#STAN CONNOR KENT BI KING GO OFF

[thanesitchyballs]

fucking obsessed w young justice so many feeling and adorations what the fuck

[garazza]

Action Comics #1022 Review

“The House of Kent: Part 1″

Starting off, we have the 9-panel grid. Because Tom King likes to use it to show off that he read Watchmen (before promptly abusing the layout to death), everyone and their mother has been scrambling to shove it somewhere in their work and try to get a useless amount of perceived street cred to show that they too had read Watchmen (killing the layout even more). Since it’s all the rage, Bendis does it here.

I actually like the third panel. As Stan Lee said, every comic is someone’s first comic (and this is the first chapter in a “highly” anticipated arc). Instead of an editor’s note, Bendis explains Kelex through dialogue that is expositional but not unnatural or clunky. But why explain Kelex of all things? My answer is well, why not? Supposedly, Conner is as unformed about a lot of things as is a potential new reader and Superman informs him in a manner that is not entirely out place, even to current readers.

Then Conner explains his origin and touches upon the fact that we’ve had a few different continuities since his creation in 1993. He is excited and curious in the first four panels and then immediately deflates in the last four. I think Bendis is trying to have the best of both worlds by writing both an excited Conner (something that fans are supposed to respond positively towards) and a depressed Conner (because he has been a victim of the discontinuity perpetuated by DC editorial and made no better by Bendis).

We get a double-page splash of the two Kents conversing that I like, especially the color of the Fortress. The conversation is very Bendis, but not offensively so. It serves its purpose, can’t be too upset about that. He tries to depict Conner as nervous, but I really hate how it’s done, it’s like reading an accent phonetically.

uwu what’s this? A fundamental misunderstanding and misinterpretation of a character? In my Bendis book? It’s more likely than you think.

Conner has literally never been little. He was created as a teenage clone of Superman and he stayed a teenage clone of Superman. He came out the test tube the punk Metropolis Kid, not the toddling Metropolis Tyke. A really big conceit of his character is that he will never look older or younger than a teenager. That’s why a lot of eyebrows were raised when in his first reappearance Bendis chose to depict him with stubble.

Another example of Bendis-speak that is fun and full of charm and character, but the characterization for the characters who are conversing is just…off. It’s a conversation these types of characters would have, just not these characters specifically.

You know, for a character that supposedly Bendis hates and wants to write off and make inaccessible to all other writers and artists, he sure writes about Jon a lot. Bendis forces Jon into the future, cutting him off not just from everything he knows and loves, but from, more importantly, the readers. This reinforces the gravity and seriousness of him being written off, but Bendis constantly undermines this hostage situation of his own creation by having him come back to the present quite often. You put characters on a bus to make them go away forever, but the bus keeps returning to the station. And the most baffling part? You’re the driver, Bendis! Commit to the fucking bit!

Jon and Braniac 5 are chumming it up, because they are toooooootally buddies, you can read alllllll about Jon’s actual, very real, and totally not non-existent friendships with the Legionnaires in Legion of Super-Heroes by Brian Michael Bendis and Ryan Sook, because Jon totally has finished watching the Legion orientation film that totally didn’t take more than 5 issues to even get him to watch and he wasn’t even interrupted once. The book is soooooo well developed and evenly paced and not at alllllll bloated behind belief.

Jon acts like he came home from college to do laundry and eat some home cooking and forgot to call ahead, like he totally isn’t supposed to stay in the future.

Me, too, Conner. I don’t know who this character is either.

We also get to see his new costume here, which I hate. The one positive thing I could say about this new character when he was first introduced in Bendis’ Superman run was that I really liked his costume. It had the cyber-armor look of the New 52 Superman suit, but wasn’t too over-designed. It worked, it looked cool. This new look is just kinda bleh. It has the ugliness of the New 52 with none of the intricacies that made it look cool and unique.

We were never going to any meeting between the two Superboys that can even remotely be called good or worthwhile. I appreciate the naiveté of certain fans who enjoy things at face value because, factually, they got what they wanted. Fans wanted this meeting and they got it, which will make the happy, but it is not at all satisfying, which is what they should care about.

Bendis has a firm understanding of Superman and his voice. The same cannot be for Jon Kent. This character is not Jon Kent. He is not written out of character because this is not his character. What we got here is not what we wanted. This is Bendis and DC editorial banking that fans will rationalize to themselves that the crumbs they deigned to give fans is actually a feast worthy of praise and exaltation (look no further than Superman #16).

Oh and by the way, this is all we get for the meeting. The rest of the issue is “wHaT’S ThE DeAl cOnNeR KeNt?”

I’m skipping over the Daily Planet stuff because I don’t care about it and it doesn’t piss me off.

Instead, I will quickly address this: “The rumor come out, does Jonathan Kent is gay?”

