Fixing Jon

[Will Evans]

No offense, but Jon is way to young to meet the soulmate of his life in Jay.
Maybe he needs to travel the world like Clark did post-high school.

[Celgress]

No offense, but Jon is way to young to meet the soulmate of his life in Jay.
Maybe he needs to travel the world like Clark did post-high school.

Agreed, but they want (badly) Jay to be his Lois and this is a problem. The entire point of the character is to be the "perfect" love interest for Sups Jr. I think a better approach (as you outlined) would be to let Jon play the field and see which love interest resonates with the fans. Right now, I'm far more invested in JonxDreamer than I've ever been in JonxJay, heck, I think Jon had a more interesting dynamic with Jay's teammate who distrusted Jon (sorry I forget his name lol) than he had/has with Jay.

Edit - I also found Jon's brief semi-flirting interactions with Yara Flor more interesting than any of his romance with Jay has been and they've barely interacted!

[JorgeJ77]

I'm a delight, but thanks for the unnecessary attack. It really addressed what I feel are the problems with the character.

Sorry I won't just blindly accept whatever is put my way and pretend its something great or even interesting. I think DC botched this from the start and keep doubling down on their mistake.

I find Otho & Osul more interesting* and they've been around 5 minutes, but they have a clear origin, a strong story to bring them in with directions laid out for the future, and a bond that we've seen forged in the comics. I believe in them as characters and their place with Superman more than I do with Jon after all these years.

You may completely disagree, and that's fine, but the thread is called fixing Jon and I don't think that can start until the problems are identified and resolved.

*personally, it's not my preference they stay long term but I have been interested in what PKJ was doing with them.

I'm not an idiot, I know the problems, you just seemed a bit too harsh.

[Journey]

No offense, but Jon is way to young to meet the soulmate of his life in Jay.
Maybe he needs to travel the world like Clark did post-high school.

I’ve always said the second Jon gets away from Taylor for more than a few months Jay is gone. I still want them to bring that Ash character back they had a interesting dynamic.

[All Star Superman]

The solution lies in another time-based story like Zero Hour. Undo the last several years, including ALL of Bendis, Taylor, and Johnson's nonsense. Restore Jon as a ten or twelve year old Superboy and give him annual minis outside of appearances in the Superman titles.

As for the "need" for an LGBTQ character in the Superman universe, create a character first and then make this an element of who they are, just as this is but one element of a real person in real life. Maggie Sawyer is a great blueprint.

[Celgress]

I’ve always said the second Jon gets away from Taylor for more than a few months Jay is gone. I still want them to bring that Ash character back they had a interesting dynamic.

I hope you're right. *crosses fingers*

[Vordan]

Kill him. Keep him dead for a few years and come up with a plan for what to do with him when he comes back. Get rid of Jay and Taylor at least.

The solution lies in another time-based story like Zero Hour. Undo the last several years, including ALL of Bendis, Taylor, and Johnson's nonsense.

Zero Hour was trash and retconning years of stories is what got DC into trouble in the first place.

[Robotman]

Split the difference on the de-aging. Make him 14 instead of reverting him back to a 10 year old. That way he’s back to being in Damian’s age range and the Super Sons can reunite plus he’d be in high school which is a socially acceptable age for him to be dating. If he’s dating there could be story focus on his LGBTQ status.

[walk]

I think Jon as a character is kind of fundamentally broken he was obviously designed to be a coming of age story but then they skipped the section where all the meat like the growth and maturing happens so now writers have nothing to draw from to inform who he should be now as a young adult which has left him rather generic and ill-defined.

The one the thing they could use to help set him apart is the obvious trauma the whole Ultraman situation realistically should've left him with but because the storyline itself was contrived trash no one really wants to touch it.

At this point I think it'll take an adaption with unique vision that really distinguishes Jon from his dad that proves popular with general audiences and that'll eventually bleeds back into the comics because it is kind of sad that he's going on 10 years and the most successful creative decision around him is his friendship with Damian.

