Okay, so while I do loathe the tendency of DC to become completely centered around just the Bats and Kryptonians; I do love when a strong dynamic between two of them is formed and becomes a core part of how fans view the characters. Not just shipping, but that too.

Like... We have the classic chums, Bruce and Clark, constantly steeped in homoromantic tension, regardless of how little DC want to admit it, but also from that closeness we got Nightwing: a hero raised by Batman but more interested in being a part of his "uncle" Superman's legacy.

Then, when Kal-El's estranged cousin and Batman's commissioner friend's daughter meet, Supergirl and Batgirl form a recurring duo that for awhile was just as shippable if not more so than Clark and Bruce. (And tbh it's kinda a shame that we rarely see Kara and Babs hanging out during Oracle storylines)

And after the deaths of Jason Todd and Superman, two unlikely teens stepped in to try to fill those roles before either could pull their rendition of a phoenix rising from the ashes: Tim Drake and Kon-El: the Robin that found Batman and the clone that would be Superman. Both struggling with who they wanted to be and who they were expected to be at birth, but united by that with a team of similar young people that wanted to just be themselves. (And possibly the most shippable duo in the whole lineup)

Later into their lives, both heroes found themselves with sons. One by choice, the other by circumstances out of his control. These sons were Jon Kent and Damian Wayne: the first naturally born half-Kryptonian/half-human eager to get into the heroing whist his parents desperately try to make sure he gets to just be a kid, and an assassin trained from birth that chose his father's kinder mantle over his grandfather's castle built on bones. Both stuck between halves and initially stuck together because of who their parents were. Despite their differences, or possibly because of them, they each found the other to be a kindred spirit, and grew to be inseparable friends with so much potential between them that their respective families basically dread the two of them without supervision. (Tho arguably they were more primed to work well together than Damian would like to admit, as Dick Grayson, then former Nightwing, had been the Batman to his Robin and his surrogate father figure for much more of his early hero days than Bruce had.)

And then, after many a death, rebirth, reboot and retcon, we find two cast-off members of these families... Jason Todd: an anomaly caused by a fracturing multiverse, his past even more a patchwork after that multiverse rebooted and then again when his found family of Outlaws regained their previous timeline friends and memories; and the third Bizarro of post-Flashpoint Earth One: fated to follow in some of the footsteps of Bizarro No. 1(the third Bizarro pre-Flashpoint) but cast aside for not being the same as the second Bizarro of his own timeline, who sacrificed himself to save it. Brought together thru meddling by Lex Luthor along with Artemis, an Amazon who'd also been uprooted from her past's continuity, they became like family; Jason and Artemis helping Bizarro to find who he wanted to be for himself and all finding some semblance of peace in a world that accepted none of them with open arms.

(Yes, I could get into Diana, Donna and Cassie's wonderful dynamics with their respective Bats and Kryptonians, but they're not as integral to the meeting and dynamics of the others, and the WW family isn't as frustratingly all consuming of the DC comic lineups)

Can I ask how many stories you have with Lex as a more prominent character in the stories? Or where he actually makes an appearance? he's mentioned quite a bit, but he rarely makes an actual appearance. I just wanted to see if I managed to successfully find them all, but I probably haven't, so I figured I'd ask

Well one day this will all be yours is cartoon YJ as opposed to comics but is actually FINISHED and includes a significant amount of Good Dad/Bad Person Lex, which is my favorite kind of Lex, so there's that for starters. In addition, however, so far as stuff where he's not just a mostly non-speaking plot device or part of someone's traumatic backstory:

WIPs that prominently include Lex-

"hereditary behaviors", where Experiment Thirteen just woke up early in Cadmus and is very Luthor-possessive of its "father", and Lex is just like "alright I definitely did not forsee this chain of events but also let's see where this goes".

"I mean Match technically is also a Luthor", where Lex decides the Agenda has ripped off his IP and said ripoff is therefore HIS. Also tiny Lena II wants to host tea parties and corporate takeovers with her brand-new big/little brother and Match is just confused as to why his new owner isn't keeping him in a cell.

