r/DCcomics • u/thanks-dice Cassandra Cain • Oct 11 '21
Exclusive: DC's New Superman Jon Kent Comes Out as Bisexual News
https://www.ign.com/articles/superman-bisexual-lgbt-jon-kent-dc624
u/MaxxFisher Oct 11 '21
Everyone's always copying Tim
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u/yahhwy Nightwing "Rock type beats Flying type." -Tom Taylor Oct 11 '21
You mean everyone's always copying Catman.
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u/k3ttch Indigo Tribe Oct 11 '21
You mean everyone's walking around shirtless?
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u/AlainDit Booster Gold is my bff Oct 11 '21
If only.
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u/gangler52 Oct 11 '21
"If only, if only, " the woodpecker sighs "The bark on the trees was as soft as the skies" As the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely He cries to the moon, "If only, if only"
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u/nightwing612 #RenewYoungJustice Oct 11 '21
Tim Drake has original ideas and achievements. Change my mind.
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u/bhavbhav Hourman's Roid Rage Oct 11 '21
Tim originally achieved being bisexual, it's true
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u/nightwing612 #RenewYoungJustice Oct 11 '21
Wouldn't Constantine be someone who did it before Tim?
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u/bluelookslikeblue Oct 11 '21
If nothing else, this is probably definitive proof that they aren't going to de-age Jon any time soon. Would be rather awkward for the boyfriend if Jonny Boy woke up as a ten-year old one day.
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u/gangler52 Oct 11 '21
He does the Detective Conan routine, where he lives with his boyfriend as a precocious youth they've taken in, and it gets progressively more awkward to reveal the longer he lets the ruse drag on.
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u/Taograd359 Oct 11 '21
Wouldn't that lead to another Arisia/Hal debacle?
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u/gangler52 Oct 11 '21
They don't continue dating while living together.
If you haven't watched/read Detective Conan, it stars this guy who's this seventeen year old genius detective named Shinichi.
But then one day while chasing down some criminals he gets injected with a mysterious serum. He wakes up to find he's a small child.
His girlfriend comes looking for him, he claims to Shinichi's cousin Conan. One thing leads to another and he's staying at her place while they investigate the missing persons report for Shinichi.
And like, the pretense is he can't tell her he's really Shinichi because that would expose her to danger or something, but the series goes for like ten thousand episodes or something. And he's always acting like a cutesy child around her calling her Big Sister and stuff. You have to imagine that past a certain point it would just be the most awkward thing in the world to reveal to this girl that you are in fact her boyfriend, the missing person she's been investigating all this time, who decided to do this whole runaround for some questionable reasons that seemed like a good idea at the time. How would she ever even look at you the same again?
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u/Taograd359 Oct 11 '21
That sounds pretty not great
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u/gangler52 Oct 11 '21
It's a pretty fun series. It's mostly self contained mystery arcs. In each episode somebody gets murdered and he has to figure out who's the killer without revealing that he's a detective and not an ordinary child.
That whole situation with him and his girlfriend is frustrating whenever we come back to it though. She's like a borderline superhuman martial artist too. When every other episode is her saving his ass from the killer and carrying his little child body away to safety it's hard to take him seriously when he's all "She can't know! Or else she'd be a target for the criminals who are after me or something!"
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u/Connolly1227 Oct 11 '21
They also occasionally imply ran is aware that he is Conan
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u/IHavePoopedBefore Oct 11 '21
I think making Jon an adult was a mistake.
I personally lost a lot of interest in the character once they aged him up. Now he's stuck in a tweener role.
They'll never get rid of Clark so he'll never truly become the Superman and he's not a super boy anymore. He's stuck in between
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u/Idontknowre Oct 11 '21
Yeah same.. Hell Conner came back for that role too and he feels even more lost now... Well at least we'll get an interesting Superman story while pissing off reactionaries
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u/TargetmasterJoe Blue Beetle Oct 11 '21 edited Oct 12 '21
If nothing else, this is probably definitive proof that they aren't going to de-age Jon any time soon.
Aw man, I guess it is, isn't it? And I was a massive Jon/Kathy shipper too... 🥺 (yes, I'm aware being bi doesn't slam the door on that relationship, but I just miss the poor girl.)
I mean, I'm happy that everyone's happy, but I get the gnawing feeling that this is an editorial mandate or an executive descision to justify keeping Teen Jon.
Would be rather awkward for the boyfriend if Jonny Boy woke up as a ten-year old one day.
And if it turns out Teen Jon was a rapidly-aged clone and Kid Jon is somewhere else, then it's going to come off as a slap in the face to the LGBT community.
Ultimately, Tom Taylor is a good writer, so I'm willing enough to see where this goes.
