#brain: let's draw smthn cool and interesting! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

davidmann95 · 7 years

Note

It's probably not smthn super interesting to you but, all the new Superman costumes when I looked at them just... reminded me of Connor, mostly? (I ended up playing with them to make a Superman Connor which was fun.) But my main question is, do you think that "Superman" is a name that could ever really be passed down, kind of like how Dick was given Batman (briefly)? Not in the way of lots of people rushing in, but DC seriously trying to introduce a new Superman? Who would you give that role?

Yeah, I can see that. Same basic design, just with a yellow negative space in the S and the yellow buckle on the belt.

As for the successor business, the idea of certain superhero identities as ‘off-limits’ has never quite sat right with me. Not everyone exactly demands that another hero take up their mantle - if Peter Parker was the one and only Spider-Man I don’t think many New Yorkers would notice for long, in-universe he’s a B-list superhero at best - but they’re bigger-than-life characters, often standing for things to their city or world larger than their own physical selves; it means something for that symbol to continue past whoever started it. I never liked old-school Earth-Two Dick Grayson staying Robin forever because he ‘wasn’t worthy’ to be Batman; the guy himself would have wanted that, he’d been doing it longer than Bruce by the time he died, and he had the same training and resources and motivation. And at least there’s the question with Batman of whether you legitimately could logistically equal the decades of unrelenting globe-spanning training he went through; with most heroes, if you have the power and the goodness of heart, you’re off to the races. Batman isn’t a mythical totem bound to the heart and soul of a single individual only to fade into the wind when Bruce Wayne passes on, it’s a suit he puts on that Dick Grayson or Tim Drake or Damian Wayne could put on too, and would have good reason to. And if Superman isn’t going to be Superman forever, whether that means he dies in battle or gets old or he goes off into space, there’s absolutely a reason for someone to fill that gap. Even if his immediate family didn’t, someone would.

Not to mention a lineage of Supermen and Superwomen stretching from the present to the 853rd century and beyond is just really cool. It gives you all kind of weird variants and possibilities even before you factor in the Multiverse, lets you do wild cross-time teamups, and plays with the ever-changing future of DC at any given time. And that they manage to exist is maybe the most tangible impact of Superman’s ideals across the breadth of space and time: the Starman legacy may eventually go rotten, the Green Lanterns may die out, the Allen/West line of Flashes has died about by Legion times, but eighty three thousand years down the line the moral imprint Kal-El leaves behind is still so strong that his great to the power of a hundred grandchildren, each and every one of whom could conquer galaxies, are to a woman and man the greatest heroes of their era. That such an impossible standard continues to be met in the face of infinite temptation in a time far farther away from us than the beginning of recorded history is the most monumental testament imaginable to how good Superman actually is at bringing out the best in people.

So who starts it?

Well, Kara as Superwoman’s an obvious choice - she’s got the power, she’s got the heart, and she’s the only other survivor of Krypton up to the task. But she’s always felt off as a successor to him for me - they spring from the same incident, so her motivations and origins are parallel to his rather than springing from him and his deal. She doesn’t wear the S-shield because of him, even if he’s the reason she calls herself ‘Supergirl’. It seems odd to discuss her as a successor in the same way as Batwoman for Batman - they’re associated characters, yes, but they’ve got their own things going on. More importantly they’d keep doing pretty much the same things they were already doing, in which case why bother getting rid of another character in the first place? Taking Superman’s place doesn’t do anything to Supergirl that her just growing up wouldn’t do with time anyway. It has to be someone where them entering that role represents a change.

