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This scene made me uncomfortable. I know here that Jay was doing his best to maneuver Jon away from Nia, both to keep him safe from whatever consequences Nia's decisions would likely unleash, and also because he suspects (correctly) that Nia has feelings for Jon, but the way he went about it just felt so... controlling.

Look at those last few panels. He's not even giving Jon a chance to process what just happened. Instead, he cuts him off with a kiss. Almost like he's rewarding Jon for following him. That, coupled with the look in Jon's eyes in the last panel are honestly what troubled me the most about this page.

That isn't a young man who is smitten by a sudden kiss from his boyfriend. That's the look of some who is dying a little on the inside and wondering how in the hell he ended up in this position.

But if anyone has another take on this particular page I'd love to hear it. Right now it just feels kinda scummy to me.

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Jay is the heart of the Jay-Jon-Nia "Love Triangle", not Jon.

The external premise of the JayJonNia dynamic as we've been told in promotions and such is that Jay & Nia are vying for Jon's affections. The general DC fandom is also taking this as the conclusion since Jay loves Jon, and Nia also has feelings for Jon. The existence of these romantic feelings immediately makes people think this is going to be some tug-of-war for Jon's attention but that is not the source of their current tension at all.

The reason these three are fighting is because of Gamorra.

Gamorra is what brought these three together, and it is what's splitting them apart. Saving Gamorra was where ALL of them debuted as superheroes in the comics. This was Nia's first introduction to the mainline story, Jay's suit debuted here, and Jon's first big superhero mission was this.

It is a significant place for them as heroes but also personally as people because it's Jay's home.

If you remember this interaction, it stated with Nia showing up, explaining that if they don't stop Bendix, the entire Justice League would be in trouble, and Jon & Nia jumping to go save Gamorra alone.

Then Jay slows both of them down and says this:

Jay is advocating for Gamorra's autonomy and this speech then becomes the crux of the issue.

Jay explains to Jon & Nia that they can't fight FOR Gamorra, but they can fight with it. He constantly speaks for his country's rights. He started all of this for his country. So when I say Gamorra is the reason they are where they are, it also very much means JAY is why they are all where they are.

Jon & Nia's failure to understand the importance of autonomy, the necessity for intersectionality and knowing their own limits landed them here.

Nia has good intentions but she doesn't have the power. Physically yes, but systematically, she was a new, young hero with little experience. But her belief in her own physical powers led her to making some....bad choices.

She obviously didn't want to work for Waller but accepting any sort of deal with her was a bad move. Jon warned her, she didn't listen. Afterthought gave her his premonition, she ignored it. In her efforts to protect Parthas she couldn't see far ahead enough to understand what she will have to put to the slaughter to save her own home. Jay wanted teamwork, he went into this with that, but Nia and Jon have a bad habit of taking everything on themselves.

Jon is just as bad. That lecture from Jay was directed specifically at Jon and all of SOKE was Jay showing Jon that he isn't alone. He keeps trying to give Jon community, get him more involved in ground-level work, and tries to show him that even if he is Superman, he needs a place to rest. Jon's penchant for doing everything alone means he's also shortsighted about who's the wrongdoer, and how systematic violence works.

SOKE starts with Jon worrying about how Superman can't punch dictatorships, oligarchs, corruption or pollution. Then we're introduced to Jay, a reporter whose main goal in the story is explaining that Jon doesn't have to do it alone, and that these things take time.

Jay wanted teamwork, he went into this with that, but Nia and Jon have a bad habit of taking everything on themselves. He is their glue, he gave these two direction when they were fumbling in their new roles as heroes.

Nia

Then it all goes to shit and Gamorra is colonized once more.

Nia is deeply, painfully aware that she fucked up big time by the end of Dream Team. She keeps trying to scaffold the damage and fix things but the train has left the station a long time ago. All she can so by the end of it is watch, while still somehow trying to be the hero she desperately wants to be.

And this all leads to Nia taking her most direction action to suppress Jay when she could've genuinely made a different choice; the chase in the forest.

In Nia's eyes, she can't be forgiven or be the hero she wants to be unless she fixes this for Jay. She asks JAY for forgiveness, she tries to explain herself to him, she tries and tries from Ground Zero all the way up to Secret Six, where she's only really talking to Jay throughout the run. Jon is the one giving justifications and explanations, Nia doesn't try to explain herself, but she does want to get Jay justice. The run opens with Nia's guilt about Jay, it's eating her alive. She'd go so far as to kill for him! She doesn't give a shit what Jon would think (she does, she cares but not enough to stop her), she's said it plain as day in Absolute Power.

