#there was an issue number typo in the original post whoop

[ectonurites]

When did Kon change his look?

Mmm okay so I know I had thrown together an image that went over the basics of Kon's looks a WHILE ago but I don't feel like digging to find that and it was very quick anyways, so lets do something a little more comprehensive.

1993 - Reign of the Supermen & Early Days:

(Adventures of Superman #500)

So Kon starts out with his iconic jacket look- the suit underneath is what the Cadmus scientists had him in, and he gets the first jacket from the Newsboy Legion when they helped him escape. The initial jacket was a plain one, but during the course of Reign of the Supermen he gets the more familiar one (well he gets many of these he can go through LMAO) with the gold 'S' on the back. This is also what he wears for the first big chunk of his solo comic!

1994-2000 Temporary looks:

(Cover of Superboy Vol. 4 #0, #51, #60, #74, Cover of #76)

Before his next like, more longterm major costume change, there's a few temporary looks that I think are worth mentioning. He has X-Ray glasses (since that's a power he lacks) before he loses them on a mission. When he gets stranded in the Wild Lands for a bit he has a whole Kamandi thing going on. For Hyper-Tension! he dons the jacket that an alternate reality version of himself had died in for travelling through Hypertime. During Sins of Youth he gets temporarily turned into an adult and thus has a slightly altered look. After Sins of Youth he temporarily lost his powers and wore a T-shirt look with a shield and Legion flight ring until he got them back.

2001ish - Superboy #83

(Superboy Vol. 4 #83 + Cover of #89)

At the start of Kelly's run on his solo, Kon goes through a lowkey identity crisis and with the help of a civillian named Bianca he re-learns how to be cool... and a new outfit comes along with it! This design does have a jacket, but he gets drawn pretty often without it in various appearances.

2003 - Teen Titans era

(Cover of Teen Titans Vol. 3 #2)

After Graduation Day when Geoff Johns attacked the Core Four moved onto the Teen Titans, Kon gets the T-shirt as his main look for the rest of the 2000s up to the reboot

2003-2019 Temporary looks:

(Teen Titans Vol. 3 #16, Cover of #25, Young Justice (2019) #3)

Before his next longterm costume change, we see Kon in a more classic Superman-ish suit when he spent time in the future with the Legion of Super-Heroes. Then the unfortunate 'Lex takes over Kon and makes him shave his head' situation... occurs. In YJ 2019 Flashbacks we also see Kon mix some previous looks by wearing the T-shirt and a leather jacket together.

(I am purposefully skipping New 52 Kon here because he is a separate character.)

2019 - Post-Flashpoint/Young Justice

(Young Justice (2019) #1)

When Kon gets brought back into existing he's in a revamped version of his original look! Leather jacket but now with spikes and MORE patches <3

Now?

So there was the whole fakeout thing with Suicide Squad 2021 where who we thought was Kon back in the T-Shirt look was actually Match who believed he was Kon... we later got the reveal and saw Kon was in fact still in his punk look:

(Suicide Squad 2021 Annual)

We haven't really seen him since then, but we have some covers for upcoming stuff that makes his current costume uhhhh... uncertain.

(Upcoming covers for Suicide Squad (2021) #13 and Justice League (2018) #75)

Kon might be in a T-Shirt during the War for Earth-3 crossover? Or it might not even be him on this cover because the solicits don't actually mention him by name- we have to wait and see! He's also on a cover for Death of the Justice League which comes out after that, in the jacket look, so uhhhh 🤷‍♂️. We really don't know what the deal is at this exact moment, he could very well just be alternating depending on his mood for all we know. Also covers lie sometimes so either one of these could just be wrong.