Conner Kent/Kon-El/Superboy Appreciation 2022

[Vordan]

I really don't need to see them confirm in canon this fan-preferred secret lust Tim has had for Conner, but I guess I'm not surprised at this point.

If this is going to be the focus of every interaction between the two then it only cements my belief that it’s time for Conner to move on from the YJ group.

[Darkspellmaster]

If this is going to be the focus of every interaction between the two then it only cements my belief that it’s time for Conner to move on from the YJ group.

It could go two ways, unrequited feelings, or Kon confused and it leads to a love triangle between the three guys.

[Venomized-spider-man]

If this is going to be the focus of every interaction between the two then it only cements my belief that it’s time for Conner to move on from the YJ group.

yeah this getting to the point of boring parts of a Bara

like I'm Bi and I feel uncomfortable how badly Dc is butchering this representation to the point it just feel like the author fetish rather then representation. Like we get there was some gay coding that doesn't mean bludgeon it to death with it

Honestly I'm just glade Conner got other things to look forward; The crossover & round robin and that two more thing that Impulse & Cassie has sadly. I always said the 90s YJ character was completely screw over once the new generation came around and never really adapted like there predecessors afterwards like Wallace had more adventures with the flash than Impulse by now and Cassie not even allow to do anything in a Wonder woman event

[SuperX]

It could go two ways, unrequited feelings, or Kon confused and it leads to a love triangle between the three guys.

if anything besides them just being cool with each other as friends happens then the writer is a total hack and doesn't deserve to write anything besides fanfiction period.

[SuperX]

this is one of the variant covers for the newly announced Tim Drake series coming.

I love the YJ here, feels like old times.

Kon looks like his classic self, besides the spikes and the short sleeves on the jacket, great cover

[13th Superman]

Please someone get that writer away from Kon. I'm glad Kon's getting his mini and making an appearance in PKJ's run. He needs to keep busy so doesn't come close to that train wreck.

[Kirk Brent]

yeah this getting to the point of boring parts of a Bara

like I'm Bi and I feel uncomfortable how badly Dc is butchering this representation to the point it just feel like the author fetish rather then representation. Like we get there was some gay coding that doesn't mean bludgeon it to death with it

Honestly I'm just glade Conner got other things to look forward; The crossover & round robin and that two more thing that Impulse & Cassie has sadly. I always said the 90s YJ character was completely screw over once the new generation came around and never really adapted like there predecessors afterwards like Wallace had more adventures with the flash than Impulse by now and Cassie not even allow to do anything in a Wonder woman event

I'm asking this out of respectful curiosity: is material sometimes read as "gay coding" sometimes simply the portrayal of a loving friendship between two heterosexual people of the same sex? I've read most of Conner and Tim's adventures since they both debuted (I started reading in 1988) and I've never seen anything but healthy, masculine friendship. Is there no room for that kind of relationship to exist without it being sexualized? Or am I missing something? Again, I ask this only to understand further.

[Monari]

Oh it will be terrible I’m sure, probably do more pandering like how she made sure to have Conner and Tim hold hands in that last Pride Special, but we already know Tim is staying with Bernard so she won’t be pairing the two. And then there’s this:



99% sure that this will go with Tim admitting he did have feelings for Kon and Kon saying he’s sorry but he’s straight and doesn’t think of Tim that way, with the two agreeing to remaining friends. Glad Kon has his own mini and will be involved in the Superfamily crossover coming up however because good God do I not want him to just be a hanger on in Tim’s books for shippers to squee over.

This is why I think it was such a missed opportunity that they went with Jon being bi instead of Connor. The signs were all there for Connor, he's basically been queer-coded ever since the Young Justice series, and having him and Tim in a relationship is exactly what 99% of their fans want at this point. All that said, being bisexual doesn't necessarily need to be limited to only one "super". Hopefully one day a writer will come in and also reveal that Kon had feeling for Tim to - it's so obvious at this point. And if Superman's biological child is queer, then there's already precedent for another member of the family that has half of his genetic makeup, right?

I'm asking this out of respectful curiosity: is material sometimes read as "gay coding" sometimes simply the portrayal of a loving friendship between two heterosexual people of the same sex? I've read most of Conner and Tim's adventures since they both debuted (I started reading in 1988) and I've never seen anything but healthy, masculine friendship. Is there no room for that kind of relationship to exist without it being sexualized? Or am I missing something? Again, I ask this only to understand further.

My view is that it's almost a non-existant line. And why does there even need to be a line anyway? Love is love, and it's not like there are clear demarcations between friendly love and romantic love. Everything is a sliding scale. Do you know how they say (straight) guys and girls can never be truly friends? Same thing I think here.