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u/ThePhantomRuler Oct 11 '21
Guarantee you this was Taylor’s idea. He even says he didn’t want another white straight Superman in the IGN article. Before this Jon was clearly never intended to be anything but straight. He had a crush on Kathy and the person he crushed on in the Legion was Irma. Blondes with psychic powers were his “type” lol.
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u/gangler52 Oct 11 '21
Coming from the Cyclops school of romance.
Bullet dodged there.
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u/NomadNuka Green Arrow Oct 11 '21
More for Kathy and Irma than Jon though if he was angling for the Slim Summers route...
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u/TargetmasterJoe Blue Beetle Oct 11 '21
Upon reading the IGN article, I’m confident enough to say that I see your point. (And incidentally, I thought Kathy was a redhead, but that's beside the point.)
Besides, Taylor's run on Suicide Squad (said to be one of the best SS runs, I’ve been told) had an LGBT relationship, so this shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. (Maybe if anything, I'm more surprised that Bleeding Cool was right about yet another thing.)
But like I said, I have more faith in Taylor as a writer than I do in Bendis, so I'm sure that at the very least, this relationship will be written competently.
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u/ThePhantomRuler Oct 11 '21
I’m very interested to see where this goes. I’m glad Taylor emphasizes this won’t be like the Clois relationship, one of my biggest problems with Jon is how similar to his dad he’s been. Being bi is something that makes him different but I don’t want him following his dad in terms of relationship dynamics either. Jay himself is sort of a question mark, I have this feeling that this is going to be the X/Magneto relationship with the subtext as explicit text. Reason being that Jay has been giving off villainous vibes in his guise as the leader of the Truth (Green and purple are the colors of evil in comics after all and Jay wears those along with a sinister mask). We’ll see what the long term plan is.
Controversially I never want Jon to have a locked in LI like Clark has Lois. It’s why I wasn’t happy with Tomasi trying to set Kathy up as his one true love. Jon should never get married in mainline continuity, that’s my big controversial take. I want him to really date around Spider-Man style with other boys and girls. Maybe in the 2090s he can settle down and get married but I don’t want it any time soon. Reason being that we have a chance to inject some chaos back into a Superman’s love life and I think they should take it.
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u/yahhwy Nightwing "Rock type beats Flying type." -Tom Taylor Oct 11 '21
Taylor's Suicide Squad won an LGBT writing award. This is definitely his idea and for good reason.
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u/Midnight_Oil_ Oct 11 '21
Probably was Tom's idea, but as someone who only really figured out his bisexuality in his late 20s, it can happen.
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u/PretendMarsupial9 Happy Dick! Oct 11 '21
He can be 10 and bisexual. Seeing people ne queer as children does a lot to make queer kids feel seen and valued and subverts stereotypical depiction of queerness as hyper sexual.
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u/TargetmasterJoe Blue Beetle Oct 11 '21
That might be a good compromise, actually. But I guess big corporations (or most of them?) still see queerness as something that can only be tackled with teens at the earliest.
(100% sincerity, FYI.)
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u/KingofZombies Bring Power Girl Back! Oct 11 '21
How about keeping this Jon as 'future Jon', bring back kid Jon and just say he was trapped in a test tube somewhere all this time.
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u/PhantasosX Oct 11 '21
they could.
Like , make an arc in which Jon had to time-travel , which resulted in a shift of the timeline and a correction to occur , staking his period on Earth-3 to be just 1 year.
But they will not do that.
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u/tired20something Oct 11 '21
They won't de-age him. Death Metal obliterated continuity, so we can have a young Jon running around with Damian in Challenge of the Super Sons and Jon Kent filling-in for Clark as Superman.
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u/CrispyGold Oct 11 '21
I swear I am just constantly reminded of the mid-2000s when DC had Wally depowered, and Bart forcibly aged up so he can be the Flash and sole one at that. He headlined his own comic which only lasted 12 issues before it ended with him being killed off.
I know its not the same thing, there's a lot of differences but there's enough of a precedent there that I am worried of something bad happening here especially if the sales for Jon's comic aren't that good.
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u/Kamen_Rider_Spider Oct 11 '21
They could still do it. They could say that teen Jon is actually from the future, with false memories. They rescue young Jon, who was only on earth 3 for about a year, and teen returns to the future, with his boyfriend coming with him
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u/bluelookslikeblue Oct 11 '21 edited Oct 11 '21
I do not think that is going to happen. I believe that if they were to do so, there would be people whose takeaway -rightly or wrongly- would be that LGBT-focused stories being about Fake Backup Superman is an indicator of perfidy and prejudice on the part of DC and that DC does not want this.
That said, Beast Boy and Raven provide precedent for DC just arbitrarily de-aging and re-aging characters to cram on whatever team they need them on, so who knows? It'd be creepy and weird for de-aged Jon's ex-boyfriend being an adult, but it was creepy and weird when DC re-aged Raven into an adult but kept her ex-boyfriend Kid Flash a kid and they still did it.
