SUPERMAN: SON OF KAL-EL #1 - Jon Kent Steps Up
This story was written by Tom Taylor, with the visual talents of John Timms and Gabe Eltaeb.
Just over a month after the ending of the main Superman title, something that rarely happens, here we have it’s replacement featuring Jon Kent in the title role. The final arc and a bit from Philip Kennedy Johnson really wasn’t all that great to be honest, and I will get into his Action Comics run later this week, so I feel that shake up of the Superman status quo was definitely necessary, no matter what some so-called “purists” would have you believe. The one thing that is a little bit weird to me with this book is that, while it would have seemed like it was being done to reduce the number of Clark Kent focused books, that isn’t the case, as Superman and the Authority has filled the void.
For the most part, I most certainly got a great deal of enjoyment out of the this first issue. While not much exactly went on in terms of actual story in the modern day setting, I quite appreciated how we began with Jon’s birth itself, as while it has been told a number of times before, my memory doesn’t remember them particularly clearly, with Tom Taylor apparently attempting here to merge many aspects of each one together, to make a more definitive and clear origin for Jon as a character. The character writing was truly where this premiere issue really shined in my opinion, establishing the kind of hero that Jon wants to be, not simply settling into being a mere shadow of what his father is/was. This is evidenced in his interactions with both the military and the meta-human, who had caused a massive blaze in California, as his response to the problem was much more human and personable than perhaps his father would have been able to achieve. He was able to calm the meta human down to prevent further damage, while also then at least trying to communicate the problem to the military, although that was pretty much all for nought, because the guy in charge decided violence was the best option anyway.
The best part of this issue for me, and most probably everybody else who read it, was the interaction towards the end between Jon and Damian. While often times, despite the fact that they are meant to be best friends, Damian has come across as a condescending douchebag, in this story Tom Taylor makes him almost a likeable human person, with his discussion with Jon being incredibly reasonable, and his advice helpful. In this story you could actually believe that the two of them have been friends for the majority of their lives, rather than simply having been thrust together at some point during DC Rebirth, with Jon now actually having a history in this universe. It also looks as though Tom Taylor and John Timms are making an excellent decision here by ageing Damian Wayne up a little bit, in contradiction with Joshua Williamson’s current Robin series where he still looks like a small child. When a good few other characters have been aged up since his introduction, I feel that it makes sense for Damian to get a bit older as well, as it was a bit weird for him to be a twelve year old boy for much longer than the fifteen years that he has been a thing.
The strangest thing that I found with this issue was right at the beginning with the line up of the Justice League at the time of Jon’s birth. It wasn’t a version of the League from a decade or more ago, but instead a much more recent one, featuring the likes of Martian Manhunter and John Stewart as the Green Lantern. I can totally fathom that the two of them could have been active in the League during this time, but it is simply more of the fact that they legitimately were not that has kind of irked, or at least I am pretty sure that Stewart wouldn’t have been with the team at that time. To be honest, this lineup just serves to muddy the waters of what kind of time period that introduction is taking place in, and likely would have made more sense to have Hal Jordan, or even maybe Guy Gardner (if you really hated yourself) as members of the team instead, and replaced J’onn as well quite honestly.
In conclusion, this was a solid enough start to this new era for the Superman concept. Tom Taylor was of course phenomenal as a writer, which he so often is, with his character writing standing out the most, while the story itself was perfectly fine as well. The one sticking point for me though was the artwork of John Timms, as I just wasn’t all that wowed by it to be honest, much preferring his work on the outer cover to his job on the interior pages. Nevertheless, I am excited for what else the team can do with Jon as the new incarnation of the Man of Steel (despite his father still being obviously present), and hopefully they can give us something iconic and era defining.
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