[Venomized-spider-man]

I'm asking this out of respectful curiosity: is material sometimes read as "gay coding" sometimes simply the portrayal of a loving friendship between two heterosexual people of the same sex? I've read most of Conner and Tim's adventures since they both debuted (I started reading in 1988) and I've never seen anything but healthy, masculine friendship. Is there no room for that kind of relationship to exist without it being sexualized? Or am I missing something? Again, I ask this only to understand further.

no it fine to ask and for the most part i don't see the coding in the 90s like other people do i most see it during the red robin era where Tim obsess with Conner during/after his death by Superboy prime hands. like it was understandable as the two formed a blood bond that he didn't wanted to admit but it wad at the point that he was taking far worse than even Conner girlfriends Cassie and the obsession was at the point that he was literally trying to bring him back from the dead through cloning and Cassie needing to talk sense into him. Then when he came back the only person that was far overjoy and overcome at his return was tim as sorta closeness that was going far deeper than just brotherhoods if that makes any sense. It sorta looking at their friendship in comparison to other relationship the two had that the comics usually puts Tim in a vulnerable state and conner being the emotional bedrock for him all being there for him sorta like other heterosexual relationship are depicted one can connect the dots. The best comparison would be comparing the death of Superman where when Clark dies you see Lois fall on Clark dead body and start to cry over it and then you basically have the same thing when Conner died but just with Tim


that and he did a lot of sus things back then like wearing his t-shirt to bed and said things like "you always be my clone boy"
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that not to say very close healthy masculine friendship can't be a thing just look at Bruce & Clark or Hal & Ollie (minus the healthy part because lets be honest anything Ollie isn't healthy) but the nature of their closeness look to be a different breed different than Conner & Tim relationship. The Clark & Bruce masculine friendship is a great example as the two are extremally close (if written well) founded on foundation of respect and understanding that one trust each other lives & legacies but that deep friendship is not as close as say Clark & Lois is

am i saying that Tim & Kon should be a thing? no (i one of the strange one who ships Cassandra and conner) it not really a canon thing and something conner would just become out of nowhere but I do see what other people say when they say there was "gay subtext" to their relationship at some point in the story.

My problem with the current writing of Bi and Gay is the apparent need to over romanticize it to the point it becomes an ideal fantasy to the point loosing any chemistry and intrest in the story that the only conflict comes from the cringy "homophobic straw man" or obvious "will they won't they" which yeah no they will because of course basically become a bad slice of life novella where the gays are so bland and uninteresting is that the only you can tell about them is that they're gay.

I'm sorry if I'm not explaining it as best as you want me to

[SuperX]

a couple of you got your "codes"essed up, kon is straight,always been portrayed that way, never even the slightest but of any other way to look at it.

Now after thst is understood the fact that ppl judt can't accept reality and be OK with it is sad to me. shouldn't matter what side he falls on, he should be looked at as a cool character regardless, just so happens he is straight, and Tim is bi, shouldn't change anything,they are what they are.

[Vordan]

This is why I think it was such a missed opportunity that they went with Jon being bi instead of Connor. The signs were all there for Connor, he's basically been queer-coded ever since the Young Justice series, and having him and Tim in a relationship is exactly what 99% of their fans want at this point.

No it isn’t. It’s what a very loud minority group wants but to say the majority of Conner fans want it isn’t true. Totally disagree about Conner being “queer coded”, as seen with Tim devolving into a fanfic tier character, there’s a gulf of difference between the characters as they actually exist and shippers perception of them. It was the Teen Titans era not the YJ era, specifically when Kon died and Tim started doing all sorts of weird stuff that you wouldn’t expect a straight guy to do - even for a beloved friend - that caused the shipping to really take off.

I don’t care about Tim, and his fanbase had more or less disappeared thanks to DC’s continuously messing with him, making Tim bi has reignited interest in him. Now he’s the gay male rep in the Batfamily which is fine. That’s not the case for Conner, he’s already plenty popular thanks to his usage in stuff like the Titans and YJ shows. Most people know about Conner through those shows, and in those shows he’s paired with women. His most popular romantic relationship amongst general Conner fans is probably M’gann of all characters because of YJ. Amongst general Conner comic book fans it’s Cassie. Finally there’s Jon as the queer rep in the Superfamily (and if I had my way Apollo too).

All that said, being bisexual doesn't necessarily need to be limited to only one "super". Hopefully one day a writer will come in and also reveal that Kon had feeling for Tim to - it's so obvious at this point. And if Superman's biological child is queer, then there's already precedent for another member of the family that has half of his genetic makeup, right?