[Knightsilver]

Reveal that Teen Jon is a result of the Time Trapper's manipulations to destroy the timeline. Have Teen Jon realize this...and save his kid self from Earth 3. Have a massive showdown between the Time Trapper and the Super Family...that ends in Teen Jon embracing his full power and defeating the Trapper. He then ascends to a higher plane of existence leaving Kid Jon with his parents.

[garazza]

Split the difference on the de-aging. Make him 14 instead of reverting him back to a 10 year old. That way he’s back to being in Damian’s age range and the Super Sons can reunite plus he’d be in high school which is a socially acceptable age for him to be dating. If he’s dating there could be story focus on his LGBTQ status.

You managed to say in four sentences what I've been trying to say for three years.

The problem is glaring and the solution has been obnoxiously obvious and simple. Why else would we still have this kind of thread after six years when Jon Kent is eight years old as a character? The last time everyone (publisher and readers and fans) was on the same page about the character was before he was aged up. Whether you liked him or hated him, Jon as a character when he was a kid had a clear and well understood purpose. It was only after he was aged up were there massive disagreements and arguments about Jon among fans and readers and even the publisher.

Before he was aged up, the only real problem or disagreement about the character was how much time and space Jon was getting in the main Superman titles over Superman, the character that fans are wanting to read about in a book titled "Superman". Now after all these years, DC has been putting out a lot of work all centered around Superman that has been really well received by fans, feeding the hunger for classic Superman stories after the N52 that started with Rebirth but may have been soured by the perceived overemphasis on Jon but nonetheless Jon was pretty well received on his own too.

The honeymoon period of Rebirth, which brought back classic Superman to prominence, has long since passed and he now enjoys an even bigger position of prominence than he ever did during Rebirth, but now there's no other character standing in his way taking up the spotlight. And still, Jon Kent is more popular as a kid than he's ever been aged up, something he's been for three times as long than he was as a kid.

All those Superman fans that hated Jon now no longer have to worry about his presence taking away from Superman's because they're safe in the understanding that even if he's de-aged he will again never occupy a position as prominent as he had during Rebirth. I don't see that as a problem because Jon Kent fans don't want to have to go to the main Superman books to get their Jon Kent fix. What DC should do is just do what they already did and have an ongoing Super Sons book, or better yet a solo Superboy book, and let that be where Jon Kent fans can read about him while Superman fans can read about Superman in the books that are actually titled "Superman".

Not de-aging him and keeping him aged up causes more problems than solves them. After all these years, DC can still easily make Jon a kid again and just do what they were doing during Rebirth with Super Sons and not all disrupt what they've has been doing with Superman for Dawn of DC, the only real difference being that Jon would be 14 and attending high school, but that's really only a superficial and cosmetic change and it wouldn't be all that different from what they were doing during Rebirth (the last time everything was working) except Jon and Damian are not 12-13.

[manwhohaseverything]

Making him Superman was a mistake a big beef people have always had with Jon was he doesn’t differentiate from Clark, sure even when he was Superboy people had beef because that was Connor’s thing but that just proves my point beyond his sexuality Jon has no individuality to stand on. He needs to discover himself this is a boy who lost years of his life in isolation & the. Immediately hopped back into the superhero bs & just bandwagoned off his dad he never had a chance to discover himself, even now Jon takes on a lot of Jay’s beliefs & calls them his own, he doesn’t know who he is.

Clark was superboy as well. nobody had a problem with that.He doesn't "discover" himself or whatever that means.He just needs a different shtick than his dad.A superman that isn't about saving the world or being thy lord and savior would perfectly encapsulate the difference between jon and clark.Clark is about "fix"ing and "perfect"ing the world, with him standing as the ideal or moral standard.Jon is about discovering some ancient ninja rune that tirns people into apple pie or something...He can also be far more local when it comes to helping people,than clark and far more personal..A friendly neighborhood champion..aka superman of metropolis.Giving another name does nothing to what's fundamentally been the problem with the character.Which is zero personality,lack of a better Direction and motivation for the character than same old hum drum savior "man of speeches" shtick his dad does.