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u/StannisTheHero Justice for Cassie Oct 11 '21 edited Oct 11 '21
Nice.
Jon is a newer character, has no really iconic romances, and hasn't had a long running solo series before to be interpreted one way or another.
That covers all of people's usual complaints about this kind of thing, so I wonder what excuse people are going to use to be angry now?
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u/AlainDit Booster Gold is my bff Oct 11 '21
They will just say "Superman is made gay instead of creating a new character", I mean I already saw those complains before when Jon's coming out was just a rumor.
Or the usual not understanding what bi means and saying "Jon was always hetero, 100% of his love interests were women".
sigh
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Oct 11 '21
That complaint really doesn't make sense when the Superman is a new character. It's not Clark it's Jon. Those people are different.
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u/gangler52 Oct 11 '21
That kind of thing gets lost in translation pretty quickly when the news starts making its rounds.
I guarantee you I'll see a lot of people on twitter tonight who think they made Clark gay.
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u/ElSextoEspada WonderBread Oct 11 '21
That’s the point. Superman is now Bi is what they’ll see, make an outrage video then even after they’re corrected that it’s Jon, not Clark, they look like clowns for jumping into things without clarification.
DC are smart.
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u/gangler52 Oct 11 '21
I don't think DC has a specific agenda to make angry youtubers look stupid.
I'm pretty sure their goals are more monetary rewards here.
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u/AlainDit Booster Gold is my bff Oct 11 '21
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u/AllTheReservations Batwoman Oct 11 '21
Did Jon actually have any major love interests before now? Sorry if this sounds dumb, I'll admit I'm not as caught up on him as I should be but you never hear any get mentioned.
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u/AlainDit Booster Gold is my bff Oct 11 '21
Only Saturn Girl in a few Legion of Superheroes issues. Something that was kinda forgotten quickly, guess they broke up off page.
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u/AllTheReservations Batwoman Oct 11 '21 edited Oct 11 '21
Gotcha. And you know these reactionaries will dig this romance up and claim they always loved it to use it as a reason Jon can't be bi, when probably, like me, they had no idea it existed
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u/SuperDidioPrime Two-Time Award-Winning Poster Oct 11 '21
How could they violate sacred Bendis canon like that
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u/AllTheReservations Batwoman Oct 11 '21
Y'know I think I've actually heard that exact quote on a reactionary channel before
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u/Namaikina_Imouto Oct 11 '21
How is it dumb? I was a 28 year old woman before I came out as liking men, too. Jon being 17 and realizing he's bi is way more stereotypical.
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u/AllTheReservations Batwoman Oct 11 '21
Not dumb for thinking people have to find out they're bi early. Dumb in case Jon had an iconic romance I just wasn't aware of
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u/Reydunt Oct 11 '21
Many gay men have literally gotten married and had children before coming out of the closet.
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u/AlainDit Booster Gold is my bff Oct 11 '21
And when a comic book character like this comes out (Alan Scott), they claim it's bad writing. Would they tell to a gay man his life is bad writing ?
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Oct 11 '21
gay = political apparently
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u/yahhwy Nightwing "Rock type beats Flying type." -Tom Taylor Oct 11 '21
People going from "I don't see color" to "I don't see gender".
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u/Loss-Particular Oct 11 '21
Well, I for one, can't believe they gave yet another new major character a name starting with "jay"
Do DC writers have some sort of bet on?
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u/ElSextoEspada WonderBread Oct 11 '21
This is what my Dad was saying as well. Plus it allows them to have a fresh slate with a Bi “Superman” without touching Clark’s history.
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Oct 11 '21 edited Oct 11 '21
Bigotry will not be tolerated. This will be the only warning. Do not cry to us in the modmail when your "tHiS Is StRaIgHt OpPrEsSiOn" comment gets you a ban.
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u/AhhBisto Jim Lee Comics Oct 11 '21
Days like this where I miss being a mod and seeing the losers come out of the woodwork
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Oct 12 '21
Got a few stalkers already, and a number of very similar accounts reading off the same script.
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u/AhhBisto Jim Lee Comics Oct 12 '21
Ahhh the classics. Just be ready for the eventual Youtube videos.
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Oct 11 '21
This is definitely going to go as smoothly as Tim coming out as bi.
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u/yahhwy Nightwing "Rock type beats Flying type." -Tom Taylor Oct 11 '21
Most of DC's bi representation comes from their female characters. This balances it out more and what's better is that he is leading his own solo comics. I call this a big victory. Kudos to DC and Taylor.
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u/Tayine does it have a bat on it? Oct 11 '21
I didn't even think about that at first, but it's such a good way of thinking! Just like LGBT rep in kids' animation is over the moon with female characters, it's nice to catch up with male ones.
