Superman issue #9 Spoiler discussion

[The World]

What made Jon's character intriguing is that he was a normal kid with a normal life who just happened to be the son of Superman and Lois. He is the exact opposite of what Damian's character was who was drenched in legacy and taking over this mantle or that throne and put through horrible circumstances constantly from birth to prepare him for his position. Jon had such a normal upbringing relatively speaking and it really hit that tone of him being a kid and having this wonderment that went along with it when being introduced to all these new superhero related things. You don't really see this kind of character, especially one so young, in comics at all these days.

What Bendis did is take his character and drag him through so many typical hero cliches it is such a turnoff to me. He shot him off into space to cut him off from his family and aged him up so he can better fit into a superman costume and have him fly around and punch things better, but that wasn't enough. He needs the character to also suffer because heroes have to suffer so he has him go through horrific situations with Ultraman and Earth 3 to hammer home how much of a hero he is, but that wasn't really something in question because we never really got to see Jon age properly into what he would have been originally. It holds no weight to it at all.

I get people have different tastes, and even like what Bendis is doing even if I don't understand it, but I think Bendis completely misunderstood what the appeal was of Jon's original character and has replaced him with something far more generic that I don't really see much appeal of. It isn't about him not being edgy or angry but how Bendis took an original concept and kind of tore it apart for his own creation that isn't really that interesting.

Why do people come to Superman hoping for everything to be normal? Like the first page of action comics explicitly says that this is a para-normal character that does para-normal stuff and yet people still come to this character asking him and his world to be normal. It makes no sense.

[Badou]

He stopped being a normal kid with a normal life pretty quick though. Once his power manifested to be precise. Then he was running around with Damian, fighting crime from their underwater Fortress, and traveling the Multiverse with Kathy unsupervised.

He was still a kid though and all that was through the eyes of him being that same kid who still had school to go to or trying to get home before his parents found out. It was taking typical things kids do but putting a superhero filter on it. Like instead of him going off and stumbling into some adventure while riding off on his bike with friends like a typical kid, it was him going off and having a superhero adventure with Damian, but it was still grounded in him being that same kid who is still kind of normal. This is something you don't really see that much of from the Big 2 comics and was such a fresh take with superhero stories.

Flying him off into space, aging him up, having him suffer for years completely changes that character from what he was into just a typical superhero who doesn't really have any appeal beyond just being another typical superhero who just happens to be Superman's son. He does nothing but wear his Superman costume now and it feels like he lost so many layers and comes across as more generic. That is what my issue with it. They are very different concepts and I don't think Bendis' version is all that close to the original concept.

[Vordan]

He was still a kid though and all that was through the eyes of him being that same kid who still had school to go to or trying to get home before his parents found out. It was taking typical things kids do but putting a superhero filter on it. Like instead of him going off and stumbling into some adventure while riding off on his bike with friends like a typical kid, it was him going off and having a superhero adventure with Damian, but it was still grounded in him being that same kid who is still kind of normal. This is something you don't really see that much of from the Big 2 comics and was such a fresh take with superhero stories.

Flying him off into space, aging him up, having him suffer for years completely changes that character from what he was into just a typical superhero who doesn't really have any appeal beyond just being another typical superhero who just happens to be Superman's son. He does nothing but wear his Superman costume now and it feels like he lost so many layers and comes across as more generic. That is what my issue with it. They are very different concepts and I don't think Bendis' version is all that close to the original concept.

They are different concepts I agree with that. But the old Jon was fairly generic. “Son of superhero discovers their heritage and tries to follow in their parent’s footsteps while living a normal life” is pretty common. As an example: Mayday in Spider-Girl and Annie in Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows. That’s not dissing the concept though, I quite enjoyed Jon as a kid. I don’t really see generic ness as a bad thing to be honest.

However in terms of “uniqueness” Jon currently is an aged up natural born Son of Superman who was held captive by an evil alternate version of his dad after going on a road trip with his returned from the dead alien grandfather. That’s fairly unique but not something you enjoy clearly.

[Scott Taylor]

Personally I think Earth 3 was saved from destruction at the last minute by a giant ice cube tray created by Grant Morrison.

