Superlad93

Well first off, both Superman and Jon make a point to offer to fix both the Moon and Batman's base at the end of issue #6. I'm not sure if you overlooked this or you didn't read past issue 5, but it's there if you look back.

Second, given the fact that Clark helped to fix the Moon and Batman's base, I think it's a pretty safe bet that he and his family apologized off screen. But most importantly Jon apologizes to Bruce at dinner.

Third, the most foolish thing they could do is lock Jon away in the Fortress. That's just asking to create a socially inept and emotionally unbalanced man-god when he grows up. You seal him off from human interaction, and you create a very real issue for the planet down the line. The Kents never locked Clark away in the basement even though he had just as much potential to burn people alive as Jon does now. Hell, Clark even broke Pete's arm when they were little, and could've set Lana on fire at school (secret origins). It's also just a comic book, so there's that.

Forth, this isn't a Superman comic. It's a Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman comic. This means that even though we get parts of the individual character's lives, we don't get the whole thing for the whole book because there are two more stars in it. We don't get Clark talking to his son about the importance of power control because we've got to move along to the dinner scene. We get a small sense of their family life (illustrated by Jon and Lois talking and Clark's secret pathways) but we don't fully explore it because it's not the point of the comic. We saw that there was dinner on the table, but we never saw Lois make it, and we never saw them eat it. All we needed to really know was that Jon was ashamed of his actions, and he felt sorry. Even the whole point with Jon disobeying his dad and using his powers was to set up Bruce's line to Clark while Jon was sleeping. It was manufactured so Bruce could start to relate to this new Clark over the idea of having a son. I'll remind you that Damian (under Bruce's watch) killed at least two men in cold blood. But anyways, the point is for Clark and Bruce to relate over the idea of them fathering new life individually. This is in contrast to the New 52, because Bruce explains that he established his bond with that Superman over the idea of death. It's thematic, and serves the greater whole of the book/concept.

@archizooom:

I just want to point out that Clark says that Lois will be proud of Jon because Jon owned up to his mistake, asked for forgiveness, and made clear strides to getting better so that it won't happen again. He more than understands that he made a mistake on multiple levels. He took the life of an animal that was close to the family, and broke his father's trust. He makes amends by confessing his mistakes, asking for forgiveness, taking strikes to be better, and putting the creature to rest properly. There's a lot to be proud of with him.

It's also worth noting that it was Clark's intention to let Jon come to terms in his own time. As we see in issue 2, Clark knew the whole time. It's basically a dramatized and enhanced version of normal childhood. I can assure you that there are kids out there who have killed their pets on accident (not feeding them, feeding them something that makes them sick, letting them loose etc) , and, as children do, tried to hide the fact out of shame. But the mark of growing up is owing up to your mistakes, and making sure they don't happen again.

Also there's no way Clark would home school his son, if he himself wasn't home schooled. Clark had the very same potential to incinerate a classmate at any moment, yet he went to school.

@jogga:

I hope you don't think I'm saying he should completely emulate the style of OPM or even emulate it's style to any real degree, because I'm not. I'm saying that Superman is in the very unique position of being the first of his kind and thus has been through quite a bit and has been emulated quite a bit, so commentary on that is more than possible.

Satire fits fits just fine in Superman's world as it's been a long standing part of the character's myth since the start. It wouldn't need to be self satire in the sense of poking fun at himself but instead commentary and warping of the very medium of western comics. Superman having to go toe to toe with comic trends and fads given form, voice, and story in his books. I think there's great take in that.

So just to be clear, I'm not saying anything like Superman should copy and paste OPM's style onto his own.

Have you guys read and watched OPM? The mission statement is obvious. It's satire. It's a satire of the shonen manga style and the current world wide trend of the superhero. It pokes fun at the concepts and contrivances of the shonen manga style that we as fans are either consciously or unconsciously aware of from years of watching anime and action show in general.

Look at how extravagant the powers and back stories of his foes are, yet they all die just the same. Look at the oh so serous and altruistic Genos. He is long widened and takes himself waaaaay to seriously. His back story is tragic, and his mission is one of single minded personal gratification. He is the hero of a shonen manga.