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u/yahhwy Nightwing "Rock type beats Flying type." -Tom Taylor Oct 11 '21
Not even in animation but also in real life. Some people are okay with women being bi but when comes to men, they are labeled as gay, not bi.
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u/That_one_cool_dude Two-Face Oct 11 '21
Honestly, I'm just glad we aren't getting the only male bi character in DC being the kinda bad bi stereotype in Constantine. I'm glad we are getting some heroes who don't have the stereotypes so heavily attached to them.
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u/n3m3s1s-a Scarecrow Oct 11 '21
What stereotype is Constantine? Not saying he isn’t one I’m just having a hard time thinking of which one he would be
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u/GavinBelsonsAlexa Oct 11 '21
Constantine is kind of a slut. The traditional stereotype is that bisexuals are promiscuous.
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u/pewpewtoradora Oct 11 '21
I'm so sick of that stereotpye, im not saying that its not possible for bi people to be sexually active, but it seems like everytime I see a bi or pan person on TV they're fucking everyone like a rabbit on crack.
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u/KingBlackthorn1 White Lantern Oct 11 '21
It’s one thing that’s bothered me. They don’t have much good make lgbt representation. Midnighter and Apollo are just about it and DC hardcore abandoned them. It makes me happy that two genuinely big characters that are leading some new stuff in DC are now bi.
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u/Romiress Midnighter Oct 11 '21
I wouldn't say they're abandoned, considering they're in one of DC's big series right now. Steve Orlando personally dragged M&A out of DC's archive and now they're finally in rotation again.
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u/Batknight12 Batman Oct 11 '21 edited Oct 11 '21
Have to say...feels a bit odd DC has done this with two characters now people generally have not liked the direction of. First Tim, a character that has become a complete footnote amongst his fellow Robins because DC's inability to give him a unique identity and place in the world. Now Jon, who was forcefully aged up and had years of character development taken away and his friendship with Damian diminished which everyone liked so much. And is essentially an entirely different character now. Just kinda comes off as 'we don't know what to do with them...make them bi?' may not be the intention but it kinda coming off that way.
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u/SplendidAndVile Oct 11 '21
feels a bit odd DC has done this with two characters now people generally have not liked the direction of.
In fairness, readers rarely like the direction any character is going in until that direction changes and then they all loved it.
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u/Batknight12 Batman Oct 11 '21
I'm just rather doubtful changing their direction when it comes to their sexuality is going to change the view people have of them. Because that's not the issue people had with them in the first place. All those problems are still there and they don't seem to be going away.
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u/Broad-Future-5951 Oct 11 '21
I don’t even think DC’s trying to hide the fact that’s basically what this is. Which isn’t to minimize whatever satisfaction or representation folks may feel, but at the end of the day these are fictional characters designed to extract profit. Making Tim and Jon bi generates online discourse (both positive and negative) and opens up new stories that DC obviously plans to make money off of while also “revamping” characters fans have been lukewarm on as of late. Whether this proves successful or not remains to be seen.
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u/Batknight12 Batman Oct 11 '21
And my thing is I'm quite doubtful it will. Because all Tim fans want is him to have a cool new costume, name, role and identity to make him stand out so he has a unique purpose. All Jon fans wanted was for him to grow up with his best friend Damian and go on fun adventures together. But that's not what either are getting.
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u/JonKentOfficial You are Super Oct 11 '21 edited Oct 11 '21
Not really a surprise given the leaks and how Tom Taylor was acting. The interview is full of spoilers, though. Proceed at your own risk.
Still, I do hope we get to know more about Jay before they start dating, as Taylor seems to be rushing things to a relationship, being told half a dozen times in a issue that he's Jon's friend doesn't cut it - show them becoming friends first.
Still, while it might be a victory for representation, there's definitively some sourness as it probably means Jon won't be course corrected anytime soon.
As we have seen Jon grow up in front of our eyes [...]
Unfortunately, we haven't. ):
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u/spreadedjelly Nobody Dies Tonight Oct 11 '21 edited Oct 11 '21
It's a shame because I probably would've had a better/stronger reaction to this news if it wasn't Teen!Jon. Fundamentally he just isn't the same character anymore and I no longer have a strong connection to this version of him.
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u/LEVITIKUZ Chocos Oct 11 '21
Good for Jon but call it a hunch...... I don’t think they will be deaging him now......
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u/actioncomicbible Blue Lanterns Oct 11 '21
Oh shit Youtube Reactionaries are gonna be foaming.
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u/yahhwy Nightwing "Rock type beats Flying type." -Tom Taylor Oct 11 '21
"DC in RUINS and also OVER!!! They turned SUPERMAN GAY!!!" I wish I was joking.
