Jon Kent: Superman Appreciation 2023

[Korath]

Exactly. Readers don't care about Teen Jon because they have no reason to care. He's just a carbon copy of his dad that dropped in out of nowhere...and are constantly told how great he is. All of the 5G characters have faded away because they don't have a real purpose...they were created to replace characters that will never be truly replaced. DC should've just given them all an Earth 5G and let Jon grow up naturally.

Speak for yourself.

We are numerous enough to care more about Teen Jon than bland kid Jon to vastly favor him as a teenager/young adult. He can tackle way more stories (especially some more political) that way than as a kid when he had already exhausted basically all his appeal or potential story already - after poaching everything from Damian and leaving the latest Robin in a far worse state than he had been before Jon was introduced.

[garazza]

Speak for yourself.

We are numerous enough to care more about Teen Jon

Clearly not enough of you since all of his books keep getting cancelled.

than bland kid Jon to vastly favor him as a teenager/young adult.

Yeeeeeaaaaah, that bad faith insult doesn't have any weight to it if it ever did because it shows you didn't really care about the character to have read anything beyond the very surface level of his books, if you read anything at all.

DC has had over 5 years to make him not "bland" and somehow made him even less of a character than you allege he was when he was a kid by just being another Clark when DC already has a Clark, his name is Superman.

Why do you people keep expecting a character that had only been around for 2 years to be anything other than relatively basic but still pretty clear and well understood when he isn't provided the time, space, or opportunity to continue the slow but not insignificant character growth that he had been getting because at what speed did you think a brand new character like him should have been developing? Because I know no one was asking for 7 years to happen overnight like someone waved a magic wand to make it happen.

When you plant a seed in the ground, it doesn't immediately sprout fully grown and bearing fruit. Why did you expect the same of Jon? Characters take time and patience.

He can tackle way more stories (especially some more political) that way than as a kid

Can he? What are the future Superman stories that can't be done with Clark and can only be done better with Jon aged up and as Superman? What is the actual longevity of aged up Jon as Superman in an already filled role?

Why does Jon have to be the one to do the political stories? Because he's queer? Why is it that when something features a queer character, all of a sudden it becomes political*? Can't he tell more grounded, character-driven stories while the real Superman tells the more relevant, political stories because he's better suited for telling those stories instead of being forced into telling them because...the writer wants people to see how much of Good PersonTM he is by being more concerned with checking boxes and using buzzwords?

when he had already exhausted basically all his appeal or potential story already

Has he? Then why, after Super Sons was cancelled not because of low sales but because DC hired the most expensive man in comics, did he get two mini series and two short stories that showed the range of Jon as character and just how evergreen he is when he's not aged up?

Those stories showed he can do space adventures and magical romps to low-stakes, light-hearted stories that are the reason readers fell in love with the character in first place because of how lacking DC was with those kinds of stories at the time and how DC somehow is still missing those kinds of stories right now.

- after poaching everything from Damian and leaving the latest Robin in a far worse state than he had been before Jon was introduced.

Because yes, you're right, Jon is solely responsible for Damian's character assassination and not the editors and writers that chose to disregard the investment of fans from the last ten years in favor of a misguided and unnecessary attempt to replicate an oft misunderstood character dynamic from a completely different publisher.



*I know the reason why, I just want to challenge the politicization of my identity by pushing the idea that queer characters are just as normal as straight, cisgendered characters are and more stories should be told with them the same way stories with those same cishet characters are told

[garazza]

I think most of the problems for Jon is that they keep failling to the same fallacy as for Clark : he needs more/unique powers they believe.

When he doesn't. He needs to be the Champion of the Oppressed of our age, the Golden Age to contrast with his father's Silver Ag/Modern Age take.

You just fell for another fallacy, that being that Superman is out-dated and no longer relevant when that's not true. Superman is still relevant and will always be relevant and doesn't need to be replaced, especially by a lesser version.

Jon fills a role and it's not as Superman.

[Mantis-Ray]

Just saying, majority of characters are either teenagers or adults. Which means Kid Jon is objectively more unique as we don't have many kid superheroes nowadays.

I also don't understand why Jon has to grow up. Most superheros don't age, either they stay the same age or get younger even like the Young Justice guys. If Batman can be a perpetual 40 year old then there's nothing wrong than Jon being a kid longterm.