In contrast Saitama (the 'one punch man') boring in back story and motivation. He always starts a fight by saying "I'm a hero who does this sort of thing for fun". He gained his powers through a boring method. Genos looks for greater meaning in this and that is tell of his character and the show/manga.

This is more accepted than Superman's brand of overwhelming power because it's satire and very self aware. The actual focus isn't on the fact that he's so strong but on the familiar beats the show/manga is hitting while using his power as a platform. It's a very smart and instantly charming way of going about this sort of thing.

To be honest with you the Superman line could learn a thing or two from this. The over self-important take on the character is wearing thin and is a bit inaccessible when not handled with care. a dash of satire and a self aware nod could go along way with the character. I mean who better than Superman. He's seen and been through every single convention of western comic story telling. He himself has been riffed on time and again so why not reflect that a bit in a clever and entertaining manner.

Just a thought.

I don't understand. Isn't what you've just described roughly the same as putting him in his own universe? A Universe only populated by characters derived from his brand such as Superboy and girl, Steel, and all the rest.

To be honest with you I'm not sure I'd mind if Superman were actually from another universe. I think that'd be a fun experiment. The cross overs between his world and the greater DCU could be explained by him universe jumping on ever once in a while.

He's an idea: maybe make it like Multiversity where Superman reads about the exciting adventures of the DCU in comic books. He eventually learns that this world of fiction and ink is just as real as his own. Maybe he befriends Batman cross universe, and they do an almost pen pal type of thing before meeting in person (lol it's like super hero cross universe Tinder). They say goodbye and now we've established the link. Maybe some people even think Batman is crazier than the first though now that he's talking about how he secretly saved the world with the 1940's comic hero Superman lol

Now that I really think about it this would be cool if Superman comics were some of the inspiration for some heroes in the DCU or maybe the DCU comic in Superman's world were artist inspired by the real life guy.

You'd be able able to do literally whatever Superman story you'd like without wringing your hands over continuity with the greater DCU (and even his own continuity to some extent if your feeling fluid with your thinking). You could do vertigo-like tales, all ages, small quite tales, and so on.

Lol I think I may have just convinced myself on a stand alone Superman universe! And I've also successfully gone off on a tangent lol

@soldierofel:I hear OMAC is a strong contender for the spot. A sort of IOS of death Lex graphs onto the invulnerable Zod husk. It's a remnant from the old George Miller JLA script.

@brunnhilde:

Interesting theory! But I've got a reservation or two. For one, the article you linked seemed to say that the president would be the one to fall and not Superman. To be honest I like your idea better. I also don't think that shock wave comes from Wonder Woman. It seems more like the big extravagant display of power that would come from a villain or a beast. While I have no doubt in my mind that Wonder Woman will be a force all her own in this movie and others to come, I just think that was clever editing rather than an actual continued shot.

I really have to hand it to you for your Superman "death" idea. It's clean, smart, and dove tales really well into JLA. It also plays nicely into that sort of joseph campbell like hero returns right when it all seems darkest.

I'd also like to add that I think Wonder Woman should take the role of leader in the JLA if she is in fact to be the gateway to it all.

@soldierofel: I think it's a grass is always greener sort of thing lol.

@lvenger: The references are small and don't need much thought. Take the reference to issue #41 of Superman for instance, he talks about how his identity got blown there. We needed to establish why he was in this state we see him in, but we didn't get any info that was unreasonable or that broke the story if we didn't read the other book. Clark doesn't bring up the fact that Lois is the one who outed him or any real details. All of that stuff is for Yang to deal with. What we need was the starting point for the situation in Truth aka Clark being outed.

Same can be said about the reference to issue 42 of Superman. In fact we learn nothing that we didn't learn in the free preview for Action comics. It just says that issue 42 is where he first sees the threat.

Action Comics seems to have it's own agenda to tell. I expect that is true for all the other books too

Ah I see. Well then in some ways I envy you! You're gonna get to experience the whole thing at once and really judge for yourself. As with everything in this world, I hope you enjoy your time reading this book when you can!