What Type of Relationship Did Superman & Lex Have with Conner?

[Dominick1216]

In Pre-Flashpoint and New 52, what type of relationship did both Superman and Lex Luthor have with Conner? He shared both of their genes in Pre-Flashpoint, but only Clark's in New 52. So, was it father and son relationship? Or was it a different relationship?

[Adekis]

Kal and Kon have never had a father/son relationship in any medium for any length of time, unless I'm missing a single-issue Elseworlds one-shot somewhere (which is likely).

In the New 52, from what I remember, Kal reacted to Kon fairly cordially. He acted like an approachable authority figure. For example, he accepted Kon's help in facing H'El, but he also told him that they'd need to have "a talk" about the Teen Titans, unsupervised minors acting as metahuman vigilantes- yet he wasn't harsh or commanding when he said so.

That's not totally inconsistent with a less-well developed version of the pre-Flashpoint Superman's relationship with Kon, which cast Kal in the role of an awesome but approachable big brother, at least after Kon learned Kal's secret identity (in Hypertension?)

From what I remember of Kon's relationship with Luthor though, Lex mostly like tried to brainwash Superboy into shaving his head and committing crimes for him. That's one reason why the adult Kon's father-son relationship with Lex (who he called "Pa" if I recall correctly) in Titans Tomorrow was so weird. Of course as it turns out, that Superman wasn't really Kon at all, but a clone of Kon that that timeline's Tim created after Kon died in Infinite Crisis. In the main timeline of course, though Tim flirted with the idea, he ultimately decided not to and the original Kon returned to life during Legion of Three Worlds.

Anyway, that's basically it. Kon's relationship with Kal is brotherly, his relationship with Lex is antagonistic.

Oh, but in the Young Justice cartoon Luthor tries to be a little more fatherly (but also still manipulative though, just less full-on-psycho about it).