"the one where Kon's soulmark is fake", where Westfield had a fake copy of Clark's parental soulmark for Jon tattooed on Kon and Kon both hates that fact and just wants a fucking dad, and Lex has only had this stupid brat of a clone for a day and a half but if anything ever happens to him he is gonna kill everyone in the multiverse and then resurrect him once there's no one left to stop him.

WIPs that Lex just appears in-

"Amazon bb Kon", where closeted trans femme Kon finds out a) she has soulparents and b) they are Lex Luthor's two incredibly badass possibly-Amazonian-but-no-one-has-confirmed-yet bodyguards, and they have no idea what to do with their brand-new "son". Lex is mostly just there to say disparaging things about Superman and sign Hope and Mercy's paychecks, but he is there all the same.

"merfam drama. MERFAMA.", where Lex is the asshole antagonist and is just a horrible person who is keeping mer!Kon and mer!Clark prisoner in a fucked-up Sea World-esque park. Remix of someone else's fic.

Also he's due to cameo in when I see myself I always know where you are, though he won't be particularly plot-relevant or anything.

I thiiiiink that's everything I've currently got going with him having an on-screen role in it, though I've got a couple more ideas involving him that I might like to write once I knock out a few of my current WIPs, ideally. I really love to write Lex from basically every direction, he is just so enjoyable to write, the bastard.

23, 24, and 25 for the ask meme!

23. ship you've unwillingly come around to

sorry for the cop out but i honestly can't think of any dc ship that this really applies to! i tend to like ships fairly quickly or not at all lmao. seriously i am trying really hard to think of one and i can't 😭

24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

i thought way too long and hard about this before deciding this question doesn't actually need that much deep consideration so i'll just say the discourse that has been annoying me a lot recently lmao. the 'fanon is better than canon' thing. i love re-interpreting characters and stories in certain ways too, and of course various canons have many, many problems, but. it's a crime that i see opinions about my favourite characters based on watered-down tropes and stereotypes made by people who haven't read a single comic featuring them being treated with the same weight as genuine analysis and re-interpretations that engage with the source material. sorry lmao

25. common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

'clark is a bad father [to kon]' clark isn't a father to kon at all stop narrowing character relationships down to tropey nuclear families and start thinking about their dynamics with some genuine consideration. and why are people so intent on vapidly villainising clark for literally no reason. why don't you fight me in the woolworths parking lot. i'll bring my 1400 page death of superman omnibus

Here, have some analysis literally no one asked for.

As far as I can tell, there are very few, if any, dramatizations of the original YJ kids that come close to their portrayals in the comics. For instance, there are plenty of animated and live-action adaptations that feature a Superboy/Conner Kent, but most bear little to no resemblance in personality and origin to the Kon-El of the 1990s/early 2000s comics. There are two versions that I am aware of that actually do specifically adapt the original Kesel-and-Grummett Kon, and these adaptations have something in common: they try to correct some of the problematic areas of the character's story.

Kon's first appearance in the comics includes such things as

his romantically pursuing and being pursued by adult women who are fully aware that he is physically sixteen but chronologically more or less born yesterday;

adults exploiting his naivete for their own gain;

and Superman's preventing Project Cadmus from killing him but doing nothing to keep him out of their ownership or away from the control of his corrupt manager.

This sets Kon up for a hundred-issue-long solo comic in which nearly every adult in his life fails him and he's left to blunder through life with minimal guidance while assuming everything that happens to him is either normal or his fault. It's a worrisome story, and while I do think it could be adapted as a deconstruction with full recognition that This Is Messed Up, neither of the adaptations I'm about to discuss have that scope and thus need to adjust some things.

First there's BBC Radio's Superman: Doomsday and Beyond (1993). This is an adaptation of the whole Death of Superman/Reign of the Supermen storyline that the comics were running that year. You can listen to the whole thing on YouTube; it's pretty good!

Kon's appearance in this adaptation is diminished from his role in the corresponding comics, most likely for concerns of brevity with such a sprawling story to cover. Nothing about the character is changed; he is a clone created by Cadmus who escapes, calls himself Superman, and joins in the climactic battle when the real Superman is restored to life. He appears to be a teenager, wears shades and a leather jacket, and flirts with every woman he meets. This Kon is voiced by an adult doing his best dopey teenager impression, which is hard to take seriously. Not that the character is very serious, but in moments when he needs to be heroic instead of the arrogant, petulant comic relief, it's not so effective.