I want to say this came about because Jon called Conner’s leather jacket “fabulous”, but it seems this idea existed before this issue was even released. The most I can find in relation to Jon being gay is this article written 2016 and this funny little exchange in the comments of one of Bendis’ Instagram posts.

I knew I was not straight when I was in grade school and it would be amazing if such a high profile character like Jon came out. It would normalize the idea that being gay isn’t something exclusively sexual or adult, but that there is nothing wrong for kids to have feelings for someone their own age who is the same sex. But I don’t trust DC to even attempt this. If they can’t even make Dick Grayson bi, then it’s not likely for any other character to come out.

And just because he described something as “fabulous”, that doesn’t make him gay. It’s an odd choice of words, sure, but word choice is no real indication of sexuality. In an interview with ComicPOP, Todd McFarlane described a box for a figure as “sexy” and “sassy” that I might have instead referred to as “cool” or “awesome.” I think Todd’s word choice is oddly fitting, but it was not something I would have thought to use before hearing him use it in the interview, and it does not at all call into his sexuality. I have a similar sentiment about “fabulous.”

Back to the story, Superman takes Conner to meet some of the intellectual experts in the DC universe to help figure out his deal. They have some “fun” Bendis dialogue and touch upon the multiverse and continuity that Bendis has been helping shape even though he literally has never worked for DC until very recently, relatively speakingm and yet is being trusted with the word “crisis.”  And what do you mean you’ve been rebooted at least three times, I thought it was seven times according to Young Justice #1, one of the first issues Bendis wrote for DC.

I saw a Reddit post a little while back that compiled clues and subtle hints that were spread out among several titles, including Tom King, Scott Snynder, and Bendis’ various books, that tied them all together with Doomsday Clock. It demonstrated a remarkable amount of coordination that I thought impossible given who it involved, but the evidence was pretty convincing. However, this was before Dan Didio was fired and they were able to avert 5G. Now that they’ve had time to regroup, I think this issue is sowing some more of those seeds that’ll eventually be dealt with by Synder’s Death Metal.

Here’s some more of that fundamental misunderstanding and misinterpretation of a character. Conner was not “raised” by the Kents. They cared for him, sure, but I wouldn’t call what they did raising.

What is being referred to here is Geoff Johns’ run with Conner Kent in Adventure Comics which took place in 2009. What that contributed to the character was only a relatively recent development in Conner’s history. It should be noted he started living with the Kents in 2002. His solo book was cancelled with Connor being dropped off by Clark at his parent’s house on the very last page. Any sort of “raising” would have occurred off panel during that time and is largely not expanded upon because there was literally no book to depict that kind of relationship until after he had died in 2006 and was brought back in 2009. They are not the sole contributors to his life like it is implied here. He lived in Hawaii and worked for Cadmus for far longer than he lived with the Kents.

And here we have Jon casually referring to Ma and Pa Kent as Grandma and Grandpa like he actually knew them instead of just knowing of them. For those of you don’t know, they were dead when Tomasi and Gleason were writing Superman and were only just recently brought back in Doomsday Clock which concluded well after Tomasi and Gleason had left the book, so Jon never met them. At the absolute most he’s heard stories, looked at pictures, and seen home movies of the Kents. You could say I’m nitpicking, but Bendis deserves it. You can feel his disregard for others’ work throughout his other books, and its panels like this that are the proof.

Jon literally has no reason to know that Ma and Pa Kent are alive. No reason. Jon’s smug face is Bendis’ way of say “Aren’t I a stinker?”

Fuck. You. Bendis.

You do not get to pretend that stories you made impossible to tell of Jon spending time with his grandparents actually did happen. Is this interaction cute and fun and a little bit wholesome? Yes. But is it genuine? Absolutely not. He’s just trying to cash in on what he thinks fans want to see with none of the heart and soul.

And now Clark is acting like Jon is visiting from college.

Piss your pants, Bendis. Jon would never refer to his best friend Damian Wayne like that. If someone else referred to Damian like that when Jon was around, he would correct them and say something along the lines of “He’s not so bad once you get to know him.” Stop pushing the narrative that Damian is some sort of demon hellspawn or psycho killer. He’s a flawed kid with a dark past that wants to be better but struggles with it and needs friends like Jon to support him. This continues to show that Bendis literally does not understand this character and why fans get upset when he writes him this way.

Another 9-panel grid, but this is not Tom King-inspired, but actually befitting the moment. Bendis still think Conner was literally raised by the Kents instead of just living with them, but I really have no skin the game of Conner being recognized as a part of the Kent family, so this doesn’t piss me off much.

I know this is supposed to be emotional because they just reunited, but the dialogue seems to suggest something more ominous and insidious is going on, something bigger than any one of them (Crisis, I know, but its kind of obnoxiously on the nose and yet unnecessarily vague).

The issue actually ends with the story I don’t really care about, so that’s the review.

Note: I realized about part way through writing this post how pissy and whiny I might sound, but I spent too much writing it to not post it.