Ma & Pa Kent have always been a big part of my like for Superman, even in Post Crisis when Pa kent died, it was a sad scene, but essential I believe....

In the New 52 They both get killed off before Supes is even in college! So we'll never get to see Superman visit his parents wearing his Kryptonian Armor? we'll never get to see them act so nonchalantly about a floating man in their living room? No good Advice from them to their son on life? No parental guidance?

is this supposed to be DC's idea of dark and broody? Are they forcing that batman bull on people?

I have a feeling that they killed off The Kents in the New 52 to make Superman seem more like the Golden Age Superman when the Superman lawsuit was at a particularly tense peak in the copyright dispute DC have been engaged in with the Shuster estate. Regardless, I've definitely not been a fan of the lack of The Kents in New 52 Superman's lives, I really enjoyed how they raised and cared for Clark in the Post Crisis continuity and in the Superman Animated series too. Their relationship and talks with Clark about what he was doing and how they felt about it helped to make Superman seem even more human than he already was as a character. Their absence denotes a loss of fleshed out development and maturity for New 52 Superman.

This is a smarter answer than what I thought of.

Grant Morrison said he killed the Kents because they had become a crutch.

@immolation: But did they have to make him have double the number of dead parents of Bruce Wayne?

I would have preferred killing off Martha, leave him to grow up a little with Jonathan, but then let daddy die, either way, they did just make him develop differently as a character, having to handle a lot on his own.

I loved Ma& Pa in the 80's and 90's. I felt like it gave him some human experience and connection. In the new 52 once he gets his powers back he is just gonna be superman (because Clark Kent in ruined.)

I heard it had to do with a rights issue

@diehard200904: I disagree. I would say no to killing off a parent when Clark is in his teens, because they did it in two movies. In his 20s? maybe. In his 30s more likely. His parents are older as a couple and IIRC, not in the best of health, just make the whole parent death deal different from the movies. That's what I would do if I had a say.

I like having them both alive but if one should go then I'd say Jonathan when Clark is in high school due to a heart attack. I knit it'd been done before but I thought that part of the first Superman movie was really powerful and an emotional way to show that even with all those powers he isn't God and can't save everyone /do anything.

Grant Morrison

@squalleon: Only Morrison could make it work though. Every other New 52 Superman has either failed miserably or strattled the line of good and mediocrity.

I don't think the New 52 has suffered because of lack of Kents. Its problems are vast but the Kents missing isn't even in the top 10.

@squalleon: I think it did. But either way. Don't care anymore.

@squalleon: See, I thought it had something to do with making him more appealing to younger readers. Like old people weren't fun to read about. But that's incredibly ageist. If Morrison did it, he could make it work and make it stick to the character. It doesn't necessarily mean that Superman would have to be darker but it could enhance his conviction to help people.

He said writers had relied on the Kents too much to take Superman out of moral dilemmas and since the Kents had reached almost saintfull status, it took any gravity from the situations.

@kiba: The only problem I had with the original Superman movie was the fact that Clark didn't seem to run along with Jonathan and kind of encouraged him to strain his heart. Having it happen when he was away at college would make it different. Plus, how would it be like if Martha was alive to meet Linda (Linda Danvers), Diana, or whomever else it is that he is in love with?

This! I loved seeing the Kent family interactions, they were always there for Clark no matter the problem even if they did not understand all the details. Robbing NEW 52 Clark of them adds so little and took away so much possibility, I kind of want now to see PRE 52 Lois and Clark actually meet NEW 52 Martha, but alas parents tend to stay dead in comics.

Just so many stories died with the Kent's and only told one, the story of how NEW 52 Superman fell more into line with Batman.

I think at a certain point the outlive their usefulness. I like that CLark is his own man and decides to be a hero without them there.

Also, Clark's parents dying is not them making him Batman. He isn't motivated by tragedy, and it's more about showing how a character like him deals with the tragedy as opposed to Batman. Personally. I would like to see the journey for him to make new friends and how those friends in a way become his new family.

You have to read a story with them alive first for you to form an opinion.

