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Parents and Power in the DCEU

"Maybe; but there's more at stake here than our lives or the lives of those around us. When the world... When the world finds out what you can do, it's gonna change everything; our... our beliefs, our notions of what it means to be human... everything. You saw how Pete's mom reacted, right? She was scared, Clark."

"I don't blame you, son. It'd be a huge burden for anyone to bear; but you're not just anyone, Clark, and I have to believe that you were... that you were sent here for a reason. All these changes that you're going through, one day... one day you're gonna think of them as a blessing; and when that day comes, you're gonna have to make a choice... a choice of whether to stand proud in front of the human race or not."

- Jonathan Kent

Man "I know you did. I mean, part of me even wanted you to, but then what? Make you feel any better? You just have to decide what kind of a man you want to grow up to be, Clark; because whoever that man is, good character or bad, he's... He's gonna change the world."

- Jonathan Kent

"It's somethin', innit? One minute in Kansas livin' on a pancake so we come to the mountains. All downhill from here; down to the floodplain, arm at the bottom of the world. I remember one season the water came bad. I couldn't've been twelve. Dad had out the shovels and we went at it all night. We worked 'til I think I fainted, but we managed to stop the water. We saved the farm. Your grandma baked me a cake, said I was a hero. Later that day we found out we blocked the water alright - we sent it upstream. A whole Lange farm washed away. While I ate my hero cake, their horses were drowning. I used to hear them wailing in my sleep."

- Jonathan Kent

"Be careful in the world of men, Diana. They do not deserve you."

- Queen Hippolyta

Aqua Parents

"The question, no the challenge won't be doing it. It will be not doing, not seeing, it is the burden of this responsibility that will define you and who you choose to be"

- Silas Stone

One of the things I've come to appreciate about the DCEU and Zack Snyder's set of films in particular, but this is a recurring motif in the other films like Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Shazam!, is how they recognize the power these characters have, as well as the unknown known effect it will have on the world around them. Nevertheless they are love surrounded by unconditional love them from their parental figures. An unconditional love that is complicated, messy, and expressed in un-idyllic and contradictory ways at times. From Pa Kent thinking maybe Clark should've let the other children potentially down so that his son is safe. To Silas refusing to let his son die and turning him into a cyborg. Some react to Man of Steel and that trilogy of films for it's ethical questioning of power and ambivalent relationship too power , never fully trusting them, negatively. They do not exist in a universe where the moral-ethical default is inherently good, it's more neutral or at least cognizant of how systemic injustices can create people, and instead emphasizes the power and agency of choice. Sometimes they make bad decisions or bad things happen out of those just actions (see Metropolis during Man of Steel or the anecdote from Pa Kent in BvS). It's not their powers that make them "superheroes" it's their willingness to act or not act, the struggle to ethically use their powers, that does.

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Justice League of America #21 and #22 1963

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“Magic”

Arthur Adams

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Batman & Superman by Olivier Coipel

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The Maze Agency Maze Book #1

Innovation, 1990

Reprints material from selected issues of the Comico series by Mike W. Barr, Adam Hughes, & Rick Magyar, with a few extra promotional pieces. Serves as a jumping on point for Innovation's continuation of the series. New cover by Hughes & Magyar.

24.04

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“In spades”

Tom Mandrake

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A selection of house-ads for The Amazing World of DC Comics (1974), a self-produced fanzine exclusively available through mail-order that offered a captivating insight to the Bronze Age DC corporate and creative culture.

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Wonder Woman vs the Secret Six

Secret Six (2008-2011) #12 Written by Gail Simone Penciled by Nicola Scott Inked by Doug Hazlewood and Mack McKenna Colored by Jason Wright Lettered by Swands

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JOKER: Folie à Deux (2024) dir. Todd Phillips

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[PREVIEW] Falling in Love on the Path to Hell #1 (June 5, 2024)

writer: Gerry Duggan | artist [penciller & inker]: Garry Brown | colorist: Chris O’Halloran | letterer(s) and designer(s): Joe Sabino and Elliott Gray | cover artist: Garry Brown | publishing company: Image Comics

synopsis: GERRY DUGGAN (Deadpool, X-Men) and GARRY BROWN (Babyteeth) present a massive DOUBLE-LENGTH FIRST ISSUE of their groundbreaking new series!

The sun set on samurai and gunslingers at roughly the same time, but our two leads didn’t die off quietly. In the East, Asami, an Onna-musha warrior and female samurai, would rather die with her weapons than surrender them to a sword hunt. In the West, the gunslinger MacRaith follows his revenge to the bitter end and pays the ultimate price.

The future lovers are mortally wounded a world apart and awake together in a purgatory ruled by a ruthless society of damned warriors. This one has it all—action, the dead, the dying, the undead, and of course…romance.

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Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, & Natasha Romanoff

Thunderbolts (2023) #2

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