Media Essays: Jon Kent: Son of Superman

Written by The Wandering Fox

The Wandering Fox comes down from the stairs with a stack of comics under his arm. He chuckled and smiled as he then took a seat, revealing the comics are from DC Rebirth’s Superman comic.

“Nine years since this comic began huh? Gosh that was a different time all those years ago. Fell off Doctor Who then I got into DC. It was nice. Then it got crap. But hey, it really made me in a DC fan, and most of all these comics made me a Superman fan. But if there’s a standout character from this comic, it’s the son of Lois and Clark, Jon Samuel Kent. What a bright spot he was for DC, showing there was a character readers young and old could read about and enjoy. Until Bendis and Taylor came along and mucked up his character.”

Well, here I am, the Wandering Fox. I’m here to talk about a time in which there was a hopeful spot for me and others in comics. I’m talking about the DC Rebirth comic of Superman, which for many was a much needed return to form with the character after the New52 made him into a much darker and more cynical character who lost his mum and dad and had his relationship with Lois undone. The comic also had a big focus on the new character Jon Samuel Kent, the biological son of Lois and Clark. Jon became an instant fave of mine and many comic readers, feeling he was a much welcome breath of fresh air for the comics and taking Superman in a direction that felt right for his character. Jon is who I’m gonna specifically talk about, what I like about him, what Bendis and Taylor did was just wrong and how I would have handled the whole thing of him growing up.

Before I continue, I don’t have a problem with Jon being bisexual, my problem is how we not only not had any hints in the past he was bisexual and how they basically just treated LGBTQ+ rep as a mere cash grab. If you want this character to be bi, then work on it and don’t treat them as if they’re merely bloody figures to make a bit of cash out of, do it normally.

So, let’s start at the beginning.

Lois and Clark

In the year prior to DC Rebirth, the New52 era was coming to an end with DC Comics trying to make back the loss of faith from fans by reintroducing old characters like Cassandra Cain and Wally West, while concluding Darkseid War with a fatal revelation of the story revealing the New52 Superman was dying. But we also had the Convergence story which saw Superman and Lois of the pre-Flashpoint continuity return in which Flashpoint Thomas Wayne helped Lois deliver Jon. The family escaped to the New52 universe and had lived in hiding with pre-Flashpoint Superman donning the black suit and he and Lois covertly began taking down criminal orgs without letting New52 Superman know of them. Jon grew up under the belief he was called Jon White, but slowly his Kryptonian powers began to manifest with him hearing his mum and dad talking a few feet away from him, then saved his mother by walking through the fire of a burning shed and opened the door without hurting himself. After learning his dad was Superman, Jon hoped to do things as well as his father. In the New52 Superman’s final story, he perished and thus Pre-Flashpoint Superman stepped in to become the boy in blue again. This all led to Superman Rebirth.

First Story

Jon was brought in with a gorgeous anime cartoon like art style by Patrick Gleason watching his dad stop a fire and happily proud to have a dad like him. However, and much to my annoyance, they had Jon uncover his heat vision ability by accidentally killing his cat Goldie. As a cat lover that still hurts me to this day to see that and honestly could’ve been handled better without killing Goldie! But I’ll come back to that later. Jon was shaken up by this, and not helping was Batman and Wonder Woman’s suspicions of him, but Clark assured his son, taking him to the frozen north to help a stranded submarine and comforted him. I loved this, especially this panel here.

Just great. A true strong moment of a father being there for his son.

Jon was obviously still developing his powers hence he fell from a tree and was knocked out, thus Clark and Lois took him to the Fortress of Solitude. However, the Eradicator, having taken a sample of Jon’s blood, was there and deemed that Jon’s human genetics be destroyed. This enraged Superman enough, to the point he battered the Eradicator for wanting to destroy anything that makes him who he is. It’s just great. Superman loves his son completely, he’s his and Lois’s son, half human, half Kryptonian, he’s not having his son be seen as a mistake nor have his genetics messed with. What’s great about this as well is how Jon slowly overcomes his fears and his love for the innocents around him like Krypto, fed up of cowering and instead goes in to fight the Eradicator. It doesn’t go easy and we go from the Fortress, to Metropolis, to the Moon, and it results in even Lois getting in on the fight in Batman’s Hellbat suit. The Eradicator is sealed on the moon and the family is stronger than ever, with Jon being allowed to meet Batman and Wonder Woman with Superman proudly calling him Superboy. Jon didn’t overcome his fears or issues straight away, as his science project screwed up the controls in the Fortress of Solitude which sent him, his dad and Krypto to Dinosaur Island with Jon in fear of not ever seeing Lois again. He had to learn how to be more responsible and to always trust in his dad if he’s ever scared. Then after this he met Damian.

(Batman it’s not our fault we think you’re overrated.)