[manwhohaseverything]

Speak for yourself.

We are numerous enough to care more about Teen Jon than bland kid Jon to vastly favor him as a teenager/young adult. He can tackle way more stories (especially some more political) that way than as a kid when he had already exhausted basically all his appeal or potential story already - after poaching everything from Damian and leaving the latest Robin in a far worse state than he had been before Jon was introduced.

i will tell you one thing teen jon hasn't worked for me either under bendis nor under taylor.I am not saying the character can't work.But,they need a different approach or perspective.I like the future state stuff.See jon has the capacity to make mistakes,not go all "i am thy lord and savior.Obey me as i condescend to you with my greatness". That's going clark route.He needs the energy.Not pacifism..He needs more spiderman in him.More monkey business pls...

[Korath]

Just saying, majority of characters are either teenagers or adults. Which means Kid Jon is objectively more unique as we don't have many kid superheroes nowadays.

I also don't understand why Jon has to grow up. Most superheros don't age, either they stay the same age or get younger even like the Young Justice guys. If Batman can be a perpetual 40 year old then there's nothing wrong than Jon being a kid longterm.

In comics.

As a reader of other forms of relatively similar medium (B.D. and Mangas) I have seen tons of young naive idealistic kids. THey rarely, if ever, makes it to Main Character status and are almost always - as far as I can remember - boring as hell.

And not to start of quote war with garazza but teen Jon alreayd had way better stories than kid Jon in my book - he was tolerable in the Rebirth Superman run, but Supersons sucked hard, from start to finish. And being a queer has nothing to do with being political. Jon motto being Truth, Justice and a Better Tomorrow is, however. And that's what they should follow. Have him be more of a radical instead of a liberal (US style, mercifully) like his father. And have them agree to disagree on the means but not the ends and don't have them fight, have them supporting each others.

[Frontier]

In comics.

As a reader of other forms of relatively similar medium (B.D. and Mangas) I have seen tons of young naive idealistic kids. THey rarely, if ever, makes it to Main Character status and are almost always - as far as I can remember - boring as hell.

And not to start of quote war with garazza but teen Jon alreayd had way better stories than kid Jon in my book - he was tolerable in the Rebirth Superman run, but Supersons sucked hard, from start to finish. And being a queer has nothing to do with being political. Jon motto being Truth, Justice and a Better Tomorrow is, however. And that's what they should follow. Have him be more of a radical instead of a liberal (US style, mercifully) like his father. And have them agree to disagree on the means but not the ends and don't have them fight, have them supporting each others.

Isn't that just his dad's motto now?

[garazza]

In comics.

As a reader of other forms of relatively similar medium (B.D. and Mangas) I have seen tons of young naive idealistic kids. THey rarely, if ever, makes it to Main Character status and are almost always - as far as I can remember - boring as hell.

I don't know what this means. Shonen is the most popular genre of manga and the main characters of many of those mangas are those young naive idealistic kids that you say are boring as hell. You can not like those kinds of characters, that's perfectly fine, but I don't know what you mean when you say they aren't main characters when that's just not true.

And not to start of quote war with garazza but teen Jon alreayd had way better stories than kid Jon in my book - he was tolerable in the Rebirth Superman run, but Supersons sucked hard, from start to finish. And being a queer has nothing to do with being political. Jon motto being Truth, Justice and a Better Tomorrow is, however. And that's what they should follow. Have him be more of a radical instead of a liberal (US style, mercifully) like his father. And have them agree to disagree on the means but not the ends and don't have them fight, have them supporting each others.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHH, so you don't like Jon Kent, you like a completely different character who is nothing like the one introduced to readers that just so happens to have the same name as Jon Kent. Got it.

You have different wants and expectations for these books and characters, and again, that's perfectly fine.

[CPSparkles]

Clearly not enough of you since all of his books keep getting cancelled.



Yeeeeeaaaaah, that bad faith insult doesn't have any weight to it if it ever did because it shows you didn't really care about the character to have read anything beyond the very surface level of his books, if you read anything at all.

DC has had over 5 years to make him not "bland" and somehow made him even less of a character than you allege he was when he was a kid by just being another Clark when DC already has a Clark, his name is Superman.