Nia is here, to appeal to Jay and earn some kind of absolution for what she was involved in. She cares about Jon, has feelings for him, but ultimately, his acceptance isn't what she wants.

Jon

This is obvious. Jon is deeply in love with Jay. From the moment they met, Jay gave him direction, purpose, and most of all, safety. Jon was desperate for someone to not treat him like a ghost or a tragedy, and Jay was it. He didn't love him for Superman, he always called him out, he debated with him, affirmed him, and generally engaged with Jon without any duplicity.

Jon has been living a life of lies, hiding and manipulation. The first 9 years of his life, he lived under a different name- Jon White. Then turns out his dad's Superman. The move to a new town and turns out everyone there is an alien who have been used to control Jon by Manchester Black. Then his kryptonian grandfather comes in and starts talking strangely about who he is. He gets lost in space and is under the thumb of a deeply emotionally abusive man for years. Then he gets used as a weapon by having his brain hijacked.

Point is, Jon has control issues and trust issues. He needs people to be direct with him and he needs to be in control of a situation. Jay provides him this with ease.

It is canon text that Jay is the only thing that makes sense for Jon. He is his home, his side is the only side he will ever take, and through Super Son, we see that no matter what Brainiac Queen or Nia did to his mind, he will always, ALWAYS remember Jay Nakamura because he is at the core of who Jon Kent is.

Jon wants Nia in his life, he wants to know her and he loves her in his own way but ultimately, she is not who he looks to for direction.

Nia was inside Jon's brain crafting dreams for him to hold onto, and every single time, Jon turned to her and went "where is Jay?". He would actually let his mind collapse over losing Jay.

And Jay proves this trust right every time! Nia wanted to secretly kill Waller? He told Jon the second he found a chance to do so. Jay has never let Jon think he could ever reconcile with Nia. He is clear about how much he hates her even if Jon himself disapproves. Jon is unhappy about this but he WANTS this honesty. Hell his need for control and clarity is so far gone that he has been snooping on Jay's laptop!

Nia and Jon, in this event, have both set each other's approval and acknowledgment aside for one person and that is Jay.

Jay doesn't care for their acknowledgement. He never tries to make himself palatable to appeal to them. He comes as he is and if they have an issue, they can fuck off. Jay is the one being chased here.

So yes there is a love triangle here, but not in the way anyone expects.

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Bernard Dowd and the Art of Recontextualization

I'm what you might call a "fake Batman fan" - that is, I've only watched most of the Batman animated series', all of the live action movies, most of the animated ones, played some of the video games... so, you know, probably thousands of hours of my life in Batman related media. But not the comics! Fake fan!

Frankly, I find the comics medium the way DC and Marvel do it to be really hard to follow. There's the fact that you can't really follow an individual solo character without them getting caught up in massive crossover events that ruin their arc and pacing, there's the soap-opera-iness that encourages cheap and revolving conflicts inherent to the longform monthly release schedule, the writer roulette, and there's also just that going back to try and thread a particular continuity or character is an exercise in frustration. Oh and the retcons. Everyone hates those. They've (basically) never been good. Don't remember this part it will never come up aga

But, you know, despite this - or maybe because of this - comics is a breeding ground for ideas. Because of the quick turnaround and the demand for novel conflicts, comics just churn out idea after idea. Good ideas, bad ideas, doesn't matter. Get it to print. Retcon it later if we write ourselves into a corner. Comics are often soooooo first draft coded. This is why I personally prefer adaptations - they often reimagine ideas and retcon them into new narratives where they can serve a more coherent plot. But what happens when a character is picked up for a second draft ... without actually contradicting the earlier material? While enriching the earlier material, even?

(SPOILERS for Tim Drake: Robin and uh... 20 year old comics under the cut!)

So, uh, quick disclaimer - because I have very little overall knowledge of DC's Comics continuity, there may be more interesting examples of times that what I'm going to point out was done. But I love Bernard and from a writer's POV I'm impressed with the way they did it so we're talking about Bernard lmao

The Beginning (Robin 1993) - Reading comics from the 2000s hurts in a way I can't describe

Okay so I heard Tim Drake is dating a guy now? (Penny Sonic voice) Whoa he's bisexual I didn't know that! I'm sure people on the internet are being very normal about this. Cool let's find out more about his new bf. I like starting from the beginning... so like yeah hold on while I crack open the Robin comic and take down what this guy's deal is.