The major change is in how his relationships with women are depicted. Tana Moon, the twenty-three-year-old reporter who gets her big break using him for a story and later goes on to be his love interest, is included in this adaptation. But instead of her eventually pushing for a romantic relationship, the interest is portrayed as completely one-sided on his part. He complains to her that she stood him up on an attempted date (...while calling her "man"), but she's too busy warning him that her employers are using him to respond. This Tana is also not complicit in the exploitation, unlike in the comics.

Roxy Leech is mentioned as the reason Kon so readily makes a deal with her father, but her role is nonspeaking, so her advances toward him as portrayed in the comics (including a creepy innuendo-ridden conversation over a video game played with joysticks) are omitted, and Kon just comes across as one-sidedly silly and immature rather than preyed upon. Which isn't...wonderful characterization, but relatively? less bad? than the original.

The full exploration of his tactile telekinesis and exact origins aren't explored (his last line is his conceding the Superman title back to Clark), but there's a line that does hint at the heart of the character. When trying to convince Tana to go out with him, he tells her he's been cleaning up his jacket and costume and insists that "if the original Superman was alive he'd be proud to have me for a clone." Not a line from the comics, but in keeping with his desperation to be accepted and meet expectations.

The need to correct Kon's story is more marked in the animated film Reign of the Supermen (2019). This is a much looser adaptation of that storyline and reinterprets Kon's backstory through the retconned lens of his being a clone of both Superman and Lex Luthor, created not by Cadmus but by LexCorp to be a pawn.

There is no Cadmus in this version, no Paul Westfield, no Dubbilex, no Tana Moon, no Rex and Roxy Leech. This Kon is still an exploited child, but this time that comes solely from Luthor, who is kind of a "stage parent" toward his clone and at one point almost kills him for failing to perform as desired.

This Kon is still very eager for female attention, but all his admirers while he's enjoying celebrity status are teenage girls around his (physical) age, not adult women. He still attempts to hit on older women, but this is portrayed as an effect of his lack of social skills, and unlike in the comics, the women are always disgusted. Mercy Graves complains that he's "too handsy" for her liking, and Lois Lane finds his attempts to flirt with her (starting by asking how old she is and insisting he's "old enough") "revolting."

Nevertheless, this version of the character has more adults who try to look out for him. Dabney Donovan, the scientist who created him, is kindly toward him and begs Luthor not to kill the boy--at the expense of his own life. (Cf. Donovan in the comics, who doesn't have that role and is rather villainous.) Even though Lois is annoyed by the boy, she's friendly toward him the few times they encounter each other. It's implied that something in his DNA from Clark makes him feel comfortable opening up to her. He confides his disappointment in learning about the human side of his DNA, and she reassures him. Almost like what Tana's role was intended to be for him, but minus the creepy grooming and using him to further her career.

Clark is taken aback when Kon addresses him as "Dad" when they finally meet, but he listens patiently to Kon's account of his "harrowing" life so far and refuses Luthor's demands for the return of his clone--"The boy stays with me!" Kon makes it clear that he wants to live with Clark. That doesn't work out, obviously, but the film's epilogue includes the newly renamed Conner's going to live with the Kents. ("Aww," Lois comments. "They'll eat him alive.") This changed ending is a practical choice, glossing over the comics' long complicated interval of his being more or less on his own, but it also rewrites his story so that more concern is shown for his welfare as a child/minor. He's being sent to a loving, stable home instead of being left to the exploitation of unscrupulous adults.

(...and then apparently this film series goes on to unceremoniously kill him off in the next installment, which negates everything, but for purposes of this discussion, I am choosing to ignore this.)

Anyway, here's where I should say something very intelligent about why adaptations make the choices that they do that would wrap all this up brilliantly, but this is all I've got. Except...note the difference in the adaptations' choices by date. The 1993 radio adaptation diminishes predatory behavior but tends to hold Kon in contempt for his gullibility. The 2019 film was more like THAT'S A CHILD and handled him mostly accordingly. Which I would consider a step up in character interpretation.

