Jon Kent – The Impossible Son Of Superman

DC has never dared creating a son between Lois and Clark until now. OK DC has done it before but we’d never had a full character with this much detail before. Jon Kent Superboy isnt the first to take on the title of Superboy but he is not a clone. So how did Lois survive the procreation process? Lets take a dive.

Superboy Jon Kent – The miracle child.

In the mega event convergence, we witness Brainiac collect cities with their citizens from across timelines and the multiverse to store away in a place outside of time and space. Every city was kept under a dome for about a year. Superman, Jimmy and Lois were in Gotham for a convention when Brainiac decided to begin his collection. While under the dome, every hero lost their power meaning Superman exhibited human traits. Clark and Lois successfully conceived a child in Gotham but Brainiac demands that every city battles eachother to the death. Clarks city is matched with the flashpoint universe where Superman goes toe to toe with Captain Thunder, Green Lantern, and Cyborg while the wild card Kal El from the flashpoint universe, heads over to Superman’s Gotham in seek of Lois Lane, a woman he deeply loved but is dead in his universe. Kal finds Lois in heavy labour and brings her back to the only doctor he knows, the flashpoint Batman aka Dr Thomas Wayne.

 Superman arrives shortly after. Now realizing that they are not enemies, Dr Wayne helps the couple deliver their son into the world. This is how Jonathan Samuel Kent came to be.

The flashpoint event happens shortly after and Clark, Lois and their new born were thrusted into the new 52 world aka earth 0. Superman did his heroics in secret while observing a new world with young versions of himself and his friends in the Justice League begin their hero career after stopping Darkseid’s invasion.

Meanwhile, at home, Jon’s situation is far from perfect. Clark and Lois lived far from the city without the luxuries we take for granted. Their roof is leaking along with many other things in their rental but Clark can’t fix everything without raising suspicion from their landlord especially now that the new 52 superman has been outed as Clark kent. They were often late for rent but the landlord was very impressed by Clark’s hard work and he was a very kind man so he didn’t mind. That means our OG superman and has family had to change their last name to white, which is a direct nod to Perry White the chief editor of the daily planet where Clark and Lois works.

Fast forward a few years later and Jon is a few years from hitting puberty. He always had an interest with Superman going as far as to watch superman videos in class and getting caught for it. Clark and Lois found themselves in a very odd position – their child is growing and getting a lot more curious of his world and his interest in superman. There is no direct tie that the superman on the papers is his father but the truth is that his father IS superman from a dead world. Clark and Lois will eventually have to deal with explaining to Jon that his father is indeed A Superman and that they are not from this earth.

Superboy Discovering Powers for the first time.

While Superman builds a new fortress of solitude, Lois does what she does best at journalism. With her knowledge taken from her previous world, she wrote a book exposing an up and coming criminal organization called intergang. Needless to say, the gang caught wind of the book and her identity resulting in the gang placing a hit on Lois. Lois was kidnapped along with her son. While superman defuses a situation, Lois attempts to calm her son but by now Jon has had enough and demands to know why his parents are lying to him. Clark and Lois are always careful to talk in the garage but Jon’s powers are starting to manifest so he can hear his parents from anywhere in the house. He can clearly see the resemblance from his parents to the real superman and the lady reporter who outed him. His frustration hits a boiling point and he tears the rope bonding his hands to shreds. Their room is quickly catching on fire and the exit is blocked by a huge flame. Lois cannot reach past but surprisingly, the fire does not affect jon at all as he reaches for the doorknob with ease. Mom and son escapes but are welcomed by rifles courtesy of intergang, meanwhile superman finishes his fight and swoops in just in time to take his family to safety. Unfortunately one of his powers has been revealed to Jon. At this time, both parents explains how they are from a different universe and that THAT universe is dead. Clark discovers that jon had inherited a few of his own powers but luckily the talk ended well. Jon is overjoyed that his father is superman.