😬

So basically the TL;DR of Bernard in his original appearances is that he seems to be an attempt to introduce some normal stakes teen drama into Tim's life. He has all the Funny Guy Friend Classics - he's got an inflated sense of his proficiency at pulling girls, he's inexplicably drawn towards the protagonist (who is cooler than him), he wants to date the most popular girl in school, and he wants to get down with older women!

This might just be me but while I was going through this I thought like, he almost reads a little uncanny, like he's been filtered through a Disney Teen Special. In practice he mostly serves to introduce Tim to the Real Plot, Darla Aquista, and be one of his ties to civilian life, which is, like, fine. He's ultimately just a background character and he's so unimportant that he only has one appearance after their school gets shot up(!!!), which is, again, to be more of an accessory to the Darla plot.

After this display of "wow this guy's kind of lowkey insane for offering to his resurrected bestie supervillainess to be her manager actually", he's dropped forever. Comics! We're not gonna unpack that.

The Sequel (Batman: Urban Legends) - We're Gonna Unpack That

Until almost two decades later when he calls Tim up for a date. And while I'm trying to skim over a lot to get to the point here and I don't really know the FULL context, it is notable that Tim is in the middle of an identity crisis / the cusp of adulthood when this happens (I think he just lost a spleen or something. That sucks dude). It's pretty implicit that part of the reason he's going to see Bernard is because he's someone familiar in a time when he's facing a lot of new and scary stuff.

And at first blush, he really does seem like the same dude. The familiar arm over the shoulder, the banter, it's all very casual and similar to the ribbing from high school -

- and I guess nothing has happened to Bernard in the interim haha he's just the funny friend guy right?

I really like the way they did this. I'm just unambiguously going to praise how good this is if you just came off the 2000s stuff. Comics have kind of breakneck pacing by nature but they really manage to condense down and then pull off a neat sleight of hand over the course of like four pages here. They re-establish Bernard as a silly guy and then wham you with the fact that yeah actually we ARE gonna unpack that. Fuck you Tim Drake life is ever changing and nothing stays the same

So the TL;DR on the rest of the Urban Legends storyline is that stuff like, HAPPENED to this guy while our focus was elsewhere. He learned martial arts, presumably so that he wouldn't be so helpless in the next school shooting level event, he got into a pain cult, he's just Not Doing Well. We find out, reading between the lines, that calling Tim on a date was probably one of his last attempts to reach out to someone when the cult stuff was getting really bad.

I've heard people complain that Bernard is uninteresting or not a character or entirely focused on his relationship with Tim, and I think that criticism is really weird considering that his entire re-debut focuses on the point that he's been having his own life and making his own (often wild) decisions - ones that really changed the course of his life - while Tim was gone. And it's also notable that this story is about how the fact that he's his own person and has changed and has made the nerve-wracking decision to take action and call Tim inspires Tim himself to take a leap and fling himself into the uncertain waters of young adulthood.

Me when I have my bi awakening and call to get out of a rut simultaneously because Cute Insane Guy Inspired Me. iconic

So that's how Bernard has changed. But that's not recontextualization, that's just the writers taking a guy and making him do another, cooler thing. Well hold the fuck on because we're not goddamn done.

What did he mean by th-

The Recontextualizerrrrr (Tim Drake: Robin) - Bernard is the funniest person in Gotham City. I'll not be taking constructive criticism on this

Tim Drake: Robin is the followup to the Urban Legends story and Tim is the main character fr. Obviously. but Bernard is also a major character. Later, he even gets to be a POV character. But they don't do that for several issues, instead treating us to his shenanigans from Tim's point of view as he solves a bizarre serial murder case and like, they're cute! And neither of them are normal in the slightest. I love that for them.

Again, TL;DR, there are a lot of interactions where Bernard talks to Tim both in and out of costume, but we don't get to see his POV until they go out to a restaurant and meet Bernard's parents there by accident and Tim has to run off to do Robin stuff. And like... a lot of stuff happens in this one bois. Whammy after whammy

We're suddenly introduced explicitly to a lot that was only implied or just completely unavailable before. Bernard's parents are ragingly homophobic. Probably were never great even before that. He suffers from depression. All that is a lot to. wait. hold on a second

he knows?????

