Jon Kent
Jon Kent is a character that gets a TON of attention in modern comics, and I think that's deliberate. When the rapidly-aged-to-adulthood version of Jon first appeared and almost instantly seemed to be positioned to fully replace his father as Superman, it was pretty clearly designed specifically to stir controversy. It's kind of a shame, because if they hadn't skipped over the vast, expansive ocean of potential stories that could have been told about Clark Kent raising his infant son to adulthood, and about Jon learning everything about what it means to be Superman, he could have been something so unbelievably special. It falls to us then to try our best to set him up to actually fulfill all the potential of what could have been.
This is one of very few, if not the ONLY, entirely post-2011 characters we're adapting to the project. I will try my best to be objective when describing plotlines set in modern DC comics, but I suspect it might wind up being pretty hard.
This is one of very few, if not the ONLY, entirely post-2011 characters we're adapting to the project. I will try my best to be objective when describing plotlines set in modern DC comics, but I suspect it might wind up being pretty hard.
Jon Kent's Comic HistoryThere is actually quite a bit of precedent for Lois and Clark to have kids. For decades, Superman comics were peppered with 'imaginary', or non-canon, stories where they would get married and have kids, most of which would later be adapted into the multiverse, suggesting that every one of those stories happened somewhere. This includes Jon himself, who is technically a reference to Lois & Clark's child in the classic Alan Moore story "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" More recently, during the Geoff Johns 2006 run on Action Comics we're introduced to Lor-Zod, the son of Zod & Ursa who was born inside the Phantom Zone, and who was later adopted by Clark and Lois and given the name Chris Kent. He would eventually return to the Phantom Zone, sacrificing himself to save his adoptive parents.
Later, as DC was trying to figure out a way to redeem itself after royally botching it's whole continuity in the New 52, they published a crossover event called Convergence which featured several stories that continued classic storylines and teased what a DC with a functional continuity would look like. In it Lois and Clark finally had their own biological child, and we got to see the birth of the infant Jonathan Samuel Kent. Later, when the original pre-New 52 Clark & Lois replaced the New 52 Clark & Lois (I beg you not to try to understand this one), they arrives with a suddenly ten-year-old Jon. The act of rapidly aging child heroes is frustrating, but also incredibly commonplace, and soon we were treated to an absolutely delightful partnership between Jon and Damian in Peter Tomasi's fantastic Super Sons series. Then, Brian Bendis came to DC, took over the Superman books, and immediately rapid aged Jon again just because he didn't feel like writing a 10-year-old, completely discarding all that unbelievable potential. |
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Jon's Story & Possible FutureWhen we started this project and wrote about the idea of Lois & Clark having a son, and that the future of Superman's story should heavily feature him as a dad, it was a pretty revolutionary idea. In the time since then not only has DC worked very hard to, seemingly, shoehorn that idea into canon, but we've actually had a fantastic story featuring the exploits of young Jon Kent, had a whole TV series centered around Clark & Lois raising their teenage sons, and even had the entire concept of their son be completely exploited and ruined by fast forwarding to the forgone conclusion that Jon would grow up to be one of the leaders of his generation of heroes while doing precisely none of the work to earn that story.
Now, for our project, technically, Jon isn't even born yet. His birth will happen 'soon' so vaguely in the near future. There really isn't a way for us to get Jon and Damian to be the same age within our existing timeline, and that's a shame, but he will have other young heroes his own age he can befriend. The really important part of introducing Jon here is to explore every part of Clark's experience as a father, and to see how Jon learns all the really important parts of what it means to be Superman. Compassion. Patience. Love for every living thing. Yes, Jon might very well someday be a great hero, but I am way, way more interesting in seeing every little part of how he becomes one. |