[magha_regulus]

Jon is, and has always been, a bland and predictable nothing character. Sure, he exists, but what has he actually done in a decade? What has been added by such a major new character?

What sets him apart from his Dad (outside of Superman having to work to become what he is vs nepotism)? What does he like that his Dad doesn't? What does he do different to his Dad? Why should we care about him when we have his Dad? He doesn't even have a Kryptonian name.

He arrived already 8-10, so we skipped the excitement of a pregnancy/birth. He immediately started finding his powers, so we skipped to a base-power level with no complications. He palled around with Damian in some meaningless (apparently fun) basically non-cannon adventures, then jumped to Superman-lite.

None of this is remotely interesting, compelling or surprising. None of this established a new character or the start of their journey.

DC have done what pretty much happens every single time a super-hero kid comes in. The safest route to the blandest kid-version of the lead character. There was never a plan for Jon (initially) and DC didn't want to put in the work to make a compelling character for him (admittedly, everything surrounding bringing him in and Rebirth was a clusterfuck). They eventually locked in on "replacement Superman" and now we're stuck with him.

To say nothing about what it has taken from Lois, who was relegated to wife/mother (thank you, Williamson, and to a degree Bendis).

If DC wants to turn him around, in my opinion, they have no choice but to go backwards. Go back and show us his journey. Show Superman and Lois dealing with the pregnancy. Show the years of Clark and Lois being good parents before the powers kicked in. Show us Jon slowly learning his powers over years with his Dad as teacher (and access to the Fortress), and how that is different to Clark who had to do it solo. What new challenges did/does Jon face?

Show his years on Earth 3 moulding him into an adult and actual hero, learning right and wrong, not just his Dad's ideals aand teaching but through experience - i.e.. have him out on Earth 3, a world where good literally cannot win, fighting to be a hero, a supporting cast, loves, betrayals, little wins and big losses, actually making him a rounded and original character rather than a watered down version of his Dad.

As for now? Shunt him off to the future with the LoSH, add him to a multi-versal Justice League, have him be Superman's emissary and live on Zod's New Krypton (also a waste of a decade, bring on Kneel Before Zod!), send him back to Krypton's past, Colu, Czarnia, back to Earth 3, anywhere!

Just give him adventures as far away from his Dad, Metropolis, and everything else that only detracts from his being something fresh and original.

Jon has been around for a long time and I still have no idea why I should care. I have Superman, why do I need a less interesting spare who doesn't even have a cohesive journey to this point that I can read?

To make a lazy parallel, Gohan's journey may have been messy and disjointed but at least an attempt was made to show growth and establish why we should care about Goku's son (until that changed). DC had no interest in doing that, they just wanted to jump to the "Superman but younger bit", the least interesting part.

If you want an indictment of the character, he's been around for a almost decade and pretty much the only conversation around here is complaining that he was aged up (moaning he has a boyfriend is a distant second). The guy has made so little impact that DC made a show specifically about Superman having kids and didn't use the comics version of Jon (in fact, went as far away as possible).

I genuinely hope the next DC reboot wipes him away so they can try again with an actual plan, as what we currently have is nothing but an encumbrance to the Superman mythos.

He's not even that bad, he's just a completely unnecessary extra. I might sound like I hate him but I nothing him. I largely forget he exists until he is actually on panel, just being another Superman, and then I forget him again.

I share your sentiments. He's really a mess of a character. He is an anomaly and they should lean into that. His whole existence is a big macguffin and at this point they should just lean into that and acknowledge it.

[magha_regulus]

Reveal that Teen Jon is a result of the Time Trapper's manipulations to destroy the timeline. Have Teen Jon realize this...and save his kid self from Earth 3. Have a massive showdown between the Time Trapper and the Super Family...that ends in Teen Jon embracing his full power and defeating the Trapper. He then ascends to a higher plane of existence leaving Kid Jon with his parents.

I like the Time Trapper angle.

[Morgoth]

He needs something like Warworld Saga. Some big space adventure with completely different setting and different cast of characters. Away from Clark and Damian (because at this point Jon is defined by him being Clark's son and Damian's best friend) and especially away from Jay, because he sucks.