HE KNOWS????

Okay so if you stop at this point and reread the entire run so far you find out that Bernard is in fact the biggest troll in the entire universe. This is the moment that cemented him as my favourite, by the way. Like I had a feeling that he knew and I was just laughing my ass off when my suspicions were confirmed.

But this is really interesting on top of that because Bernard has been revealed to be, at this point, a guy who you should look deeper than the surface to understand. Someone who masks his true self and whose true motivations you can only uncover if you're really looking past the facade. Even with Tim, he sort of offers Tim and Robin half the story each, taking advantage of Robin's "distance" to give out information he wants Tim to think about but that he's reluctant to talk about frankly while at the same time almost daring Tim to open up about his identity.

Absolutely most normal way to tell your bf about your cult trauma. You'll always be famous to me Bernard Dowd

This is a really neat trick by the writers. It makes Bernard a multifaceted character who got to quietly develop while we were mostly focused on Tim, and there's some clever clever foreshadowing they set up in this run to achieve this. If it were just this, I would call it good writing.

But it actually goes one level deeper than that and becomes something really really special. because as we all know, Bernard was not conceived to be this way, he was a one-off guy who was kind of annoying and he was essentially retconned to be, like. Gay? Have depth? Be funny? All of those things?

The Seamless Retcon (Robin 1993 Again) - We took your guy and we gave him gay subtext and it worked astoundingly well

This is not a new observation btw, I've seen a ton of posts to this effect. But oh my god. Some of these panels really hit different with the new Bernard lore. Like holy fuck just read this back to back

There are tons of moments like this. There's SO MUCH that the revelation that Bernard is queer adds to his initially extremely underwhelming tenure in the Robin comics. A reread almost begs the question of what Bernard must have been thinking at any given moment! BRO YOU SAID YOU WANTED TO FUCK HIS STEPMOM. That's completely believable as a next-level closeting move and goes from kind of annoying to turbofunny.

Like yeah of course he's acting like a douche. His father is a status-chasing asshole and he's five racks deep in the closet. Of course he gravitates towards Tim - his gaydar is pinging and he thinks Tim is cute. And it's also pinging that Tim is like. You know

None of this would hit as hard if the writers had not set up Bernard as someone who masks so much. They worked it in that character trait to mean that you could always glean information deeper than the surface from his top level interactions.

Because of this, Bernard is really fucking interesting and he's a good character and he's one that gets better on reread. Like I said, that's a set of observations that are not new to me. But something that really gets to me is how seamless and intentional it is. It really feels like the writer sat down and took their time devising a guy that is believable as that other guy, but only if you read back with certain context.

The conclusion - Comics. Man.

So is this just about how Bernard is really fucking interesting and he's a good character and he's one that gets better on reread and that he can exist independent of Tim and all the haters are wrong. Yeah of course. 💖

But also like, I have thoroughly proven to myself that I was kinda wrong to just reject the published comics medium out of hand. I see now that there's room for the writer's roulette to hit the jackpot and that something I mistook as an outright flaw, the winding and unfocused and often improvised nature of it, can be ridden like a wave if you're skilled enough to do it. Meghan Fitzmarten is a goddamned genius.

I guess I have to read comics now. Fuck

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my beloved freaks in shazam #20

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i dont really do fake twitter things like these, definitely dont make em, but i keep rereading this one fic where people just wanted bernard so i had to do it

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sunbern

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Superman #16 - "Magic is Real" (2024)

written by Joshua Williamson art by Jamal Campbell

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A Jayjon presentation for anyone who's new to Jon and Jay from a fan <3

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every eldest daughter deserves to be evil

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I got desperate for Jay content and ended up reading the damijon fics with Jay, and like they clearly want Jay to be the bad guy. But they somehow write him as being even cooler than in canon! A lot of fics have him riding a motorbike(love how damijon shippers and not have just decided he's a motorbike guy), he's the leader of The Revolutionaries now apparently, and most of these fics have Jon cheating on Jay physically, emotionally, or both ways so now I'm just mad at Jon.