Hi your posts about Kon were really thorough and gave me a lot of information that I didn't have as I like that other anon just haven't read the old series or anything lmfao I am a terrible comic fan but anyway could you please show us if its not a bother Clark's actual first interaction with Kon? I know they have a parent/son relationship but I see everywhere that Kon was immediately rejected for a long time and the cartoon did it too but I never see anyone have the scans anyway thanks!

You will never see those scans because they don't exist in the context you mean. This is fanon. That particular conflict between Clark and Kon was for the Young Justice Animation.

This hostility was absent from the comics, and even then they did not have a parent/child relationship.

Superboy #94

Their relationship in the comics was more cousinly/brotherly as Clark accepted that Kon was his clone, and if someone is your clone genetically the closest relative would be a sibling, not a child. This was the route that the comics went with and it is the type of relationship Clark accepted and continued with when Kon came back into continuity in 2019 although with a slightly altered perspective.

Action Comics #1028 There ARE times when Kon is casually referred to as Clark's "boy" as Batman did when he confronted Clark about Kon dating Cassandra, but Clark was not a parental figure to Kon. In fact Clark's usually confused when someone asks about his "son" pre-Jonathan Kent. Clark is more like a mentor or role model; like the distant older brother who is enrolled in college to Kon than a parent.

(I am sorry please someone tell me the exact issue # for this I poured through my collection and have lost track of the issue #, I was only able to find this page via googling the meme it is associated with, I gave up after 2 hours) Clark respects and trusts Kon to make his own decisions and make his own relationships so he generally leaves Kon alone to lead his own life. This does get Kon into trouble eventually which I will explain below. Clark occasionally comes around in Kon's comics to help him or drop nuggets of wisdom, or to ask him for help in things (like keeping an eye on Cadmus's genetic practices and alerting him if he sees anything dubious or questionable) but he never rejects him. Supergirl for a brief moment in time did reject Kon and claimed he was not worthy of wearing the S Shield, but not Clark.

Superboy #59 Clark accepts Kon into the S-Shield family, into the House of El and later into the House of Kent. Clark has always thought very highly of Kon and he trusted him. As far as Clark and the entire world was aware of Kon had a stable life setup for him by Cadmus with Dubbilex and Rex Leech in Hawaii so Clark had no real reason to suspect Kon was in need of any additional personal "help" from him or anyone. Also as far as Clark was aware of Kon had a guardian who was mature and trustworthy to make sure he would be safe and stay out of trouble. Then things fell apart for Kon, he could no longer live in Hawaii and then he lived at Cadmus for a while until the whole lab was shut down and he was essentially homeless for a very short time.

Kon left to his own devices found residence at an apartment complex in Suicide Slums as a live-in maintenance person as he had no income. Kon was being (once again) exploited and taken advantage of and he didn't really have the skills to prevent this from happening to himself. Kon's time in that apartment came to an explosive (literally) end and that is when Clark took him away from the situation and set him up with his parents as Conner Kent.

Superboy #100 During this time yes someone should have come in and intervened immediately when Kon was homeless. It would not have to have been Clark necessarily, but someone who would have Kon's best interests in mind because up until this point there were very few people who genuinely did and had the skills to keep him safe.

This is the one major re-occurring flub of the entire run in my opinion; that no one stepped in to help Kon when he really truly needed it and no one saw that he was not in the best situation even in Hawaii.

One of the main themes you can glean from Kon's comics is his persistent exploitation by others. You can argue that Clark failed to not notice this and perhaps he should have been more present to notice, that he at worst was a negligent and oblivious brother/mentor to Kon, but he never flat out abandoned him or rejected him because -again- Clark assumed Kon was alright. Even so you can make a fair argument that he as a hero, and as his mentor/brother/cousin/responsible adult should have intervened sooner. So anon, I am sorry but you were mislead by fanon and carry-over from the Young Justice Animation. There just is no comic support for the claim that Clark abandoned and rejected Kon. I do actually appreciate what Young Justice did in this telling of Clark and Conner (I can't call that Superboy Kon) because it shows that even heroes can fail and fail horribly. It's a great narrative to have however it is also important to know that the Young Justice Animation is its own separate universe and is wildly different from the comics. Both narrations ARE canon but only to their respective worlds. I hope this breakdown sorts some things out for you.

could you tell us a bit more about why you like mar'i so much?? <3

Hmm, nostalgia's a huge part of it, ngl. I probably don't say it enough, but I have my fan blinders just like everyone else, and a huge part of my DickKory shipping as well as my fondness for even just the idea of Mar’i is just my willful perseverance through all the admittedly crappy takes or depictions of them and their relationship in the comics. But they were one of my first big ships, and like....they stuck on me. Imprinted. Like baby (ship) ducklings. Or I imprinted on it like a baby duckling? Idk. Something to do with baby ducklings and imprinting though, for sure.