Battle with Manchester Black and Jon Kent Superboy’s true potential

In the following days, Jon attempts flying, but falls on his face. He befriends the neighbours kid, a girl named Kathy whom he accidentally revealed his laser vision to. We fast forward a few issues after Superman allows Batman to run some tests on Jon’s DNA. The results came in as inconclusive. Batman deduces that with Jon’s hybrid human and kryptonian DNA, Jon’s power should surpass Superman’s but somehow he is not. One moment he can be invulnerable going through a wall of fire and the next he can tumble from a tree, skin his knee and pass out. Batman believes that it is something in his surroundings that is preventing him from developing his powers further. A test in the local milk supply leads Batman to discover that the neighbour’s cow milk is tainted with alien enzymes.

Batman gets captured. Damian gets taken as well along with Jon leaving superman to investigate while Lois beats Superman to the truth. The county of Hamilton, their current home, has been housing a ship worth of alien refugees whose plane crash landed. They are stuck on earth and chose to follow a known Superman villain named Manchester Black. Black was trapped in time space with the alien refugees and he saw what the future holds. According to Black, the future needs Superboy, not superman. Black somehow corrupts Jon allowing him to tap into his deepest emotions. This also gave Jon his ability to fly and a heightened strength that even Damian can feel. What ensues is a battle between father and son. Through the chaos and destruction, the alien ship’s quantum reactor erupted allowing superman and Jon to peek into time and space. From this image we get a direct nod to DC’s plan on aging Superboy up a few years.  After Manchester Black’s defeat, Jon lost his peek powers but kept his flight ability. He still cannot do everything that Superman can do but the potential is still in him and according to Batman, Jon’s powers will surpass that of superman’s

How DC Retconned Superboy Jon Kent’s past

So this is where we move into how DC cleverly retconned Jon’s past, and fixed the mess with 2 superman’s in 1 swift swoop in Superman Reborn. Shortly after New 52 superman’s death, a completely human version of Clark Kent appeared much to the confusion of the world who had believed that Clark and Superman are one and the same. Having this new Clark and pre flashpoint Superman side by side was almost enough to prove to the world that the idea of them being one person was a lie. This new Clark also publicly went on air and stated that Superman came to him and asked to switch places with Clark in order to keep Clark safe from a possible threat due to a story he was working on. DC successfully fixed the identity issue with this move but then we move forward and discovered that this new Clark Kent was actually MR MXpicalic in disguise. He was on the run from an even more powerful figure named Mr. Oz and the only way to truly hide himself was to forget that he was the 5^th dimensional imp to become the completely normal Clark Kent.

Eventually the guise ended where the imp took back his identity and took Jon from his family. In a pocket universe, Jon, Clark and Lois fought to get eachother back again and this is where we discovered that Superman is not whole. Half of him was inside the new 52 superman. After that superman died, the life force went into Lana Lang and Lois Lane from the new 52. After defeating the imp, new 52 Superman was brought back and recombined with his other half the pre flashpoint superman. The same goes for both Lois as well but there is only 1 Jon. So Jon’s timeline and past changed again. A lot of the rich history of Pre Flashpoint superman became canon again but it was respectfully combined with new 52 superman’s history. Instead of 2 supermen having their own Fortress, the new timeline states that the same superman built the Himalayan fortress to keep the arctic fortress a true safe house. Also, the kryptonian battle armor is still part of canon even though it isn’t seen anymore.

 The convergence event was forgotten so Lois’s pregnancy was announced to Perry White who became Jon’s god father. Jon was then born inside the arctic fortress of solitude amongst friends and the Justice League serving as bodyguard making sure nothing goes wrong with this miracle child’s birth.

 There are a lot more issues to continuity but Action comics 977 did an amazing job weaving through this hot mess. What’s important to mention is that Convergence was forgotten and Thomas Wayne Batman was not the one who help delivered Jon.