The idea of Conner having to become Superman is loaded with potential, but that’s kind of the problem: I think the idea that he could be Superman one day is way more interesting than him actually being Superman would be. Maybe this is in part because I generally think of him as being a character of unfulfilled narrative potential, but the idea of this kinda goofy, rough-’n-tumble kid playing around with weird Kirby concepts and hanging out with the Teen Titans and resenting having to go to high school wondering if he might actually have to be Superman one day has a lot more going for it than whatever he’d actually be as Superman. I like the idea of the hybrid of Superman and Luthor being able to save the world in the way neither of them ever could, but only Luthor’s more unsavory aspects seem to be hinted at as a potential part of the package for Conner rather than his mighty intellect or ambition, so it mostly comes down to a stock Good Genes vs. Bad Genes argument that’s settled once and for all once he puts on the cape. Similarly, that he might fear the idea of being Superman the way a teenager fears having to get a 9-to-5 job when he grows up is fun - he knows that’s ultimately a thing he has to do to take care of those around him, and something he’ll probably be okay with when the time comes, but right now he’s not so sure he’s wild about it - but that means either he gets over it, or we get another Superman who often seems to hate being Superman. Plus he doesn’t have much of a background to draw on given he literally woke up on the day of his birth as a superhero, so again, aside from having to be a role model it’s not much of a logistical change for him. All-in-all while it’s interesting to see him in that role in potential futures, I think any destiny for Kon-El would probably be best served by him finding a different job title.

While I’d hope to see him in something a little more stylish than the above -maybe he could change costumes a lot, every time we see “Superman Secundus” he seems to wear a different uniform, so that could be a character detail - I think Jon Kent, the Boy of Tomorrow, would be the best option for a new Superman. For one big thing right upfront, while it’s probably about to be retconned out of him in March (probably for the best), he’s the one of the bunch who himself is the last son of a doomed world. Hell, more than that he’s the last son of a doomed DC Universe, the one way to feasibly one-up the significance of Krypton; even when he’ll have just been born on Earth, the idea of him as the final product of a classic DC has some potency.

That sense of legacy plays into something else with him: he’s the only one of the gaggle who actually thinks of Superman as Superman. Kara knew from day one that was just her cousin, Conner was born to be Superman, but Jon’s the one who grew up with Superman as his hero, not knowing just how true that was. He looks at Superman the way you look at Superman, and then he finds out his dad is Superman, coming at the idea from an even more direct place than Wally West. And being raised by Superman means he becomes a different character from him: he doesn’t grow up lonely and lost in the same ways Clark did, but he doesn’t have to go through the same trials or endure quite the same harsh lessons either. He’s could be the Nightwing to his Batman, not quite having the same kind of focus and drive but overall a better-adjusted person, which lets him go through the same basic motions you expect of Superman while still being a meaningfully different character.

Plus, he brings back a lot of Silver Age elements that don’t quite work for Superman anymore. I’m not a fan of Clark in-costume defending Smallville as Superboy, but Jon has Hamilton, meaning he can live out the whole Superboy status quo of defending a small town while also living as a normal schoolkid concealing his powers and super-brain. And while Clark becoming Superman is an all-but-meaningless name-change for Clark if he’s already been Superboy for years, for Jon that’s the biggest thing ever, making a career as Superboy much easier to pull off for him without invalidating anything. Plus, while the doofy Chris Reeve-style disguise doesn’t quite feel right anymore for Clark, it’d fit perfectly for someone as energetic and occasionally clumsy as Jon (especially if he parlays his obvious genius into the world of mad science as his day job when he grows up). You get the original Superman succeeded by the Silver Age Superman just as he was in the real world, and Jon brings enough to the table personality-wise while still being able to do the classic stuff (he can learn more about Krypton, but it’s fundamentally altered by being the home of his unknowable ancestors rather than the place he was born, for instance), and that differentiates him from the other two candidates. Obviously a lot of this is just potential no one has seized on yet, but if Superman set down the rules of the DCU, Jon grows up as a pure embodiment of that world, Super from childhood on and living without the burdens his dad had to. That to me makes him the most interesting possibility of the lot to see as a second Superman.

#Superman #Batman #Supergirl #Superboy #Conner Kent #Jon Kent #Opinion

51 notes · View notes