[Yoda]

Regarding the timeline, I don't think Jon's supposed to be all that reliable of a narrator. He's clearly confused and guessing at everything and has mentioned several times he had no real way to know how much time had passed. But ballpark it at six years since we know he left at 11 and returned at 17 per Lois' and Clark's comments in #8. I think it is even possible that young Jon is still out there galavanting around with Jor El and that the option to prevent him from going through that wormhole might be something Clark has to weigh and with Jon not wanting his life to be erased ultimately allow to happen. Otherwise, we have 3 weeks max with Jor El before the wormhole, and a year or more in the volcano and year or more on Earth 3. We still have one more issue of these flashbacks, so we should get a better sense of things once it catches back up and whether or not we see how he makes it back to Earth. I would not be surprised if he spends some time in the 31st Century at this point. He's got to pick that new costume up somewhere.

But, it's being left intentionally vague I think because like Superlad said, they are leaving this for a more in depth exploration in a Wonder Comics book.

As for the CSA, I think Reborn and Metal could explain its reappearance, if not the time travel aspect of the wormhole. Or even Doomsday Clock with Jor El and Manhattan's connection to be used to explain some things. Which Bendis has said he has intentions of addressing.

[Vordan]

Bendis is not going to explain the CS being alive anymore than he explained Doc Samson being alive in CWII. He wanted to use them so he did, and if you want an in-continuity explanation you’ll either have to wait for someone else to give you one or invent one yourself.

[Yoda]

It’s not just Bendis. Snyder and King and their friends are all playing fast and loose with continuity now. How many characters and events have showed up in HiC that shouldn’t exist or contradict New 52 stories.

[Artemisfanboy]

I think it is even possible that young Jon is still out there galavanting around with Jor El and that the option to prevent him from going through that wormhole might be something Clark has to weigh and with Jon not wanting his life to be erased ultimately allow to happen.

Having some time to think I can see why Clark actively choosing to go back into time to Earth 3 would be morally ethically problematic( I'm still for Jon being rescued via time travel as a story point, I just understand why it might need to come about as a coincidence like Clark somehow ending up on earth three while Jon was captive.). But by taking a similar view, I think both him and Jon ignoring and allowing a younger Jon to fall into this danger, would be act of gross negligence and doing wrong by inaction if they even don't try to stop them. We're not talking about choosing to play with the past here, now we'd be talking about saving a life in the present. If the older Jon isn't willing to possibly sacrifice himself save the younger Jon in the present and spare him years of torture, because he knows "it will all work out" wouldn't he also be doing wrong by being selfish?

[Bored at 3:00AM]

What happened to Earth 3 being destroyed by Anti Monitor?

You can thank DC's regularly occurring continuity upheavals for Earth-3's latest return from destruction. Due to Dr. Manhattan's tinkering, history is broken, so people who were dead are alive again, memories that were erased are starting to be remembered. Cats and dogs living together. CHAOS!

[Yoda]

Having some time to think I can see why Clark actively choosing to go back into time to Earth 3 would be morally ethically problematic( I'm still for Jon being rescued via time travel as a story point, I just understand why it might need to come about as a coincidence like Clark somehow ending up on earth three while Jon was captive.). But by taking a similar view, I think both him and Jon ignoring and allowing a younger Jon to fall into this danger, would be act of gross negligence and doing wrong by inaction if they even don't try to stop them. We're not talking about choosing to play with the past here, now we'd be talking about saving a life in the present. If the older Jon isn't willing to possibly sacrifice himself save the younger Jon in the present and spare him years of torture, because he knows "it will all work out" wouldn't he also be doing wrong by being selfish?

I think Jon is the only one who could make that decision actually. If he decided to do it, I think that’d be within his rights to do.

But I think it’s being set up though where he won’t want to do it based on all the people he’s helping along the way and the way he’s being presented as being proud of himself for getting through this. So he’d recognize that yes he could save himself the years of hardship and the loss for his parents, but at the same time he would not be able to intervene and the people he’s helped along the way would suffer instead. It’s a sacrifice for him, but he’s come through it and helped others along the way. So it’s really selfless for him to not stop it.

There’s no way Clark can intervene without Jon’s explicit say so and not be in the wrong I think. I don’t think he would choose to either, but I can see the temptation presenting itself.

[Artemisfanboy]

I think Jon is the only one who could make that decision actually. If he decided to do it, I think that’d be within his rights to do.

But I think it’s being set up though where he won’t want to do it based on all the people he’s helping along the way and the way he’s being presented as being proud of himself for getting through this. So he’d recognize that yes he could save himself the years of hardship and the loss for his parents, but at the same time he would not be able to intervene and the people he’s helped along the way would suffer instead. It’s a sacrifice for him, but he’s come through it and helped others along the way. So it’s really selfless for him to not stop it.