Yeah, I was dreading this since Damian is an utter jerk who’s character development gets reset after every story he’s learnt to not be a jerk. Didn’t help in Rebirth he was utterly horrible to Beast Boy, Raven and Starfire, electrocuting Beast Boy in a swimming pool, drugging Raven and Starfire and taking their clothes off without their consent and verbally abused Raven every chance he got (why do people ship him and her?).

But to my surprise Tomasi handled Damian a lot better and we have Jon flat out acknowledging Damian is a big idiot. Damian and Maya snatched Jon up after he and Goliath got into an accident which had him taken to the Batcave. Superman came in thinking Batman kidnapped him and almost tore Batman to chunks if it weren’t for Jon stopping them both with his ice breath. This led to Damian forcefully being told to be nice and showed Jon his animal collection including Bat-Cow, but Damian rubbed Goldie’s death in his face which started another fight which annoyed their dads. They were forced to work together to earn their cape and symbol back, and they did find common ground on this though they got into an argument as they ended up cutting down a Christmas Tree…though Jon and Damian’s friendship grew in the spin off comic Super Sons, which allowed the Superman comic to tell more stories about Clark and Lois, like stopping Frankenstein and his wife having a fight over a fugitive.

Super Sons

Super Sons was the right book to delve more in Jon’s adventures in the DC universe which helped mould him into a stronger and sassy character while helping mellow Damian out of his jerkiness, beginning with a funny and intense story which saw them having to stop Kid Amazo with Lex Luthor’s help. The story was interesting in exploring Jon’s green state as a hero with him growing increasingly more resilient to Damian’s lecturing while Damian had to grapple with his own issues in working beside Jon. Of course, this led to them both being grounded after Alfred and Lois found out they sneaked out together to stop Kid Amazo. This obviously had them both argue immensely with Jon seeking Damian out and with Alfred’s help he had them both come to an understanding and thus Jon got more adventures like helping the Teen Titans, fighting a monster planet, giving Damian the chance to re-experience flying, and Jon fearful of his own future which had Damian soften up on him greatly. Combine this with Jon learning of Damian’s mother, Talia Al Ghul, Jon softened more on Damian, the pair of them as close as brothers. Jon had his faith in his father greatly troubled after Manchester Black tricked him into thinking Lois was so badly injured she lost her leg, turning him against his dad until he began seeing sense and seeing Lois didn’t lose her leg, Jon, Kathy and Clark redirected Manchester Black’s powers back at him, knocking him straight out. Things were going well for Jon, he got a good supporting cast in Kathy and the West-Reeve school he went to, meeting both Jor-El and Sam Lane (though the former of which I question how he could trust Jor-El even as the guy is murdering lots of people), had met his Bizzaro counterpart Boyzarro.

Jon was basically a true kid learning the responsibilities of having powers at such a young age and despite being the son of Clark Kent and Lois Lane, it was still a struggle for him but like any kid he begins to get there and finds himself becoming more braver and confident while retaining his kid innocence and his joy for doing whatever kids do, wether it’s hanging out with friends or playing games, but he also loved his mum and dad dearly. He was truly a bright character for DC. But then what happened to this character? Oh, I’ll tell you what happened.

Bendis Steps In

Yeah. Basically by 2017 Geoff Johns tried to take over the DCEU after the backlash to Batman v Superman, which obviously meant somebody else had to step in the creative shoes at DC. Who was that? Why none other than Dan Didio, the guy who gave us the New52 and who has an odd hatred for beloved characters like Wally West and his vision of DC clashed terribly with Geoff Johns’. Didio, clearly upset and not letting go of the New52, started to wash away much of the good stuff at Rebirth and Superman was right there for him. Who did he then hire? He hired Brian Michael Bendis, a Marvel veteran who had created Jessica Jones. Bendis had his best days behind him with the last good thing many feel he made was Miles Morales. The guy gave fans Civil War 2 which for many was much worse than the first Civil War, as you had Hawkeye killing Bruce Banner, Captain Marvel being horrid, almost killed Tony Stark and was rewarded for her work with a blank cheque. Bendis was notoriously known for being incredibly weak with bigger cosmic characters than street level characters, didn’t respect continuity, and though they wanted him on Batman, he went for Superman, amd he did just about everything wrong with it. Let’s see:

Creates a dumb villain called Rogol Zarr who looks like a poor man’s Doomsday.

Retcons Krypton’s destruction in having been destroyed by Rogol Zarr.

Revealing Superman’s secret identity AGAIN even though they did this plot back in 2013 and 14.

Ignores previous stories.