Uh… no? I’m one of five children and one of three sons. One of my brothers is flamboyantly gay, but myself and the other brother are straight. So Jon being queer doesn’t really mean anything for Conner’s status.

My view is that it's almost a non-existant line. And why does there even need to be a line anyway? Love is love, and it's not like there are clear demarcations between friendly love and romantic love. Everything is a sliding scale. Do you know how they say (straight) guys and girls can never be truly friends? Same thing I think here.

Because straight dudes don’t want to have sex with their male friends lmao, does every gay man who has a friendship with a woman secretly want to **** her? Look stuff like this is exactly the kind of thing that makes me just want to dissolve the Conner/Tim friendship entirely. If every interaction between the two is going to be Tim writers throwing shippers bait, and shippers demanding the two get together, then put an end to it and have Conner move on. That will force Tim’s new fanbase to find someone else to pair him with, preferably someone who is actually gay.

[Monari]

No it isn’t. It’s what a very loud minority group wants but to say the majority of Conner fans want it isn’t true. Totally disagree about Conner being “queer coded”, as seen with Tim devolving into a fanfic tier character, there’s a gulf of difference between the characters as they actually exist and shippers perception of them. It was the Teen Titans era not the YJ era, specifically when Kon died and Tim started doing all sorts of weird stuff that you wouldn’t expect a straight guy to do - even for a beloved friend - that caused the shipping to really take off.

I don’t care about Tim, and his fanbase had more or less disappeared thanks to DC’s continuously messing with him, making Tim bi has reignited interest in him. Now he’s the gay male rep in the Batfamily which is fine. That’s not the case for Conner, he’s already plenty popular thanks to his usage in stuff like the Titans and YJ shows. Most people know about Conner through those shows, and in those shows he’s paired with women. His most popular romantic relationship amongst general Conner fans is probably M’gann of all characters because of YJ. Amongst general Conner comic book fans it’s Cassie. Finally there’s Jon as the queer rep in the Superfamily (and if I had my way Apollo too).


Uh… no? I’m one of five children and one of three sons. One of my brothers is flamboyantly gay, but myself and the other brother are straight. So Jon being queer doesn’t really mean anything for Conner’s status.


Because straight dudes don’t want to have sex with their male friends lmao, does every gay man who has a friendship with a woman secretly want to **** her? Look stuff like this is exactly the kind of thing that makes me just want to dissolve the Conner/Tim friendship entirely. If every interaction between the two is going to be Tim writers throwing shippers bait, and shippers demanding the two get together, then put an end to it and have Conner move on. That will force Tim’s new fanbase to find someone else to pair him with, preferably someone who is actually gay.

Well. I stand corrected, I suppose. However, in all fairness, you can't deny that Connor was queer-coded from his inception as a character - he was born from two men. So, i'd argue, that a form of queerness has already been fundamentally hardwired into his origins. I do agree that a lot of the coding came after the YJ run, however even before that run you saw Connor always working to overcompensate with the ladies, in the same way that Bobby Drake did. The idea of a gay man coping with his homosexuality by overcompensating with women is all too common, and again, Connor is still just a teenager. If Alan Scott is only able to come to terms with his repressed queerness after decades of marriage then it's not out of the question that Connor isn't fully settled in his identity. In fact, i'd argue that 99% of all people aren't, if they're being truly honest with themselves. Connor's profile wasn't any better than Jon's, he was gone from comics for years and even with the YJ appearances, I think he could have used the boost to his popularity more than Jon could have tbh. But that's another argument. All that to be said, I don't really see how it would harm his character if he were revealed to have some queer feelings for Tim. It would just add depth imo.

[marhawkman]

I'm asking this out of respectful curiosity: is material sometimes read as "gay coding" sometimes simply the portrayal of a loving friendship between two heterosexual people of the same sex? I've read most of Conner and Tim's adventures since they both debuted (I started reading in 1988) and I've never seen anything but healthy, masculine friendship. Is there no room for that kind of relationship to exist without it being sexualized? Or am I missing something? Again, I ask this only to understand further.

I've seen cases of stuff like that happening so....

[Vordan]

All that to be said, I don't really see how it would harm his character if he were revealed to have some queer feelings for Tim. It would just add depth imo.