I've read several menso

Actually he is. He leaves smallville because the Kents die and he must move forward. His way of coping IS Superman. As opposed to leaving Smallville because he feels he can do more good out there. Even in Pre-52 the Kents didn't make him Superman, or forced him, Clark decided he wanted to be. At most they just design the costume.

Which ones? Featuring the Kents heavily?

Setting guidelines: Red Son doesn't count, Saint

@suemorphplus209: Martha meeting who Clark is dating? I thought smallville did that well with Lois. Despite the other problems I thought Annette was a great Martha and how she kinda adopted Lois was perfect.

That's more of a domino effects as opposed to what the standard motivated by tragedy origins are. Batman, Spider-Man of Flash are characters who choose to be heroes because of tragedies. I saw that more as an era of him finding himself, he didn't become Superman for like 5 years, in which it was never about avenging or making things right. It's more like Hal Jordan, who's dad died but it wasn't a factor in him wanting to be a hero but a tragedy that happened way back when.

Red Son always counts. ALWAYS! As for which.... I dunno, For All seasons

Parker became a super hero before uncle ben died, he just was a shitty one. And up until recently, Flash of any incarnation became a super hero out of the goodness in his heart, not because of any tragedy.

I agree, but in some way, there is a valid compliment that they "batmanized Superman" (especially when Grant Morrison said, DC actually wanted that, true story).

One problem, you have your timeline wrong, Clark became Superman almost immediately after the Kents died. The 5 year timeskip is after the first arc of Morrison.

No he was a wrestler for money, he was never a Super-hero. Ben's death made him one.

Yeah, I was actually angry with the retcon that Barry had to have a dead mother and a framed mother to become a police man.

@saintwildcard: 5 years wandering around makes more sense than almost 15 years of Clark wandering around in Man of Steel. That movie was pretty absurd in that aspect.

Go away, shoo!

@kenshima15:

DC wanted to make a darker more edgier Superman. But they probably thought they couldn't do so if his adopted parents were still alive, so they killed them off.

After all much more than Lois or anyother character, the Kents were Clark rock, they were the one's he went to for guidence. But now he doesn't have neither the Kents nor the El's. Remember that in the past the AI of Jor-El consciouness was also very important in guiding Superman, and now he's got no one. Neither the Kents or his biological parents AI simulation.

DC intent was quite clear initially. But along the way they completely lost control of what Superman did or didn't do.

Do I miss the Kents being around? Yes.

Shouldn't DC have used an alternative? Yes.

Which alternative? Instead of Kal ship possessing just its own brainiac processor and data base, Jor and Lara should've included imprints of both their consciousness for example in a individual sunstone crystal, that when Kal later on built his Artic fortress he would have least have his biological parents AI's to guide him.

@kiba: IDK, but it's kind of cliche that Martha meets the ladies that Clark dates, and also kind of appealing because it's traditional.

I agree about Smallville, Annette, and John Schneider were cool as Clark's parents.

Because they're savage af...

Because they serve no purpose.

@squalleon: How were they a crutch for Superman to Morrison? They show his love and devotion to humanity as well as represent why he fights so hard to protect people. I'm sure it's because DC were trying to make New 52 Superman more like Golden Age Superman so they could keep the rights to him.

Morrison said they killed any moral dilemmas Superman could have since the Kents have reached saint like status.

@lvenger: IDK, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I mean, isn't this the same guy who figured that Talia drugging Bruce out and date raping him was a good idea?

@lvenger: I have to agree with you, the Kents being gone in the new 52 has really hurt supes. The new 52 could have been good for superman, haveing him be young and and a bit rough around the edges in tear some of being a hero and stil haveing his vales the character had before the reboot, could have been great. Instead we get a mostly alien superman trying to be human instead of a good guy with amazing helping folk out and knowing he's from a differnt planet but still being human.

To make Superman more relatable, same reason they sacrificed his father in MoS in that ill-conceived, straight up silly attempt to draw a tear from the audience. Instead, everyone was just left scratching their heads as to why Superman didn't save his father. What were they thinking...

