So, after 83 years, Clark Kent, Kal-El, is being replaced in the role of Superman by his son, Jonathan Kent. This just HAS to result in a whole lot of changes. Jon isn’t at all the same person as his father. He lives on his home planet. He was raised by his birth parents and has known who and what he is his whole life. People know who he is. 2021 is a way different time culturally than 1938. And one of those many changes is causing a whole lot of fuss and bother. OMG! Jon Kent is openly bisexual! It must be the third sign of the Apocalypse or something. Eight decades of childhood have been destroyed!
I’ve been reading the series since issue 1 (there are only 3, so far), and they’ve really been showing us who Jonathan is, what it is like for him to be the son of Lois and Clark, to live with everyone’s expectations. They’ve made him distinct and interesting and authentic. They’ve made him feel and deal with his responsibilities, choose different paths than his parents, and yet make them proud of and confident in him. He is dealing with modern-day issues.
I think this series is well worth reading. I say that as a comic book fan and as a writer and publisher. I say that as someone who wants to see his own world made better and who rejects the divisiveness and extremes that are at the heart of so many of our problems, and who realizes that it takes at least two sides to divide a house against itself.
Yes, he makes flirty eyes a couple of issues from now with another young man and kisses him. Young men have done that as long as there have been young men. That’s life. And this book is written in 2021 when we have every reason to understand that that’s a fact of life, and by far not the most important one, except to the two young men involved and at the time. It’s also important, if less so, to a whole generation of young men and boys who need to see that that’s life, whether it’s a part of their life directly or just that of someone they know. You can be like me or different from me and be a superhero, be Superman—an important lesson.
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