Haven’t found Tim to be a deeper character since he became bi. If anything he’s grown flatter, more fanfic-esque. End of the day I have three reasons why I’m opposed to it:

1. I am so sick of the Bats in fucking everything. Pairing Kon and Tim together means there is now a Bat permanently tied to the Super books, the exact opposite of what I want. Even the Cass Cain/Kon ship which I first thought was cute has gone sour for me simply because of how overexposed the Bats have become. Plus I already have two relationships I’m invested in when it comes to Conner, Cassie in the comics and M’gann in the show. I’ve never found Tim interesting and I don’t like the idea of Conner being permanently chained to such a boring character because of a fanfic ship from decade old comics.
2. I like Conner the way he is and Conner is plenty popular as he is. He’s never had the massive fall off in popularity that Tim has because the Superfamily isn’t as overloaded with members as the Batfamily is. He doesn’t need to be changed to find an audience as seen with how he won the Round Robin.
3. There’s already a Superfamily member who is dating men: Jon. The two are already competing against each other in a lot of ways, I see no reason to add yet another area of overlap. Jon can deal with the LGBT issues in the Superfamily and Conner can do his thing. Yes I know some want both but my answer to that is: you don’t always get what you want. If shippers got their way everyone in the Big 2 would be queer, it’s not like there isn’t a single character who hasn’t been shipped with another same sex/gender character at some point in fanfic. Freaking Superman and Batman get shipped together all the time, even Batman and the Joker get shipped together (and Joker’s homoerotic vibes with Batman put everyone else to shame).

“But I want Conner too!” does nothing to convince me that it’s a good or necessary change. All I see it resulting is is Conner devolving into Tim’s perfect boyfriend, just like how Bernard is a nothing character who only exists to be wholesome. The upcoming YJ Dark Crisis tie-in will definitely do more queer-baiting but until the day comes where they actually make Conner bi, any shipping with Tim should be confined to the Tim thread on the Batforums, because let’s be real: all of the queer projection is over how Tim acted in the relationship. Conner himself?



He’s made his feelings clear. All the homoerotic stuff that Johns wrote came from Tim’s end, Conner was only ever interested in girls like Cassie, Tanya, or the other various LIs he’s had.

Man I’m tired of this debate, until it happens you guys need to just keep it to the Tim Drake thread. If they actually change Conner’s sexuality then fine (they won’t), but until then the thread should be restricted to actual canon.

It could go two ways, unrequited feelings, or Kon confused and it leads to a love triangle between the three guys.

It won’t. I’m sure Fitzmartin would love to do that but Conner has his own solo coming and is involved in the upcoming Superfamily crossover. She doesn’t have the control over the character to do something like that, and honestly if they were going to make Conner gay or bi they would’ve done it already. Likely they can’t because Conner is being used in adaptions that have established him as straight, so they went with Jon instead (and even with him they likely made him bi instead of gay because of the CW show establishing him as liking women). Tim will likely be shown to have had feelings for Conner, Conner will say he’s touched but that he only likes Tim as a friend, and that will be the end of it.

She’s a CW writer, you can ask the SuperCorp fans all about how good that lot is at queerbaiting lmao. If she could actually put the two together she would’ve done it in the Pride one shot, that would’ve been the perfect place for it. She didn’t.

[dietrich]

Well. I stand corrected, I suppose. However, in all fairness, you can't deny that Connor was queer-coded from his inception as a character - he was born from two men. So, i'd argue, that a form of queerness has already been fundamentally hardwired into his origins. I do agree that a lot of the coding came after the YJ run, however even before that run you saw Connor always working to overcompensate with the ladies, in the same way that Bobby Drake did. The idea of a gay man coping with his homosexuality by overcompensating with women is all too common, and again, Connor is still just a teenager. If Alan Scott is only able to come to terms with his repressed queerness after decades of marriage then it's not out of the question that Connor isn't fully settled in his identity. In fact, i'd argue that 99% of all people aren't, if they're being truly honest with themselves. Connor's profile wasn't any better than Jon's, he was gone from comics for years and even with the YJ appearances, I think he could have used the boost to his popularity more than Jon could have tbh. But that's another argument. All that to be said, I don't really see how it would harm his character if he were revealed to have some queer feelings for Tim. It would just add depth imo.

Wow! Is that a popular reading in fandom? That's problematic since that is an argument often used in real life by those against same sex couples having kids/adopting.
two men parenting a child doesn't automatically mean that the kid is going to be LGBTQ. That's not a narrative that comics should be enforcing.

There are other ways to add depth to Kon that doesn't require making more like the other Young male character in the Super franchise.

If DC wants to have an sought of meaningful depth that can be mined for quality stories then they should lean into aspects of the character that are unique to him. Aspects that aren't present in various other males from his generation. Like his link to Luthor for example.