Like, slay King, if Jon can't appreciate all that it's his loss. I am having an fun time if i just focus on the Jay of it all like who is this rizz-filled man who is apparently a threat to the Justice League???????? Actual Jay stans make him a bit of a loser

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movie friday? 💐👩🏼‍🤝‍👨🏿🎥

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jon about damian, by the way.

Robin 80th Anniversary 100 Page Super Spectacular, "My Best Friend"

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I Read Bendis So You Don't Have To: The Famed Jon Kent Age Up

Hi! I'm Milas. I've read more Bendis Superman than is probably healthy.

No matter if you liked the age up or not, most fans are in agreement: this run was bad. Pretty dang bad. And I agree- this run is often hard to parse through all the... er, bendisisms, and often mangles what little themes it has through poor storytelling and lackluster use of page real estate. However, I unfortunately have become an expert on this particular story due to how many times I reference it in analysis, and I do not wish my suffering upon anyone else. So, to spare us all from said suffering while writing meta, I encourage Jon fans, from whichever corner of his fandom you come from, to use and link to this series as shorthand if you so need to.

This installment will be going, objectively as possible, beat by beat through the actual events of the famed 2019 Jon Kent age up.

Issues covered are Superman (2018) issues 7-10, as well as briefly covering the events of Super-Sons of Tomorrow (all issues) and The Man of Steel (issue 6).

Before we can get to the actual mainline Superman run where this event occurred, we should real quick go through the events leading up to this.

In Super-Sons of Tomorrow, Jon is confronted by Savior, an evil version of Tim Drake from a future where Jon accidentally causes a massive loss of civilian life via an explosion of his powers. Savior is travelling from back in time to try and prevent this from occurring by killing Jon, therefore stopping the catastrophe. This causes infighting amongst the Teen Titans, even more fighting with people from this alternate future timeline, and concludes with a vote being held to decide if Jon is welcome amongst the Teen Titans. The vote decides no, Jon will not be admitted onto the team.

Though the Teen Titans tell Jon that this is because the events of the book gave them a lot to think about and work out, this is not what Jon takes away from it.

In Man of Steel, Jor-El shows up and invites Jon out to space with him. This is meant to be a journey where Jon will be able to learn things that Clark has "neglected" to teach him, as well as connecting with his Kryptonian heritage.

Clark and Lois are vehemently against this at first. Clark, especially, does not change his mind on this being a bad idea, even after Jon leaves.

However, the reason Jon goes is because, in his own words, he feels like there is something wrong with him.

This is a feeling, that, in text, Jon feels specifically sparked on by the events of Super Sons of Tomorrow. Feeling lost, and like he needs to explore himself, Jon (and Lois, who does not want to leave her son unattended, and intends to write a book about the experience) join Jor El in space.

(I highly do recommend you all read Man of Steel, because it's about as close as Bendis gets to writing genuinely well in this whole collection of books, and I can only screencap so much of the sheer amount of discussion that happens between the three Kents about Jon going on spacecation. Trust me, they didn't just shoo Jon off! They talked about it for what in comic time was AGES.)

This is where we get to issue 7 of Superman, where Jon returns from his vacation... as a seventeen year old.

As Jon himself says, he didn't get aged up magically- He lived those years. So, what actually did happen to him while he was out there? What happened during those six-to-seven years (depending on who you ask)?

First: What happens to make Lois leave?

The House of El suit Clark lends her to keep her safe makes her a target, a target that puts her in active danger (in exact opposition to what Clark intended), and so for her own safety she departs.

Leaving Jon alone with his grandfather. Who, as Jon says, has gone completely insane.

The nature of Jor El's insanity is revealed in the next issue, issue eight, as we reach what I and friends call the Jor El Nihilism Speech:

Jon follows Jor El's line of thinking for most of the conversation- He understands what it feels like to not belong in the story, because that fear of being somehow wrong was what brought him out here in the first place. Jor El, Jon Kent, both men outside of time, outside of belonging. Neither should exist. But Jor El takes it to a conclusion Jon doesn't accept: That it's a hopeless existence.

This makes Jon want to go home. Concluding Jor El has utterly lost it, he decides he needs to make a break for it somehow. Because of how far from Earth they are, he can't just fly off, so he attempts to get some help from some Green Lanterns:

It doesn't go well. At this point, Jor El stops speaking to Jon for awhile, and they spend... an indeterminate amount of time fighting through the galaxy, trying to solve people's problems. While not talking to each other. At all.

But when Jor El finally does try and talk to Jon....