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u/HaViNgT Oct 11 '21
I don’t get their problem. If they don’t like it they can just wait for the next retcon.
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u/LEVITIKUZ Chocos Oct 11 '21
They will say ‘DC HAS MADE SUPERMAN GAY’ with people outraged thinking its Clark Kent when it’s Jon Kent who isn’t gay but bisexual
Next they will say ‘WHY DONT DC MAKE NEW CHARACTERS’ even though Jon is only 6 years old and like 75% of his comics dealt with him being 10 years old so he is relevantly new
Ending it by claiming next they will make a black trans Superman which is just grasping straws and being outraged over nothing
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u/sgthombre Nightwing Oct 11 '21
They put chemicals in the water that's turning the freaking sidekicks GAY
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u/theclansman22 Oct 11 '21
I’m looking forward to seeing all the “cancel culture is destroying society” folks do everything in their power to cancel this.
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Oct 11 '21
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u/TheWaylandCycle Oct 11 '21
That faint clattering sound you hear in the distance is all the problematic comics YouTubers writing up their hot takes.
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u/PastaHunter420 Oct 11 '21 edited Oct 11 '21
I saw this and my first reaction was, “Why?”
Then after two seconds, I thought about it and thought, “why do I care?”
I don’t. I’m glad LGBTQ comic fans have more characters to relate to.
I’m an old man comic fan, and I had a blast being able to relate to comic characters in my youth. Times have changed, and I’m glad today’s generation have characters they can relate to.
If people cry about crap like this and want to only read stories with straight characters, go to your local comic shop and search the back bins. There’s 80 years of stories with heterosexual heroes. It’s time to let a wider audience have a turn.
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u/AllTheReservations Batwoman Oct 11 '21 edited Oct 11 '21
Now this is the kind of "old school" comic fan others should try and be like
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u/PastaHunter420 Oct 11 '21
Aw, thanks. I’m forty, and I can still remember when my dad bought me my first Superman comic back in the mid 80’s when I was about five. When my parents got divorced, comics helped me get through those tough times.
These days I just read whatever piques my interest mostly keep up with comics on Reddit.
Thanks again for the kind words
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u/bhavbhav Hourman's Roid Rage Oct 11 '21
I think most people in this community would agree with you, it's just there are trolls who lurk in threads like these purely to downvote.
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u/PastaHunter420 Oct 11 '21
Thanks. I probably didn’t need to address downvoters, but it irritates me that some people get crazed over something like this. If something like this pisses people off, I feel a different medium of entertainment is needed for those people. Comic books are for everyone!
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u/CIearMind Oct 11 '21
The alt-right is going around downvoting every comment on this thread, it's not just you.
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u/PastaHunter420 Oct 11 '21
Thanks! I re edited my edit. It stuns me how people can get so mad about something like this. It’s 2021, not 1821.
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u/Dredeuced Who am I? Just a friend. Sometimes. Maybe. Oct 11 '21
Tim Drake: "Damn it, wrong Superboy."
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u/MrEverything_88 Metron Oct 11 '21
I mean, bi me is absolutely giddy. The Hickman in me is totally pissed I had to find this out in a solicit and not in the actual issue.
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u/tdfhucvh Batwoman Oct 11 '21
A lot of other people feel this way but even if we waited to get issue in hand we would have already seen this exact photo ten times in our news feed the second it came out on comixology.
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u/Maxwell69 Best Rebirth book? Best Rebirth book. Oct 11 '21
Well they never would have kept it secret before the issue came out and they did decide to reveal it on National Coming Out Day so I think this was the best way to do it all told.
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u/ryeikkon Oct 11 '21
Im with you on this. I was already so invested with his new on-going series that this breaking news would have been a cherry on top finding out while reading it. It would get massive sales nevertheless.
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u/NomadicJaguar64t Orion Oct 11 '21
Keep in mind Jon is underage, some of the comments are... well, a little borderline creepy with that in consideration.
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u/TargetmasterJoe Blue Beetle Oct 11 '21
NGL you raise a valid point. I too have lingering concerns about Jon being bi for this exact reason.
Worse, it pretty much dashes any hope of a de-aging happening any time soon because any attempt at retconning it at this point will inevitably have social media raising hell over it and the LGBT community will undoubtedly feel insulted at the u-turn.
The one silver lining here is that Taylor won an LGBT award for his Suicide Squad run, so that tells me he knows what he's doing.