Another part of it though - because it really is just a giant conglomeration of factors - is I fucking ADORE the trope of second generation heroes, like the children of superheroes and what their lives are like, and Mar'i isn't even just second gen, she's technically THIRD due to the fact that Dick's a second gen hero himself, being Bruce's kid and all. So that's like, the thing I like but even BETTER because its MORE and I, as you know, am all about Things In Moderation.

And then on top of that, there's also the fact that like - I mean, there's a reason I rarely talk about JUST Mar'i or even Mar'i and Jake, but tend to drone on about ALL the Titan kids en masse, because the appeal isn't just Mar'i, its her being a core part of a larger whole, with a whole BUNCH of next gen superhero kids, the future generation of Titans we SHOULD have gotten but were ROBBED of like people who got ROBBED! *shakes fist mightily* So I love that entire brood of future chaos-artists, Mar'i, Lian, Cerdian, the twins, even Bobby who is not responsible for his father being the Literal Worst.

And its just like.....we were this close to having something genuinely unique in comics, because SO MANY comics only give their Can't Let Them Age, Can't Let Them Groooooooooooow superheroes kids via time travel shenanigans and occasional genetic experimentation accelerated grow-ups.....but like, literally every one of the Titan kids we got in continuity was just....a kid, being raised normally by their parents, from babies into the possible future heroes they might someday become while we got to watch the whole thing happen, well normally plus the way Wally did it cuz he had to go and be such a special fucking snowflake about it I stg, le sigh.......at least until DC upended the chessboard and was like we're gonna murder all these babies so damn hard.

So its all of them, y'know? I love Mar'i, but I don't want a world with Mar'i so much as just a world where DC had literally just chilled and we got the whole gang.

But then ALSO, it IS about Mar'i, specifically, because I just want to see what she'd be like because I'm so big thematically on like, the impact parents' child-rearing has on their kids, and like.....I just genuinely think that Dick and Kory, when portrayed at their best as a couple, or even just as friends, like I'm honestly fine with takes where they end up breaking up but still co-parenting....like I genuinely do think their natures complement each other in such a way as I can picture them just being fucking AWESOME parents. Like, the expressive, loving, embarrassing-but-you're-actually-okay-with-it-just-can't-let-them-know-that kind of parents that are like....The Dream.

The closest thing to what I picture Dick and Kory raising kids together like is definitely Lois and Clark, as I think there's parallels there. I know I've said before that I've never been big on 'if every gen of heroes needs a Super, like Tim has Kon and Damian has Jon, then Dick needs Kara or Chris'.....like, I've never been big on that because for me, I always viewed Kory as thematically being the Titans' Superman. Like DickKory in a lot of weird ways kinda IS the Titans version of Superbat for me, and so I think their style of parenting would have a lot of crossover with Clark and Lois. But at the same time, I'm also the first one to say that no like, Dick's not Batman but he is A Bat, and he definitely has Batlike tendencies and you know I had that whole massive post-on-post-on-post chain about like, headcanons I have for quirky Batfam eccentricities that remind people that Batkids are just not like other kids, lol. So you'd have Batfam tendencies still thrown into the mix but overall a fairly healthy and happy family unit, and like....I just really want to see what that looks like or imagine it, and what teenage or adult Mar'i would grow up to be like as a result.

Similarly, the appeal of the Batfam in next gen stuff is there's so many different distinct dynamics you can imagine Mar'i having with each of them one on one.....like, there's just so much POTENTIAL in her and how she fits into her two respective family trees, because I ALSO think its incredibly interesting that Mar'i and Jake, after years of Bruce and Dick and the rest of the Batfam being characterized as like, Princes of Gotham and Gothamite royalty, like....due to Kory's family, Mar'i and Jake would actually BE literal royalty, and that's also an interesting dynamic to throw into the mix, as well as Kory's oft-neglected siblings.