Why do you people keep expecting a character that had only been around for 2 years to be anything other than relatively basic but still pretty clear and well understood when he isn't provided the time, space, or opportunity to continue the slow but not insignificant character growth that he had been getting because at what speed did you think a brand new character like him should have been developing? Because I know no one was asking for 7 years to happen overnight like someone waved a magic wand to make it happen.

When you plant a seed in the ground, it doesn't immediately sprout fully grown and bearing fruit. Why did you expect the same of Jon? Characters take time and patience.



Can he? What are the future Superman stories that can't be done with Clark and can only be done better with Jon aged up and as Superman? What is the actual longevity of aged up Jon as Superman in an already filled role?

Why does Jon have to be the one to do the political stories? Because he's queer? Why is it that when something features a queer character, all of a sudden it becomes political*? Can't he tell more grounded, character-driven stories while the real Superman tells the more relevant, political stories because he's better suited for telling those stories instead of being forced into telling them because...the writer wants people to see how much of Good PersonTM he is by being more concerned with checking boxes and using buzzwords?



Has he? Then why, after Super Sons was cancelled not because of low sales but because DC hired the most expensive man in comics, did he get two mini series and two short stories that showed the range of Jon as character and just how evergreen he is when he's not aged up?

Those stories showed he can do space adventures and magical romps to low-stakes, light-hearted stories that are the reason readers fell in love with the character in first place because of how lacking DC was with those kinds of stories at the time and how DC somehow is still missing those kinds of stories right now.



Because yes, you're right, Jon is solely responsible for Damian's character assassination and not the editors and writers that chose to disregard the investment of fans from the last ten years in favor of a misguided and unnecessary attempt to replicate an oft misunderstood character dynamic from a completely different publisher.



*I know the reason why, I just want to challenge the politicization of my identity by pushing the idea that queer characters are just as normal as straight, cisgendered characters are and more stories should be told with them the same way stories with those same cishet characters are told

Bendis didn't make the call to age up Jon. That was DC higher-ups setting up his role in the upcoming revamp of the DC Universe. 5G
Teen Jon's title wasn't cancelled because of sales and it had better sales I believe than the Digital Super Son's digital volumes.
Teen Titans by Glass was a launched specifically to 'push Damian down a dark path resulting in him losing the Robin mantle' DC editorial deliberately wanted to turn him into baby Hitler walking back all his progress over the past 15 years just so he can be Jon's Magneto for 5G.

DC might have made the choice but the reason behind the choice was Jon and the close bond developed in Super Sons.

DC can make Teen Jon interesting and different from his dad. By that I don't mean more political stories or him fight homophobia.... because BI. Being LGBTQ and good shouldn't be his whole character

Teen Jon clearly has fans. It's insulting and incorrect to claim otherwise. I believe DC can still make Teen Jon work. They just need to not make him so flawless, dial back the forced fanservice and take time to develop his relationships, world view and motivations.

Teen Jon feels like a stranger. Everything about him is so hollow/shallow like his relationship with Nightwing. Nightwing's relationship with Clark and Damian should theoretically result in Jon holding the hero in high regard and looking forward to meeting him. There was a really good story waiting to be told about the two finally meeting and we didn't get that. That was such a bomber.

[Mantis-Ray]

In comics.

As a reader of other forms of relatively similar medium (B.D. and Mangas) I have seen tons of young naive idealistic kids. THey rarely, if ever, makes it to Main Character status and are almost always - as far as I can remember - boring as hell.

And not to start of quote war with garazza but teen Jon alreayd had way better stories than kid Jon in my book - he was tolerable in the Rebirth Superman run, but Supersons sucked hard, from start to finish. And being a queer has nothing to do with being political. Jon motto being Truth, Justice and a Better Tomorrow is, however. And that's what they should follow. Have him be more of a radical instead of a liberal (US style, mercifully) like his father. And have them agree to disagree on the means but not the ends and don't have them fight, have them supporting each others.

"But other stuff is doing this."- Nope don't care. What other stuff is doing is absolutely irrelevant compared to whats actually going on in the specific medium of western comics.

Also your statement that the "kid is rarely the main character" is patently false. The protagonist of many shonen stories generally tends to be a cheerful kid.

[Monari]

I don't know what this means. Shonen is the most popular genre of manga and the main characters of many of those mangas are those young naive idealistic kids that you say are boring as hell. You can not like those kinds of characters, that's perfectly fine, but I don't know what you mean when you say they aren't main characters when that's just not true.



OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHH, so you don't like Jon Kent, you like a completely different character who is nothing like the one introduced to readers that just so happens to have the same name as Jon Kent. Got it.

You have different wants and expectations for these books and characters, and again, that's perfectly fine.

I truly feel that the best way forward is to establish both Teen Jon and Kid Jon as separate characters at this point. It would cause the least amount of strife between both groups of fans and preserve all of the character development of both. As you said, they seem sufficiently different now that it can probably be done. Teen Jon also needs to have his own space to grow in. Right now he's tripping over other supers. I really think a mini series devoted to him and Jay having adventures in the future with the Legion while Kid Jon lives with Clark and Lois in present day would be ideal.

[Morgoth]

I really doubt DC has any real interest in bringing Kid Jon back to the main continuity, to be honest. There's been a lot of talk about this, but I think it's more because they just don't want Clark to have a little kid, and he's more convenient for them as a teenager/young adult.
It's another OMD situation. A lot of people hates the decision editorial made, but from their perspective it's better for writers and for the character in long-term.

[Jackalope89]

In comics.

As a reader of other forms of relatively similar medium (B.D. and Mangas) I have seen tons of young naive idealistic kids. THey rarely, if ever, makes it to Main Character status and are almost always - as far as I can remember - boring as hell.

And not to start of quote war with garazza but teen Jon alreayd had way better stories than kid Jon in my book - he was tolerable in the Rebirth Superman run, but Supersons sucked hard, from start to finish. And being a queer has nothing to do with being political. Jon motto being Truth, Justice and a Better Tomorrow is, however. And that's what they should follow. Have him be more of a radical instead of a liberal (US style, mercifully) like his father. And have them agree to disagree on the means but not the ends and don't have them fight, have them supporting each others.

Something tells me you're only choosing that based on a select amount of manga, or even just select genres of manga. As shounen manga has been filled to the brim with the "young, naive, and idealistic" for decades as the main protagonists. With their rivals often being the broody, quiet types. Hell, one of the biggest names in anime and manga, Son Goku, can still be called "idealistic" (young, not so much, being in his 50s now). Its been one of his character traits since the beginning. And he also has a LONG track record of being naive as well, but that hasn't stemmed his, and Dragon Ball's popularity as a whole, at all.

After having to endure 5 years of a character whose one defining trait since being created is "bisexual", under 2 well known writers that otherwise failed to do pretty much anything else with teenJon, while the kid version still got more character development and interesting adventures in side stories, and even an animated film that has been well received, its pretty fair to say that the teenJon imposter has been a failure from the word "Pa". At best, he was simply re-hashing what Clark had already done (and did better too), while at worse, well, having his mom walk in on him in the shower (what in the actual hell was Bendis thinking with that anyway!?) as a "comedic joke". Nevermind that, many of those that still followed at the time were longtime anime and manga fans that had seen the same thing, but in Romantic Comedies, made it that much more awkward.

[Knightsilver]

In comics.

As a reader of other forms of relatively similar medium (B.D. and Mangas) I have seen tons of young naive idealistic kids. THey rarely, if ever, makes it to Main Character status and are almost always - as far as I can remember - boring as hell.

And not to start of quote war with garazza but teen Jon alreayd had way better stories than kid Jon in my book - he was tolerable in the Rebirth Superman run, but Supersons sucked hard, from start to finish. And being a queer has nothing to do with being political. Jon motto being Truth, Justice and a Better Tomorrow is, however. And that's what they should follow. Have him be more of a radical instead of a liberal (US style, mercifully) like his father. And have them agree to disagree on the means but not the ends and don't have them fight, have them supporting each others.

There are tons of Shonen where kids are main protagonists. Goku in Dragon Ball started as a kid and so did Naruto for 2 popular examples. And you're basically admitting that you don't really see Teen Jon as interesting either...since your ideas require him to become a completely different character.

[Knightsilver]

I really doubt DC has any real interest in bringing Kid Jon back to the main continuity, to be honest. There's been a lot of talk about this, but I think it's more because they just don't want Clark to have a little kid, and he's more convenient for them as a teenager/young adult.
It's another OMD situation. A lot of people hates the decision editorial made, but from their perspective it's better for writers and for the character in long-term.

They let Clark and Lois adopt a couple of kids recently...so they may have gotten over that feeling.