Potential 9-year-old Kal-El?

[stebbinsd]

So I was watching the DCAU cartoon "Justice League." At the end of Episode 3, Superman confronts the Martian Man Hunter (and I'm not referring to him as "Juan," because to me, that's always confused the hell out of me during the show; it always takes a minute to figure out whether the characters are referring to Juan, the Martian Manhunter, or to John, the Green Lantern; so I will refer to them by their superhero names just to avoid confusion). MMH is brooding because he's lost his home, and Superman asks MMH to join the Justice League, in the hopes that MMH will come to accept Earth as his new home, just as Superman has.

I'm sitting there thinking to myself ... that's not even close to the same thing! MMH has first-hand memories of his homeworld, and of the war that claimed his people. Superman was shipped to earth as a baby, and has no direct memories of life on krypton. He spent most of his childhood believing he was an earthling (a belief that was assisted by the fact that he looks entirely human, whereas MMH's natural form, without shape shifting, clearly screams "alien" from a mile away), and then had to retroactively accept the fact that he was an alien, after already becoming fully accustomed to life on earth.

That was several months ago. However, recently, I got to thinking ... wouldn't that be an interesting premise for a spin-off miniseries? DC Comics has experimented with multiple "alternate versions" of Superman, where they use the base character as a starting point and tweak one or two minor details of his origin, and then follow that character to its natural conclusion. Here are just a few examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OrxlQxoxJY

Imagine a spin-off series where Kal-El is already 9 years old (just to avoid confusion, let's assume that a kryptonian year is the same as an earth year, and kryptonians come of age at 18, just like earthlings do, so whichever planet you're using, Kal-El is exactly halfway through his childhood). He knows Krypton. He knows his biological parents, Jor-El and Lal-el. A spaceship is prepared for him to flee to earth to escape Krypton's destruction. We might have to fudge some details to explain why his parents aren't coming along with him; maybe they both have some sort of terminal illness and realize that coming with him would be pointless because they're just going to die anyway without Kryptonian medicine. But whatever excuse we come up with, we can just assume that Jor-El knocks out Kal-el and drags his unconscious body into the spaceship against Kal-El's protests.

Kal-El lands on earth, near the Kent's farm, who he accepts as his new surrogate family. He spends the next half of his childhood becoming accustomed to life on Earth.

However, in this spin-off series, Kal-El actually has mixed upbringing! Remember that it's Clark's upbringing that defines who he is; in all those spin-off series I linked you to above, changing just one or two minor details of Kal-El's origin turns Superman into a radically different character!

I wonder what kind of character Superman would become. He has half his upbringing under Earth influence, and half under Kryptonian influence While I'm sure the El family would have raised Kal-El to be a "good guy," the actual day to day upbringing and parenting style would almost certainly be very different from the Kents.

Then there's the actual memories of Krypton's last moments. I wonder how Kal-El would adjust to actually having to cope with the fact that his homeworld is gone and having to move on with life from there, instead of retroactively swallowing the much smaller pill that he came from a planet he never knew and using that as a conceit to accept that he has super powers.

Do you think he's become another Batman? Having direct memories of losing his parents just like Bruce Wayne, I wonder if he might become obsessed with his Superhero duties to the exclusion of any personal life. In other words ... he doesn't become a reporter and doesn't start dating Lois Lane, because of he's afraid of becoming attached and then losing his loved ones again.

Everyone discuss this premise! Should DC do this?

[jbmasta]

Doesn't this seem a bit like Smallville, although with a younger Clark? By season three he was aware of his Kryptonian heritage and was beginning to have Jor-El as an active presence in his life, whether he wanted it or not. He had to deal with his family, antagonistic Kryptonians, Kryptonian experiments and Phantom Zone escapees.

It sounds like Kara from the Supergirl TV show also head to deal with getting past the destruction of Krypton and embrace life on Earth. Since we haven't had as much insight into that part of her life it's not as pronounced.

[Bor]

So I was watching the DCAU cartoon "Justice League." At the end of Episode 3, Superman confronts the Martian Man Hunter (and I'm not referring to him as "Juan," because to me, that's always confused the hell out of me during the show; it always takes a minute to figure out whether the characters are referring to Juan, the Martian Manhunter, or to John, the Green Lantern; so I will refer to them by their superhero names just to avoid confusion). MMH is brooding because he's lost his home, and Superman asks MMH to join the Justice League, in the hopes that MMH will come to accept Earth as his new home, just as Superman has.