But ultimately that's what it comes down to for me....I'm a sucker for untapped potential, and Mar'i just represents so damn MUCH of it. There's also the element of gestalt, like its a fave trope of mine when next gen kids are clear composites of BOTH of their parents, but also more than the sum of their parts and a distinct entity unto themselves who exists outside of just being so and so's kid.

Anyway, yeah, like I could go on for hours, probably, lol, but the gist is just....there's so many potential directions and dynamics baked into her very existence, and I would love to see any of them explored.

And again, the nostalgia thing.....like, I don't think we truly understand until we reach a certain point like, the effect time can have on your story wants or priorities, if that makes sense? Like I just mean, not to discount younger fans at all, but when you've only been reading comics for a few years or even been aware of the characters for a relatively finite length of time......there comes a point where in comparison you're suddenly like holy shit I've been a fan of this character or team or concept for literal DECADES. And that's a big element here. Like I'm in my mid-thirties and Mar'i first was introduced as possibility way back in Kingdom Come, like I first read about her when I was like....twelve.

This is a character who was more teased than ever really INTRODUCED....but like.....TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO, lmao.

That's a loooooong time to be waiting to see her actually become an idea that's explored, that's given room to expand and become an actual character rather than just the possibility of one.

Like what we got was juuuuust enough to capture my interest and be like oh okay cool, I would like to see more of her, and then....

DC: Lmao.

FOR TWENTY-FIVE FUCKING YEARS.

sfhklafhklafhklfahklfahlf

I just....

I have been showing my dad Young Justice and he wondered why the show keeps treating Superboy like he is Superman's son. I kinda know the answer to that question (Geoff Johns) but it does make me realize, even in the context of the show they don't know yet that Superboy isn't a full kryptonian, so, if they assume that he's a complete clone of Superman, he'd be his biological twin, not his son. Thoughts?

That is a very good point, and putting aside the fact that Kon is also Lex’s genetic kid (sorry, had to slip that in there because it will never not amuse me), I think for the characters in context it’s a matter of age.

Well, that and the fact that Kon– despite being aged up and seeming perfectly capable of handling himself– is way too young to be on his own. Okay, yes, he got aged up to roughly about physically 16, and we know that he had a lot of information ‘imported’ (read: implanted) into his mind. Thing is, humans make mistakes and can have some serious oversights, so it’s entirely believable that Kon would have some serious gaps in his knowledge and in certain circumstances that he would be completely lost on how to handle things.

So while from the characters’ points-of-view Kon would technically be a biological twin, he is entirely too young chronologically and doesn’t have the guaranteed knowledge-base he would need to comfortably be treated as Clark’s little brother. Plus, if he was labelled as Clark’s little brother, that potentially would set up a situation where Clark was pushing off the responsibility for Kon onto his parents.

Now Bruce in that scene where he’s trying to urge Clark to step up and be Kon’s father is acting entirely in character. Family is extremely important to Bruce, and the idea that someone would walk away from someone else who is supposed to be family would be the kind of thing that would outright offend him. That said, while Bruce no doubt knows that Martha and Jonathan Kent would all too willingly step up and take Kon in, at the same time he would probably feel that putting that responsibility on them when they’re as old as they are would be entirely unfair. (You don’t ask people in their seventies to take in and raise a teenager who could easily be their grandchild if someone else in the family is in a better position to take the kid in.)

So from Bruce’s perspective the next logical question is ‘What does Kon need? An older brother or a father?’ And with the potentially sizable gaps in Kon’s knowledge the logical answer is that he needs a father. And since Bruce can be pretty overwhelming in his own right (even if he tends to be subtle a lot of the time), I wouldn’t be surprised if his giant “THIS CHILD NEEDS A PARENT WHO WILL TAKE HIM IN AND LOVE HIM” feels are spilling over onto a lot of the other characters and affecting how they look at the relationship between Kon and Clark and how Clark’s handling it.

In other words, I think Batdad’s Dad-game is too strong. lol(Not too surprising considering in YJ canon, come season 3, he’s going to be the single father of 5, and in comics canon he’s the single father of 6– depending on the reality.)