Well. Here's the part you're probably reading this post for:

Yay! Its volcano time! An unexpected black hole throws Jon (and Jor, but we'll get to him later) through dimensions, landing him on Earth-3. At the feet of the Crime Syndicate.

If you're going to read ANY issue for yourself, I recommend it to be this one. The Ultraman stuff is not only perpetually relevant to Jon's story, its LIKELY going to be relevant again when Absolute Power: Super Son releases. Ultraman is the one member of the Syndicate who claims Jon as 'his':

And proceeds to imprison Jon in a volcano. As I am sure all of you know by now. The Volcano.

Ultraman and Jon trade some conversation back and forth, establish who each of them are, before Ultraman tells Jon he is never going home, and that this is home now:

It becomes quickly apparent that due to the lack of sun, Jon has no protection, no way of escape. He tries to fly out, but no dice:

And so stuck he is. For multiple years. With nothing but pigs to feed on, stuck with a monster who intends to 'train' him to his full potential:

But eventually, Jon escapes. He takes a rock, bangs a hole in the side of the Volcano, and gets himself out, relying on what little he has left of his invulnerability.

Now is a good time to mention a small misconception I see peddled around a lot: There is actually significant evidence pointing to the idea that Jon did NOT spend all six years in the volcano. After wandering Earth 3 for an indeterminate awhile, going from city to city and stopping to help people along the way, there is a strong suggestion by the way Bendis frames it that this was also years. I'd personally estimate Jon's time on Earth 3 was about half and half- Three ish years of the volcano, three ish years of surviving out in the wild. Anyways, Jon finds his way to the Syndicate's headquarters, encountering an evil version of Lois who tries to attack him. But surprise! Onto issue 9, we finally get to Jon's rescue!

Jor El was also displaced in the multiverse, of course- But we have no idea for how long, where, and what he did during this time. All we know is this: Jon wasn't just thrown across space and time, he was thrown backwards.

I think this is where the source of the most misconceptions come from: Its complicated to grasp! But very simply, the reason why Jon was able to live six years while everyone else stayed the same age was because he wasn't just thrown TO Earth-3, he was thrown backwards as well. Here's a chart I made about a year ago to try and visualize it:

If you're wondering how Jor El found him... we actually don't know. All we know is Jor El apparently made some fucked up arrangements in order to accomplish it.

And that kind of brings us back to the beginning, where Clark and Jon reunite. There are still a lot of unanswered questions, namely how Jor El managed to get Jon back in the first place, but this is essentially the rundown of the age up. So to recap very quickly: 1. No, Jon was not magically aged up. He lived those years. Its spacetime travel, not just space travel. He is mentally 17-18. 2. No, Clois didn't just 'let him go' with no conflict. It was actually a huge argument that ended up also really mentally fucking with Clark in later arcs. He goes to therapy with Khalid Nassour about it! 3. Jor El has a lot more to do with all this than he reasonably should. I could explain why he's alive but it would give us both an aneurysm- Just know in this story, he kind of serves as a foil to Jon.

Now, why did Bendis write the age up? Here's a post by a friend that gets into the metatextual reasons why this was a thing.

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Evening at the Laundromat by Nekomancer.

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thinking about "clark kent may have been born on another world, but he was of this time. jonathan kent is of no place, of no time. conceived on one world, born on another, both now gone. lost in space for year with a madman. imprisoned and tormented by a broken version of his own father. he came of age one thousand years after his birth ... and then returned here a man grown, given a title he can never earn." tonight.

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Reading Guide

A work-in-progress guide to Jon Kent! I'm roughly up to the Kents moving to Metropolis right now; that's about 80 issues in more or less chronological order. I say more or less because it's kind of impossible to line things up properly between three ongoings sometimes.

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"bernard is regular" "bernard is just a normal guy" just a guy who helped robin take down an entire cult, including the chaos monsters that KNOCKED TIM DOWN so fast and easily he couldn’t react. mind you, Tim told him to leave bc he wasn't sure if he could take all the chaos monsters alone and keep bernard safe.

bernard summoned batman, and knew exactly where tim was, and took down a wall to go save his pookie even tho he was scared of the chaos monsters and had a shit ton of unresolved trauma regarding the cult.

hes not just a guy he's the representation of civilian bravery and support of their heroes. you guys just don't have reading comprehension and need the writers to spell it out for you