I'm sitting there thinking to myself ... that's not even close to the same thing! MMH has first-hand memories of his homeworld, and of the war that claimed his people. Superman was shipped to earth as a baby, and has no direct memories of life on krypton. He spent most of his childhood believing he was an earthling (a belief that was assisted by the fact that he looks entirely human, whereas MMH's natural form, without shape shifting, clearly screams "alien" from a mile away), and then had to retroactively accept the fact that he was an alien, after already becoming fully accustomed to life on earth.

That was several months ago. However, recently, I got to thinking ... wouldn't that be an interesting premise for a spin-off miniseries? DC Comics has experimented with multiple "alternate versions" of Superman, where they use the base character as a starting point and tweak one or two minor details of his origin, and then follow that character to its natural conclusion. Here are just a few examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OrxlQxoxJY

Imagine a spin-off series where Kal-El is already 9 years old (just to avoid confusion, let's assume that a kryptonian year is the same as an earth year, and kryptonians come of age at 18, just like earthlings do, so whichever planet you're using, Kal-El is exactly halfway through his childhood). He knows Krypton. He knows his biological parents, Jor-El and Lal-el. A spaceship is prepared for him to flee to earth to escape Krypton's destruction. We might have to fudge some details to explain why his parents aren't coming along with him; maybe they both have some sort of terminal illness and realize that coming with him would be pointless because they're just going to die anyway without Kryptonian medicine. But whatever excuse we come up with, we can just assume that Jor-El knocks out Kal-el and drags his unconscious body into the spaceship against Kal-El's protests.

Kal-El lands on earth, near the Kent's farm, who he accepts as his new surrogate family. He spends the next half of his childhood becoming accustomed to life on Earth.

However, in this spin-off series, Kal-El actually has mixed upbringing! Remember that it's Clark's upbringing that defines who he is; in all those spin-off series I linked you to above, changing just one or two minor details of Kal-El's origin turns Superman into a radically different character!

I wonder what kind of character Superman would become. He has half his upbringing under Earth influence, and half under Kryptonian influence While I'm sure the El family would have raised Kal-El to be a "good guy," the actual day to day upbringing and parenting style would almost certainly be very different from the Kents.

Then there's the actual memories of Krypton's last moments. I wonder how Kal-El would adjust to actually having to cope with the fact that his homeworld is gone and having to move on with life from there, instead of retroactively swallowing the much smaller pill that he came from a planet he never knew and using that as a conceit to accept that he has super powers.

Do you think he's become another Batman? Having direct memories of losing his parents just like Bruce Wayne, I wonder if he might become obsessed with his Superhero duties to the exclusion of any personal life. In other words ... he doesn't become a reporter and doesn't start dating Lois Lane, because of he's afraid of becoming attached and then losing his loved ones again.

Everyone discuss this premise! Should DC do this?

Isnt what you are asking here in many ways just Supergirl´s background?´I know its not the exact same thing but a lot of the elements just seems like her backstory when it comes to the whole "being older and remembering her original planet" thing.

[bat39]

This is actually pretty much how things went in the Silver Age. Kal-El was only a toddler when he was rocketed to earth, but thanks to 'super-memory', he had total recall of his infancy on Krypton from an early age. By the time he started out as Superboy, at age 10, he had already fully embraced his Kryptonian heritage.

[Slaughter]

Seems like a good elseworld concept. If you wanted to play with it, maybe Kara arrives to Earth as toddler and he has to raise her.

This Superman might also be more interested in reviving Krypton. Deshrink Kandor, rehabilitate Phantom Zone prisoners, create human-kryptonian hybrids.

This is actually pretty much how things went in the Silver Age. Kal-El was only a toddler when he was rocketed to earth, but thanks to 'super-memory', he had total recall of his infancy on Krypton from an early age.

That's... a bit silly.

[victorsage]

That's... a bit silly.

That's the Silver Age babe. Stories written for boys from the age of 5-10.