I don't think he'd be the best mentor to a sidekick. To be honest, I don't think most of the Big Seven are particularly good mentors. If anyone, Barry is likely the best at it.

[Vordan]

Oh yeah something else that just occurred to me: Waid is turning Earth 0 Mercy into a cyborg like her animated YJ counterpart in Lazarus Planet. That’s evidence that he is somewhat familiar with the show and drawing on it for his comic stories same as he let the DCAU influence his take on Lex in Birthright.

[Ascended]

I don't think being a great mentor would come to Clark naturally, but he'd have it down by the time Jon is Superboy. Why? He's a father, and Clark is the kind of person to understand how important that is and really focus on figuring out how to do it right. Hell, he had two great examples to follow and Lois to help him (and he help her, of course).

The problem is we went from kind of aloof but well-meaning Clark to Superdad and didn't see the journey, so it was jarring. That said, I don't think he'd be the best mentor to a sidekick. To be honest, I don't think most of the Big Seven are particularly good mentors. If anyone, Barry is likely the best at it.

The problem isn't the journey, it's that the journey never happens. It's not character development it's a retcon. And a bad one, at that. Clark just suddenly becomes a great father and mentor and all the flashbacks we get support the idea that he was never anything different. And all that says to me is that the writer doesn't actually get the character and/or didn't put in the effort to do any real research and analysis.

As I said, if there had been dialogue or something that referenced Clark's growth, then great. It wouldn't be ideal, not getting to see that development, but at least it'd be on paper and "official." Better that than pretending that Clark is just perfect at this, on top of so much more.

[Frontier]

I don't think being a great mentor would come to Clark naturally, but he'd have it down by the time Jon is Superboy. Why? He's a father, and Clark is the kind of person to understand how important that is and really focus on figuring out how to do it right. Hell, he had two great examples to follow and Lois to help him (and he help her, of course).

The idea that Clark couldn't grow into a good mentor/father figure is essentially trying to lock the character down and prevent any growth. In some situations, where the status quo spins in place, I understand. When he went from single to married to married with a ten/seventeen year old child, yes, he should have it better now.

The problem is we went from kind of aloof but well-meaning Clark to Superdad and didn't see the journey, so it was jarring. That said, I don't think he'd be the best mentor to a sidekick. To be honest, I don't think most of the Big Seven are particularly good mentors. If anyone, Barry is likely the best at it.

I mean, if I had to say any of them are particularly bad it would be Ollie. Not that he seems to be bad at training but we saw how he ignored and cut Roy out which isn't great mentor material.

Most people double-down on Batman being a cold and abusive mentor although even still he's effectively trained several capable and well-adjusted crime-fighters who inherited his strong moral code.

I've never seen Aquaman's sidekicks/protege's really complain about him that much.

We barely get to see Diana mentor or work in tandem with the Wonder Girls to really ascertain what she's like as a mentor.