YMMV / Superman: Son of Kal-El

• Common Knowledge:
  • Many YouTubers and Twitter users were quick to complain that Jon Kent's bisexual coming out was forced by corporate, when in fact it was a creative decision made by the writer himself that senior editors didn't even know about.
  • Also, one case that's especially mocked has been the tendency of people to either misconstrue Jon's sexuality as gay, to think it's actually Jon's father Clark who came out because they were frothing at the mouth too hard to notice the "Son of Kal-El" bit, or of course both. This is largely from non-comic readers who are just getting mad at headlines, of course, as well as a lot of click bait, particularly on Youtube.
  • Many discussions of the series note Jon supporting a climate change rally, treating it as a story in the book itself. In actuality, this is just a cover, no such story actually plays out in the book.
• Die for Our Ship: Jay Nakamura has been getting this big time from those who ship Jon with someone else, such as Kathy Branden or Damian Wayne.
• Fandom Rivalry: With Damian Wayne and Super Sons fans as a continual issue from his incredibly hated Plot-Relevant Age-Up, as well as with fans of Connor Kent in terms of stealing his spotlight after his recent return to the mainstream continuity.
• Friendly Fandoms: With Tim Drake and Wally West fans, despite being from completely different generations of DC characters, though this makes a lot of sense given that each one of them have tackled similar themes to Jon (being Legacy Character heroes who had to prove themselves), as well as Wally guest-starring and setting himself up as a Big Brother Mentor figure for Jon if he needs one, and Tim also having just came out as LGBTQ+ too.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Make your own LGBTQ characters... wait not like that." ^ExplanationA common retort used against characters coming out as queer (despite being Truth in Television, as different people come out at different ages) is that writers should make new characters instead. Despite being a recently created character with no longstanding relationships, many of the same crowd are still opposed to Jon being bisexual, prompting comic readers to mock their hypocrisy with their own words.
  • "Those colors look so much better!" ^Explanation Many took to Twitter to specifically praise the new colors of Superman: Son of Kal-El #5 to spite former colorist Gabe Eltaeb after he was fired for appearing on a Comicsgate podcast to rant about minority characters for four and a half hours.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: As you might have guessed from the rest of this page, this comic is less known for its content and more known for the uproar that followed after Jon's bisexuality was revealed.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Jon gets a case of this from readers in issue #11. He gets this because in that issue, Batman comes to Metropolis to warn Jon that his new boyfriend Jay is affiliated with terrorists and murderers, and we’re supposed to see this as Batman being an overbearing and overprotective Jerkass, or that he’s just being too harsh on Jay. Normally, that’s something you’d expect Batman to do, since he’s done similar things in the past…except that this time, Batman turns out to be right. Jay himself admits to Jon that the people he’s associated with really are criminals and murderers. Instead of bringing in the criminals and arresting them or trying to convince Jay that he’s in the wrong (which is what you’d expect someone with the Superman name to do), Jon does nothing and basically lets them go. The narrative more-or-less portrays this as a good thing, but fans eagerly point out that Clark would not have let them go and that Batman was right this time. This isn’t helped by the fact that Jon doesn’t even apologize to Batman afterwards for ignoring his warnings and not believing him.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: Jon's bisexuality was quickly met with outrage from certain circles. Gabe Etlaeb, the colorist for the comic, loudly ranted about how DC is "ruining" their characters and was subsequently fired. Republican Senator Wendy Rogers also took to Twitter to complain about the change, albeit not knowing that the new Superman is Clark's son, that Clark's marriage is still intact, or that Jon came out as bisexual, not gay^note (She also called Lois “Louis”). Josh Mandel, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat, also complained that "Bisexual comic books are for kids. They are literally trying to destroy America."

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