There’s no way Clark can intervene without Jon’s explicit say so and not be in the wrong I think. I don’t think he would choose to either, but I can see the temptation presenting itself.

Let's take out the fact we're dealing with time displaced duplicates for a minute here.

So, the current Jon should choose to let a ten-eleven year old boy be tortured for years, separated from his parents, because it's for the "greater good" and because it may cost him his own life. Doesn't sound very heroic does it?

We also might need to establish what kind of time travel rules we're dealing with here. Everything he did while time displaced would not automatically be undone if Jon himself did it. If it was the very act of saving himself would also be undone(because he wouldn't be there, logically) and the timeline should default back to Jon being lost if that was the case. If everything he did while existing remained, older Jon would still be remembered then as an interaction with someone effectively from a possible future(past?). The Older Jon himself may even survive as a remnant from the alternate timeline.

[OpaqueGiraffe17]

I think Jon is the only one who could make that decision actually. If he decided to do it, I think that’d be within his rights to do.

But I think it’s being set up though where he won’t want to do it based on all the people he’s helping along the way and the way he’s being presented as being proud of himself for getting through this. So he’d recognize that yes he could save himself the years of hardship and the loss for his parents, but at the same time he would not be able to intervene and the people he’s helped along the way would suffer instead. It’s a sacrifice for him, but he’s come through it and helped others along the way. So it’s really selfless for him to not stop it.

There’s no way Clark can intervene without Jon’s explicit say so and not be in the wrong I think. I don’t think he would choose to either, but I can see the temptation presenting itself.

If Bendis was worried about disturbing implications of these character’s decision making, he shouldn’t have had Lois and Clark leave their kid with a madman.

[Yoda]

Let's take out the fact we're dealing with time displaced duplicates for a minute here.

So, the current Jon should choose to let a ten-eleven year old boy be tortured for years, separated from his parents, because it's for the "greater good" and because it may cost him his own life. Doesn't sound very heroic does it?

We also might need to establish what kind of time travel rules we're dealing with here. Everything he did while time displaced would not automatically be undone if Jon himself did it. If it was the very act of saving himself would also be undone(because he wouldn't be there, logically) and the timeline should default back to Jon being lost if that was the case. If everything he did while existing remained, older Jon would still be remembered then as an interaction with someone effectively from a possible future(past?). The Older Jon himself may even survive as a remnant from the alternate timeline.

I think the old Marvel rules for time travel used to explain all the time displaced X-Men were that they weren't actually changing anything just creating a new timeline going forward. So under those rules, yeah he could save himself, but he and his parents would still go through everything, but he and the younger Jon would be living in a new branch of time.

He's making the choice for himself that basically, yes this is going to be hard and going to hurt, but I came out the other side and helped a lot of people along the way.

If he's going to essentially kill 17 year old Jon by stopping 11 year old Jon from going in the first place, then yeah, I think he'd have to be undoing all the good he's done on his journey. It all gets a little paradoxy sure. I think it's being set up this way on purpose. He explicitly mentions all the people he's saved with Jor El, which despite the failures he acknowledged Jor El was doing good. All these people he's helped on Earth 3 and presumably more good he's been able to do on his way back.

I don't think it's unheroic to make that sacrifice himself.

If Bendis was worried about disturbing implications of these character’s decision making, he shouldn’t have had Lois and Clark leave their kid with a madman.

We haven't seen anything even close to madman like behavior out of Jor El yet. Up to the wormhole he was being portrayed as a pretty trust worthy guardian.

[OpaqueGiraffe17]

We haven't seen anything even close to madman like behavior out of Jor El yet. Up to the wormhole he was being portrayed as a pretty trust worthy guardian.

I’m talking about the Oz Effect, the idea of Clark or Lois trusting him after that is downright character assassination. It makes them irresponible morons.

[Yoda]

I’m talking about the Oz Effect, the idea of Clark or Lois trusting him after that is downright character assassination. It makes them irresponible morons.

The connection between Jor El and Dr. Manhattan is supposed to be addressed at some point, so I think Oz Effect will either be retconned out by Doomsday Clock or there will be some backfill of story to set Jor El up leading into Man of Steel. It hasn't been explained yet, but it's been touched on in several places by Bendis as being something that will play a role going forward. I think he just has to wait out Doomsday Clock.