#and also aubreys blog @auberge13

[fae-morrigan]

I'm going to try and be as nice as possible here since you've admitted to not being caught up, and therefore you're not really playing with a full hand in this conversation. I get it! DC puts out a lot of stuff! But, as a nonbinary person, aka the specific flavor of trans Sydney is, I feel maybe you'd appreciate my perspective on why I actually think this story was kind of awful, and why SOKE's approach is deeply refreshing. I'll even suggest a non-jon alternative that does queerness well as my final magic trick!

Nicole Maines, trans activist and current writer for DC (she's actually about to take a swing at Jon, you should catch up to read her stuff she's really good at it) has posited before that there is a difference in representation for queer people and representation for straight people. Largely, she points to the difference being how the narrative treats it- Does it treat it like its somehow... odd? Does it need to be exposited to the audience what a gay is at every turn? Is the character and story entirely based around their deviance?

And... yeah, as a nonbinary person, reading this story, I realized very very very quickly that it was not made for me.

Sydney isn't really a person outside of their nonbinary-ness. At most, they're meek, and the (cis) boys teach them how to be stronger and hashtag stand up to bullying. They take a long page to explain their identity to the two of them in a way that is, kind of cold and detached in a way that you can tell is meant to exposit to the audience, not really how a trans person would explain ourselves? And we never get much insight into how THEY feel about all this. Its about the Supersons, and them being allies! It's not really about Sydney at all.

(Also Tomasi is kind of a of a raging conservative in most of his works, so. Like. Don't like that he was given this story as opposed to a trans person.)

BUT! I do sort of give Belle Reve a pass for its simplicity, and how it uses queerness to self-actualize for our supersons, because... its a short story! It's meant to be quick, to the point. Not spin off into a whole storyline. And y'know, some stories are made for cis het people, they clearly need to play catchup judging by the state of the world, lol.

And yet, whenever I re-read it, I feel like an outsider looking in on a stranger describing, wrongly, my own life. I mean, I was sydney in middle school. I was out as nonbinary then and I've had to have these conversations before. So much nonbinary representation in media, especially comics, feels the need to do this. I'm tired of it: I want to exist and not have to explain myself. That's what a lot of queer people, including other bisexuals (as you mention you are), like about SOKE! It's just... present, its real, but it isn't usually a huge kerfuffle about it.

So many queer narratives are about the fact that we're queer. Actually, its almost all of the mainstream ones right now. Its like its the only conversation we can have about ourselves. I would love some comic narratives that are queer, but are also about something else too. DC is finally giving that to us, and there are a LOT of people who have been craving that after a constant... barrage of 'white dudes finding themselves' as a gay staple.

Also: SOKE is a coming of age story! It IS Jon finding himself, having an identity crisis, its just not focused around his queerness... It's focused around his identity as a burgeoning Superman in the wake of life-altering trauma. Something that continues to carry his story even now, and honestly, I think it does it very well. From a writing standpoint (as I make comics, I dont just talk about them), building Jon's story about his struggle to do the right thing in the wake of the biggest shadow in the universe has much broader applications for a plethora of writers than... well, he's bisexual superman and that's it.

And I do know you are interested in a story about self-discovery that isn't related to being a Superhero, but I would remind you, this.. is a superhero genre. There's gonna be cows outside and so forth, the superheroing is usually metaphor FOR that other bit of self discovery: Its why people write in this genre. That is absolutely the case with Jon at points. I suggest you read the age up as being metaphorical, as that's explicitly what Bendis intended. I've read thousands of superhero comic books, and I think the one that gets closest to even approaching the non-superhero thing is maaaaybe far sector (which, even if its not, you should read anyways omfg NK Jemisin is a wizard).

But him being into men DOES come up as part of that. They DO deal with his queerness. Right here! Issue seventeen. I don't know if you got to that part during your initial read (I am guessing not as this issue came out at the very very end of '22), but its my favorite issue for a reason!

I do, admittedly in my little mean heart, take umbrage with you deciding Jon hasn't had development, that he had potential, not has, despite admitting to having not caught up with him at ALL. And like yeah. They did stuff with him that's pretty upsetting for the plot. Because this is a narrative. And conflict has to happen for a narrative to happen. It can't just be happy all the time or it'll get boring super fast, especially with DC, a property that has gone on for like 80 actual years. You gotta shake things up!

But y'know what? I still have opinions on things I am not caught up with, like BNHA, so its very glass houses of me to give you shit for it, lmfao. My soapbox is fragile and is at risk of being eaten by termites.

So, instead, I direct you to this reading list made by my pal & mutual @bobbinalong. It has every Jon appearance you missed, categorized by if its essential, if its pre or post age up. That way you know exactly what you've missed out on, past AND present, and can catch up if you wanna join in on the conversations we're having.

And now, on the topic of comics you should read if you want good queerness that ISN'T Jon Kent, because I'm tired of that swagless white boy:

Bad Dream: A Dreamer Story by Nicole Maines is a paperback graphic novel about young trans girl Nia Nal (yeah, from the CW show! she's in the dc comics now!) discovering she has powers from her home planet that are SUPPOSED to be passed onto the eldest daughter, but skipped her sister and went to her. It's casually queer BUT ALSO the queerness impacts the plot, its fun, its got so much women in it, it made me CRY:

Go forth!

I just wanna rant for a moment here.

I am slowly getting back into comics (you can thank Wolverine for that) and I'm starting by reading the comic issues I've already bought but haven't read yet. One of them is the "Saved by the Belle Reve" anthology.

One of the 8 stories in the book was a Super Sons comic called: Back to School.

the whole story revolves around Jon and Damian befriending a kid named Sydney, who gets bullied by 2 other boys because they're non-binary.

Damian teaches Sydney to fight so they can defend themselves, and Jon talks to them about turning the other cheek.

"I hope i know myself as well as you do one day" hit me hard.

I wish they handled Jon being bisexual kind of the same way they handled identity and gender in this comic.

i haven't been updated on recent dc comics news since early 2023 so i don't know much about what's going on with Jon now.

I still think that Jon being bisexual isn't bad, in fact i think it would have given him great character development of sorts. I think it's rare to see in comics (i could be wrong, i have not read much) a character go through some sort of self discovery that isn't at all related to being a superhero. I would have loved to see Jon navigate adolescence. Having some identity crisis, finding himself, like most teenagers do.

He had so much potential. Aging him up not only ruined a lot of his relationships (w/ his parents, damian) it also ruined him as a character...

(that's all I'm gonna say for now since i don't really remember much of what i read 2-3 years ago, so i could still be wrong)

tldr: I guess I'm still upset about DC aging up Jon for the plot and just slapped bisexual on him