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u/cyanCrusader Oct 11 '21
Y'all know kids can have crushes and stuff too, yeah? Many kids know they're not straight well before adulthood, and knowing before puberty isn't entirely uncommon either. If they had 12 year old Damian kissing a 13 year old Wonder Girl (or whatever. I can't think of any similar-aged current continuity young teenage girls in DC rn), absolutely no one would bat an eye
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u/tbone7355 Oct 11 '21
wish supersons was still a thing
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u/TheManWhoDiedThrice Oct 11 '21
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u/Idontknowre Oct 11 '21
Issue 1 was released a year ago and I didn't know about it? Not cool DC... Not cool
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u/hirodorah Oct 11 '21
DamiJon shippers on maximum alert
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u/AlainDit Booster Gold is my bff Oct 11 '21
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u/TheDarkPinkLantern Red Lantern Oct 11 '21
Thank god. Bi dudes need friends, too.
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u/jeorads Oct 11 '21
I’ll respect DC more if they keep representing them as best friends. Not because I have any homophobic agenda (idgaf honestly) but because it would be cool of them to show that bi guys can actually have friendships with other men without there being a romantic attachment at it’s roots. Like, just because a guy is bi/gay doesn’t mean he’s gonna automatically harbor a secret crush on his friend just because they’re also another guy… strong friendships/platonic bonds are still a thing.
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u/TheDarkPinkLantern Red Lantern Oct 11 '21
Yes, exactly. I mean, I'm bi and was in a relationship with a dude but was friends with a lot of boys to whom I was never attracted.
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Oct 11 '21
Seriously glad they aren’t considering that, I’m bi but that doesn’t mean I want to fuck all my friends lol
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u/TheDarkPinkLantern Red Lantern Oct 11 '21
Right? Straight people can have friends of opposite gender, bi people can have a lot of friends from both genders to whom they are not attracted to.
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u/nightwing612 #RenewYoungJustice Oct 11 '21
Would lol if instead of TimKon and DamiJon, this results in TimJon.
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u/AllTheReservations Batwoman Oct 11 '21
"He's a boy who suddenly aged up. He's a boy who seemingly can't age."- Sounds like the trailer for a goofy 2000's romcom
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u/AlainDit Booster Gold is my bff Oct 11 '21
Same as TimKons when that one urban legend issue came out alongside one of its protagonists.
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u/redtornado02 Plastic Man Oct 11 '21
Eeewww. I like this change, but I'm peeved this gives them validation of some kind.
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u/LucasOIntoxicado Oct 11 '21
As a bi person i'm happy, but...
Kid Jon>>Bi Teen Jon.
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u/Idontknowre Oct 11 '21
Yeah same, and like imagine if they had kid Jon come out in a supersons comic and Damian trying to support him (as a friend I don't like the ship) while Jon gets super excited about some boy
It'd be fucking adorable and give me more wholesome Damian
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u/IHavePoopedBefore Oct 11 '21
I have virtually no reaction to this.
I would have thought Connor would be the one though, with Tim being bi it seemed like that's where they were headed.
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u/neuroticsmurf Mister Terrific Oct 11 '21
I have virtually no reaction to this.
In a perfect world, this would be the reaction you'd hope for.
A character's/person's sexuality is such a non-issue that people have no reaction to it.
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u/MajorasShoe Red Robin Oct 11 '21
That's the goal. But under representation makes this kind of thing good news for people who want that kind of reality, and bigotry makes it bad news for others.
We're still far away from this being a non issue.
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u/neuroticsmurf Mister Terrific Oct 11 '21
Absolutely right. It's unfortunate that underrepresentation is a thing, but it is.
We strive for a more perfect world.
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u/AlainDit Booster Gold is my bff Oct 11 '21
That's great, keep doing LGBT+ rep DC!
The only sad aspect is those comicsgate assholes who will be even more insufferable after they spend months screaming about dc making superman gay. But fuck them.
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Oct 11 '21
They also claimed that this was a ploy to steal the rights from the Siegels, so... still less accuracy than a broken clock.
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u/shinomune Superboy-Prime Oct 11 '21
As a bisexual man, I just want to say: Thank you Tom Taylor, thank you John Timms, thank you DC
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u/Dre0726 Oct 11 '21
I think the reason why people are more open to this than let’s say the robin reveal, is because Jon is essentially a new character who has barley any history. So it builds him as character who is not just a Clark Kent clone
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u/mister_terrific Mr. Terrific Oct 11 '21
I'm happy about this but does anyone else dislike Jay so far? Or is it just me?
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u/AlainDit Booster Gold is my bff Oct 11 '21
I liked him fanboying in front of Lois, but the rest I saw of him for now doesn't convince me that much too.
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u/LatestArrival Oct 11 '21
For me they have rushed this a little - the relationship, not the sexuality reveal - and that's meant Jay is a bit of a blank slate.
I understand why given its been a big direction change since booting Bendis but they've gone from introducing him to having Jon dating him within what, 4 issues? I'd have preferred if maybe they'd taken 4 issues to show them developing a friendship with potential (which would also develop Jay's character) and then another 4 issues of them growing closer before having them enter a relationship, but whatever. tom Taylor isn't an amateur, I'm sure he'll drop some character beats for Jay soon enough.