Letting his father die, right before his eyes, to protect his identity is the most out-of-character thing Superman could've ever done.

@z3ro180: I'm not sure it could have been good for Superman but had Morrison's style and approach to Superman been more adhered to throughout the Superman line, it might have been more tolerabe and a better interpretation of Superman going through a different kind of 'Hero's Journey' even though he's Superman and doesn't need that arc. Instead, what we have is a cyclical and inconsistently written Superman who is being moved further away from being the character of good nature and strong moral compass who tries to be as good a guy as he can and inspire people to be good too. The Kents' removal has harmed that aspect of the character.

On the bright side, in this world where everyone is a potential target for death and maiming, the absence of the Kents saves them from this happening to them:

Kents being dead can only be a good thing.

They served absolutely no purpose except to cripple Superman as a character, having him run home every five minutes to consult with Mommy and Daddy for every moral dilemma. Not to mention them dying is a core concept of the mythos as far back as the Golden Age. And despite what people may say, there's a reason why parent-figures always die in hero stories. Because they are an effective story-telling tool for making the hero grow up and come into his own. Luke's uncle and auntie died, and so did Ben Kenobi, so that he could come into his own as a hero. Dumbledore died so that Harry would no longer have any easy answers (which was cheated by Rowling in the last book anyway, but I digress) to his problems. Frodo and Sam, while not exactly having dead parents, were on their own, deep in enemy territory, trying to figure stuff out without any help from anyone else.

And I absolutely hated Martha making Clark's costume. He should design it himself, damn it. Stop delegating all important intellectual tasks to other people, like Lois, Lana, Jimmy, Martha or even Clark's sentient birth ship.

@lvenger: I love it when Morrison is writeing superman but the problem with him is he has to do it his way plus he's a fan of all that silver age wackiness. Haveing Morrison be in charge of writeing the rebooted origin of Superman was a bad move of their part. His run in action comic's in great don't get me wrong but it interdouched way to much crazy stuff before the new 52 had its foundation set and all that combined with the Kents being killed off has like you said moved the character away from what made him the hero we all know and love. I think the perfect writer to retell the origin of superman should have been mark waid, he knows how to write superman plus he has already done a fantastic origin (and what I consider the cannon origin) of pre new 52 supes so there's no reason why he can't do the same for New 52 supes. Though sadly from what I have read on the net waid hasn't got a very good standing with DC these day.

Because they suck

@z3ro180: True Morrison keeping to his way wasn't best for other writers, Perez said in interviews how he didn't know what Morrison was doing with Superman in Action Comics. But I don't think Morrison being put in charge was necessarily a bad thing for DC to do. Logistically, Grant Morrison has a proven track record with writing Superman including an Eisner award winning Elsewords story that need not be named, he's one of DC's most popular and critically acclaimed writers in modern times and he has a knowledge and willingness to use older, insane or unknown concepts in his writing. Plus his metaness which makes his work trippy and intellectual at the same time.

That made Morrison an ideal candidate to relaunch Superman in the New 52, even with the pacing and jumping around Action Comics went through. It's still the best written Superman story in the New 52 and what made Superman move away from being the hero he's known for falls squarely on the other Superman titles. Editorial interference, poor creative choices, too many Superman events and not letting the Superman corner breath and just tell some good Superman stories

Lastly, you heard right on Waid, he had a massive and bitter falling out with DC executives, mainly Didio I imagine but possibly Jim Lee and Diane Nelson too. Anyway, Waid is probably never going to work with DC ever again, he's completely tied up with Marvel and his own comic book company line, Thrillbent. Not to mention he's become rather bitter and somewhat angrier based on his Twitter at least. He blocked me just because I disagreed with him on the Batgirl cover controversy.

The falling out was actually Waid being passed from the role of Superman writer multiple times.

@squalleon: Oh yeah he did keep getting passed up for being the Superman writer even though he would have been perfect for it. Still, I haven't seen this explicitly mentioned by Waid in some of the interviews you can easily find where he gives his side of the story on why he stopped working for DC.