#i mostly wanted to practice character interaction with the talia and damian one... and also i love them | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

safitheartist · 6 years

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My problem with Super-sons.

Okay. Listen. Super-sons isn't a bad book. Don't even think I'm implying that. However....I have found myself care a lot less for it then expected.

Like it doesn't take a genius to see that I absolutely adore Damian and I also really enjoyed Jon in the serieses that proceded Super-sons.

So naturally I was excited for it and I actually really loved the first issue of it. I loved the groundwork they layed in Superman and I was very excited for it to progress but......

It kind of left me very underwhelmed for several reasons.

1 the art. At first I tried to justify it by saying 'maybe they just want to give Damian more asian features' but by now it's very apparent that this is just another case of DC's whitewashing bleach. Which is getting even worse with them portraying Talia, who is vilanized yet again because DC hates us Arab women apparently, as dark skined. This is some very bad case of colorism and should not be happening in 2018!

2. The plot was meh. I mean, yeah it's above average. The writing is really good. But after the first arc everthing just kinda lost focus. The story was told throughout a ton of diffrent titles which frankly made everything a bit confusing and spread the whole thing out a bit too thin. I think we can mostly thank DC as a bussiness for this. It's great to see how it's back to it's shady tactics which value money over narrative merit.

Only took then like half a month after the launch of rebirth.

3. The titles that are suppose to support this book are bad(with a few exceptions). Especially Teen Titans. It would have been one thing if Super-sons was a self contained thing but sadly it's not. Teen Titans is practically it's sibling comic. It's embarrassing ugly asshole of a sibling you wouldn't want to introduce to somebody you would like to take interest in you, but you got to anyways because your mom is paying your salery and hopes to somehow elevate her ugly kid with this method.

4. Robin: Son of Batman was simply the better book and Superman: Lois and Clark had the more interesting Jon characterization. Not to mention that the current Superman also is doing a better job at writing Jon and making his story interesting and commpelling. A lot of my favorite moments between Damian and Jon actually were in that book rather then in their shared title.

Both R:sob and S:L&C had extremly interesting premisses as one is Damian's personal quest for redemption and lead up to a arc that should have been about self forgivness if DC didn't fuck that up royalty, with beautiful art, panel work and atmosphere. Everything about that titel was unique and exciting. With the exception of the Robin war tie in the entire story had a sense of meloncholy, adventure and mystery. It's a deep character study with a sad but not depressing tone to it. The story isn't about Damian being broken it's about him healing and it's truly extremly underrated.

Meanwhile S:L&C also is a wonderfully atmospheric story about two refuges from another world who are trying to raise their son. It's a dense narrative which mostly focuses on Lois of all people as she and Clark addapt to their new roles while trying to protect their son. You really feel how much the issolation they put themselves into affects them as they are forced to see loved ones and family they saw die again while not being able to interact with them. It's heartfelt and has very interesting themes of isolation and feeling lost which are very much a staple of a lot of Superman stories but due to the shift in narrative focus it's subverted enough to be truly interesting.

It also establishes Jon's character very well and shows us his own struggles as he doesn't seem to fit in with his school mates that much. It also establishes his curiousity and inteligence which are reminisent of Lois rather then Clark. The more time they dedicated to Jon the more you could see that he wasn't just a carbon copy of his dad.

It's a rich story with deep compelling characters and high stakes.

Meanwhile Super-sons is just...those two being friends, not even becoming just being friends who slowly become even better friends. Like everyone is talking about Damina's character development and I just stare at these panels and think. He already had that. No seriously a lot of the things people praise in Super-sons is character development Damian already had in R:sob and quiet frankly I won't give DC flowers for reheating stuff and selling it as new.

I mean to be fair there were hints that Damian would have a arc about wanting to be more like a normal kid which would have been a interesting and compelling plot that could have employed both character's differences and similarities to craft a meaningful narrative about feeling like outcast and seaking comfort in eachother, but again, the focus was drawn away from that for way too long due to everything else going on in the other comics. Speaking of, most of Jon's interesting character development also happened outside of that book.

I mean it's still fun and for what it is it's wirten extremly well. I can easily see why so many people care so much about it, especially if they didn't read either of the predecessors of that comic, but personally I really just would rather have something more like R:sob with higher stakes, a more meaningful narrative and deeper character study.

And I am kind of glad it's ending prematurly to hopefully be picked up again with a new found focus. It just seemed like the comic had a really great story it wanted to tell us but it just never got the chance to. I think they started the comic too early and should have settled with a mini series until DC's overall climate cooled down and there would be more room for them to do what they really wanted to do.

But hey that's just my opinon.

#DC #Damian Wayne #Jon Kent

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