But most of all, the most biggest shameful thing he ever did was tear apart the Superman family. What did he do? He brings Jor-El back and has the family suddenly trust him and whisk Jon and Lois away with him. Yeah. Jor-El, when we last saw him, he was behind a secret organisation which killed hundreds of people around the Earth. Yes, we know he was brainwashed as did Superman, but that doesn’t suddenly mean you can trust him with your kid and wife. For all Clark knew he was being brainwashed again. But Jon and Lois don’t bring up anything, neither does Clark, and they willingly go with him. Clark then finds out Lois is back and has been avoiding him so upon tracking her down, after a night of sex, Lois reveals to Clark she left Jon with Jor-El as she was a bit bored and went home. Why not tell Clark this? Because Lois was tired of being a mother and wife to a couple of super powered beings and wanted to get back to work. Uh……Lois had no problem with this. She was working as a secret writer and journalist while raising Jon, and Lois maybe ordinary but she’s a BADASS! This woman donned the Hellbat suit, worn its gauntlets, gone toe to toe with Granny Goodness while being a wife and mother and was there any hint she was tired? NO.

If this is meant to be the same Lois as we all know, then she’d be clever enough to know not to trust Jor-El. But yeah, leave your son with a crazy man who killed hundreds of people! So, what happened to Jon? Well.

Jon SUDDENLY remembered Jor-El was a bad guy and ran away from him, which led to him meeting Ultraman and Superwoman who imprisoned him for so long and tortured him in a volcano for seven years. Man, what a lovely idea hey guys? Gosh the folks at DC hate anything to do with kids eh? Then he gets flung to the future with the Legion of Superheroes, then he comes back then under Tom Taylor begins dating an environmental terrorist member called Jay Nakumura and Jon does nothing about stopping him or the murderers he’s friends with. Wow. What a lovely tribute to the character. Oh and he met Injustice Superman and let him get away with all the horrible things he was doing just cos he hugged him.

The age up makes his dynamic with Damian more odd than fun, we missed out years of interesting development for him as a kid growing up with Clark and Lois as his father and mother, and we skipped out any chance of him exploring his sexuality as he got older. These could have been interesting to have done, seeing the main hero of DC Clark and the badass woman Lois raising their son as he comes to terms with the growing pressures of being a teenager and a hero, but Didio, being the rather odd guy he is, just wanted to age him up and send him away and let Bendis do all kinds of idiocy. Didio was sacked, Bendis had left and you’d have thought the writers could have de-aged Jon but no. They made him into an idiot. Though that wasn’t to say good quality stories with Jon were gone.

Spin-offs

DCeased, written by Tom Taylor funnily enough, saw Jon take up a big role in the series as Earth was overrun by those infected by a corrupted Anti-Life Equation, seeing Jon having to step up for Damian after Batman was infected and killed by Alfred. Jon had a farewell with his father after he was infected, with Jon bravely going out to stop his father from destroying the Ark Ships. Jon stepped up as Superman in keeping the second Earth safe until he and a group of heroes returned to the main Earth to get the cure out. During this, Jon confronted Trigon and knocked him back enough for John Constantine to stop him. He made a few appearances in Young Justice, his debut episode having him and Lois be the last of the guests to come to a baby day together. Then there’s a movie with the Super Sons which, though flawed, was quite decent enough to watch.

I think it’s too late to de-age Jon imo, it’s been too long and I think DC are too reluctant to do it. The most we’d get of ten year old Jon would be spin offs.

Does the damage done to Jon make me hate him? No, I still love the character he was snd the character he could’ve been. If you wanted to make him Superman, that’s fine, if you wanted him to be bisexual, that’s fine, but you should’ve worked yourself to get there instead of taking the cheap route of doing it. Yes, it would have taken years, but it’d have been worth the hard work in the end. Obviously that’s what I would have done. I would have done just that, have him gradually grow older and he begins struggling as a teenager with him not only gripping with these feelings but seeing there’s more nastier people out there he hasn’t battled yet which has his faith in his father and mother strained but he overcomes it. Making him Superman however is difficult, because I personally don’t see Clark retiring, even if Lois dies, I just don’t see him stopping being a hero. I think he’d be that happy, kind hearted grandfather to whatever grandchildren or cousins he ends up having but Clark will always be a hero. With Jon? Honestly, he could be a Superman of his own world, maybe the Bottled City of Kandor? Then again Chris Kent looks after that doesn’t he? Or he could be the Superman of that and Chris can be the Nightwing of that? Jon would basically bring the best of both worlds to Kandor, with him, Chris and Kara serving as the ambassadors of Earth and bringing about a new, harmonious era of Kryptonians to the galaxy. Jon grew up with a mum and dad who wanted the best for their son, he learnt well from them, has his own group of friends and has lots of optimism for the future.

Well, that’s my thoughts on Jon. How do you feel about Jon? Almost ten years have gone by since his introduction. Do you think Jon was treated well or was he badly done? Do tell down below. I’m the Wandering Fox and I will talk to you all later.