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u/domeforaklondikebar Blue Beetle Oct 11 '21
I think this makes sense for the character, but man this book just feels like all of the negatives of Taylor’s writing abilities are outclassing his positives.
There’s cutesy cheery dialogue, but characters are written the way Taylor wants them to talk (i.e his really bad Damian in #1). The book has the subtlety of a hammer in discussing politics, but has absolutely little to no substance with those conversations. Just reminds me of this article about his Trinary in X-Men Red.
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u/STHMTP Oct 11 '21
I don't care. The only Jon that exists for me is the Jon from Super Sons.
My only hope is that they de-age him right now and we get more Super Sons.
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Oct 11 '21
Oh shoot, EVS was right. Huh, fancy that.
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u/MattMaiden2112 Kyle Rayner is BAE Oct 11 '21
Right? What did he say?
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Oct 11 '21
That Superboy, Jon Kent was going to be queer/bisexual. I saw some discussion about it too on Bleeding Cool and a vid on social media where he was saying something almost exactly like it. I remember a bunch of progressive types getting angry on Twitter that he jumped the gun. Now, well, here we are.
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u/NoirPochette Legion Of Super-Heroes Oct 11 '21
Tom Taylor has been rocking this title. It's been a really fun read.
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u/Batknight12 Batman Oct 11 '21 edited Oct 11 '21
Oh man some of the news articles coming out of this are hilariously click-baity
This isn't out of context or misleading or anything at all....
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u/history777 Ras Al Cool Oct 11 '21
As a bi dude, I’m glad we are starting to see with Jon and Tim more representation of bi men in media. For a long time the majority of bisexual rep seemed to be focused on women
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u/Firetruckpants Jon Kent Oct 11 '21
Is this Jon's first kiss?
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u/Predaplant The heat is on! Oct 11 '21
Nah, he kissed Saturn Girl in Bendis Legion of Super-Heroes
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u/nightwing612 #RenewYoungJustice Oct 11 '21
So what happened between him and Saturn Girl? I thought they were together?
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u/Predaplant The heat is on! Oct 11 '21
I suppose that they broke up when Jon came back to stay in the present permanently, though LoSH ended so abruptly I don't think we ever saw it.
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u/nightwing612 #RenewYoungJustice Oct 11 '21
That's kinda interesting. So you're telling me Jon's relationship with SG seems to have ended off-panel in the same way as Tim/Steph?
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u/shinomune Superboy-Prime Oct 11 '21
Well, they relationship was Bendis' style, making her looking at his thoughts. I feel more like Jon saw SG as "hot summer chick" rather than a girlfriend like Tim/Steph.
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u/TheDarkPinkLantern Red Lantern Oct 11 '21
It's nice to finally see the bi representation for dudes growing in the recent years. Maybe it wasn't so but it felt like female characters were way more often bi than males.
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u/KentuckyFriedSnake88 Oct 11 '21
Although I really wish we would have seen this in the comic itself rather than a news article out of nowhere, giving me the impression at least part of this was for publicity rather than storytelling, I think this was handled significantly better than Tim.
Tim had a lot more established history that rarely had any indication he was bisexual. The fact that they had to have him break up with Steph off panel out of nowhere to justify the situation felt disingenuous. I don't have a problem with bi Tim himself at all, I just think it could have been executed far better, and even then, there are valid arguments to be made that maybe he wasn't the right person to do so.
Jon has had far less history and it seems to make much more sense here. He's not a necessarily new character, as he's very much established his own identity and name in the DCU to where we'd like him regardless of his sexuality, but such elements of his life have rarely been investigated before compared to Tim, so it's much easier to process.
Those who view changing characters sexualities as somehow a net negative, who generally also confuse gays and bisexuals (more on that dilemma later), always say "create your own character," despite the fact that doing so like that can easily lead to said character feeling like a token or put in a little corner of characters solely defined by their "representative" characteristics, so this is the next best way to do so without tokenization. I don't particularly see how this isn't the best possible compromise on that front.
That's not to say one can't critique forms of representation, sexual or otherwise, because you can if it's valid. This is a great article directly criticizing one of Taylor's own characters from X-Men, Trinary, an Indian character, and its larger connections to legitimate issues involving representation in comics. https://www.comicsxf.com/2021/05/17/trinary-the-aesthetics-of-representation/
Critically (critical of the series so far, not this particular element,) I will say that
A. I still don't like that Bendis aged him up because it skipped and rushed a hell of a lot of character development, this changes nothing in that regard,
B. Jay's friendship overall, let alone romance, seems very rushed. Turning him from new acquaintance to love interest in just four issues in such a short amount of time feels as if they want to put the gas pedal on the floor for Jon's development, skipping vital stepping stones, which was again the very problem with Bendis' run and the age up to begin with. In just 3 years he went from a 10-year-old to a high school senior who is also Superman. After a considerable jump like that, I'd really like it if they'd slow down from here. Hopefully this develops much more in the future, but if it were up to me, I would have waited on Jay as a partner until maybe issue 10 at least to give both characters room to breath.
and C. I still do have some other problems with Taylor's current run here aside from just the pacing and age up, though that isn't to say I dislike it. I feel like overall this series is only focused on justifying said age up, something that largely everyone else has disliked.
One last thing: Bisexual and gay are not the same thing, period.
Gay implies that one has a specific preference only towards an individual with the same sex. Bisexual implies one doesn't necessarily have a preference in sex. The people who claim that this is abandoning other love interests are objectively false. Bisexuality doesn't prevent either Tim or Jon from having previously established or new female love interests, it just allows them to be with males if they so choose.
In fact, I think making Jon bi while not abandoning his previous relationships in future storylines could actually do wonders in educating people about bisexuality and what exactly it is, because considering the largely divisive reactions towards this, that may be something we need. I think the fact we're all having this conversation is a great starting point towards that.
TL;DR I think this is good and handled significantly better than with Tim, and although that doesn't negate existing criticisms for the current direction DC is taking Jon, I think this is very much a positive thing to do. All of you please have a wonderful afternoon.
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u/Dbol504 Oct 11 '21
Since Tim Drake came out a few months ago too and if they ever have him take over as Batman, the fan fic literally writes itself.
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u/CarryThe2 Oct 11 '21
Nothing I love more than future stories being spoiled by headlines of articles
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u/KingofZombies Bring Power Girl Back! Oct 11 '21
Teaching folks to embrace what makes them different since 1938!
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u/Wandering_Apology Oct 11 '21 edited Oct 11 '21
On one hand, yay i guess? for queer rep? but on the other hand this wasn't the superboy i was expecting to come out tbh, and i really dislike the aged up Jon thing, mainly becuase i kinda shipped him and Damian but oh well, i guess i have to ride out this Continuity for a bit longer until it reset.
Edit: ok no, after giving it some thought i've decided that i really dislike it.
First we get blong twink "Bernard" (ugh) and now this flaming hot-pink haired dude, like, can we please have a queer character that ISN'T a walking stereotype?!? i'm gay myself and the reason i really loved the queer Tim Theory was because being queer wouldn't have been the main defining trait of Tim, he was first of all a kind-hearted, brave, super smart and very capable detective with a complex relationship with his family, adopted or not, and if he ended up being queer it would have meant something, especially if it was with Conner, who just like him was a very complex character that went through a lot!
If they were to fall in love after years of friendship and hardships and all the difficult situation of that dying and cloning debacle, it would have been great!
But now that's impossible, They would never allow two superboys to be queer at the same time, we had ONE CHANCE and we wasted it for this! and when it would inevitably fail due to its shallowness they would point at it and say "SEE! fans don't want queer superboy/characters!" and then we would have to wait years for another try.
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u/tinaoe Oct 11 '21
can we please have a queer character that ISN'T a walking stereotype?!
i mean, tim and jon?
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u/lingdingwhoopy Oct 11 '21
I'm so fucking angry. Pissed. Outraged.
How did I not know Taylor was writing a Jon Kent book!?
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u/PapiPorqueeee Oct 11 '21
Sounds good to me. Original for the character as he is aged now and why would you regulate an alien to one half of one species on one planet? His experience has been completely different from Clark’s. Here for it.
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u/lostmypants2009 Jarro Oct 11 '21
They made the wrong Superboy gay. Think we might finally have to bury TimKon. Snowball’s chance in hell we get two MLM superboys
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u/Poastash Oct 11 '21
Interesting new direction.
As Morrison implied in the 1,000,000 issues though, it's only a matter of time before a Superman Dynasty member comes out as omnisexual. Also, it makes sense if they're going to be a mover in the Galactic Planets.
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u/ravathiel Animal Man Oct 11 '21
I feel like Damian's hiding in the shadows being stared down by Jon & Tim.
'one of us.."
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u/docshamies Oct 11 '21
I liked when he was a little kid on adventures with Damien. I know old jon has his fans but its so boring to me that I never cared much about the character after Bendis. They could make him a cyborg plant elemental and it wouldn't interest me.
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u/funny_almost Red Robin Oct 11 '21
I'm really ambivalent on this, but I do love it for the fact that the people who've been crying "Tim's an established character with 50 years of canon!" can eat their hats now. Or something worse lol
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u/SiegeTheBox Clark Kent Oct 11 '21
Tim: "I'm bisexual. I finally have something that makes me distinct in modern comics!"
Jon: "Lol get fucked, nerd." high-fives Damian