The DC Super Twins Nobody Is Talking About

And don’t think I missed the lack of capes in these new costumes. Can you really not think of anything better than a jacket?

When I did this comic I had just stumbled upon images on Twitter. I thought this was some new revelation.

And yet there were no news stories on yet more Superkids. Going through the thread I found this.

It’s still telling though that going further through the thread so many people were asking that question. This may sound like a statement Eric “YoungRippa59” July would make but “DC” has stood for “Dead Continuity” for me since Future State if not sooner with Brian Michael Bendis re-eliminating the secret identity. However, as Superman is my favorite superhero and watching him being slowly destroyed by the comic company that once cheered him on every new story on how they’re screwing Kal-El and his cast hurts, starting with dropping the secret identity…TWICE IN THIS CONTINUITY…and aging up young Jon Kent so we don’t get to see Superman raise the next generation of Superman. It makes me sad. There is so much potential lost here, but DiDio’s Darker DC had to undo all the repair work of “Rebirth”, the last vestige of what drew me to DC Comics over Marvel so many decades ago.

So now we have Super TWINS, not Clark and Lois’s biological children…and given Lois’ track record of surviving pregnancy between Armageddon 2001 and the Injustice timeline it’s probably better for her we don’t see her pregnant, interesting as it would be to see her character go through and still be the Lois we love. However, I can’t gloss over this change because it represents what I was saying in that comic. DC Comics doesn’t understand why fans of young Jon want him back, and I’m not convinced they are even going to use the Super Twins as a proper replacement given their recent history.

Why was Jon aged up? Because Brian Michael Bendis apparently didn’t want to write a kid character and/or Dan DiDio didn’t like him because he brought that bit of fun and humanity to Superman. Instead Jon gets aged up by trying to escape crazy grandpa alternate universe Jor-El. Now he’s a teen and they can write more adult stories, and probably set him up for the CW show–though they ended up splitting him into two character, Jon and Jordan, the Super Twins you probably thought I was referring to. Or maybe  you’re like Google and thought I meant the Wonder Twins. If I wanted the Wonder Twins, Google, I would have wrote “Wonder Twins” you clods! So instead of my idea…

I guess older Jon needed a GPS to his home dimension.

…which would have fixed both DiDio and Bendis’ mistake (DiDio at least approved the change as did the Superman editor) AND the mistake of Superman & Lois that was one of the reasons I decided not to watch past episode 1 (ONE OF MANY SO DON’T WASTE TIME TELLING ME HOW GOOD IT IS JUST BECAUSE IT ISN’T AS BAD AS THE SNYDER VERSION!) we get two new kids. So who are they? I had to dig to find out, which is already a strike against this new addition.

So here’s what I found. Osul-Ra (the boy who has sometimes been drawn like a girl) and Otho-Ra (who is probably smarter and better than her brother and actually gets to look like a girl because girl power) are Phaelosians, a group of Kryptonian refugees who ended up on Warworld and long story short ended up having Kal-El take them under his protection and raise them on Earth while he was farting around in space while his son was busy protecting the world from internet trolls and people who don’t share the writer’s worldview or kiss his backside for writing the greatest Superman ever or whatever other nonsense modern superhero TV and comic writers do instead of actually tell superhero stories. That’s already more information that DC has on their website about these new characters.

Also Natasha replaced her uncle as Steel as if that matters anymore. Points for a better looking armor design than she used to have at least. Also Connor, the clone Superboy of the 1990s, is back because I don’t know. It helped turn Tim Drake gay or something.

Was there a sale on jackets?

The first thing I really notice about these designs is how similar they all look. I’m not kidding about the jackets. Connor had a leather jacket because he was a rowdy kid in a 1990s comic book, and young Jon at least put a cape on his jacket. Apparently we’re in edna mode when it comes to capes. However in the other picture, the main cover of Action Comics #1051 because of course they’re still doing the variant cover crap, Superman still has one but the others don’t, so it’s not just for the sample model sheet. Jon has apparently dropped his (and apparently gains electrical powers at one point because he’s all lit up and wearing a suit similar to the Electric Superman containment costume) Even Girl Steel ditched the cape even though John Henry had one on his Steel armor. I’m also trying to figure out how Osul (because with no secret identities anymore they probably won’t bother giving the twins Earth names) has a ponytail given how short his hair is. Even his sister may only have one because she’s a girl but at least her hairstyle looks like she can pull one off. Also they both have brown hair but according to my research Osul has red hair and Otho has brown. Unless these are two OTHER character in which case I’ve wasted way too much time in research.

China’s “Super-Man” I really don’t care about. For all I know DC is joining the rest of the entertainment industry in playing nice to China…who would be against the black girl in armor and the bisexually gay guy if not the girl heroes so speaking of time wasted…

So if the goal is to have that part of Clark raising superheroes and Jon being their surrogate big brother as part of this new extended family, it’s kind of lame. Instead of getting to see him raise his own child he’s raising someone else’s kids. I’m not against adoption but they already blew the opportunity with his own kid, so why should I be convinced they won’t do it here? Seeing young Jon and Damien working together was a delight for fans during Peter Tomasi’s Super Sons and no, having a flashback or alternate continuity version of that is not the same thing. Having it happen in real time and seeing Jon and Damien in action during the Eventitis would make them feel more part of the shared universe….though I rather they ditched the Event overload altogether. It feels like their story doesn’t matter as much. This also makes Jon less special, the Junior-Super-In-Training, by saying anyone can be that. As one tweeter noted in that thread while borrowing Syndrome’s line (speaking of Incredibles references) “when everybody’s super, nobody will be”. This was Jon’s thing and Bendis stole that. Now one of the writers on Action Comics, which is going to be an anthology that I bet won’t be even as filled or relatively inexpensive as the Golden Age anthology I went through this morning, will plug two kids in to replace the one and given Jon’s history I’m not expecting that to last long or be nearly as good.

How would Damien get along with the twins? Well, they were brainwashed by Mongul into being warriors in his games but they refused to kill each other. That means there’s a whole other experience involved. They do have a similar upbringing to Damien, who was trained to be an assassin but now Batman has to teach him not to kill (the current possession storyline or whatever is happening to him right now and the aftermath may add additional changes to his personality) but that’s not the same as his relationship with Jon, the happy-go-lucky kid (sucked out by Bendis) who balanced out Damien’s darker nature. That’s what made the two interesting to me, balancing each other’s strengths and weaknesses much like their fathers balancing of their dark and light personalities and locations. The twins are too similar based on their backstory. It just won’t be the same unless they somehow turn into duo young Jon’s despite that backstory, but they’d still have Damien outnumbered. Either way the balance is there compared to Damien and young Jon.

Connor and the kids look too casual, Jon, China Man, and Supergirl look like they’re wearing some kind of uniform, Steel’s armor just looks like a robot in uniform…Superman is the only classic superhero in the group. And he still looks almost Jon’s age.

I just don’t think this was thought out very well. The Supertwins are so unpromoted nobody knows who they are. The costumes don’t feel like superhero costumes, and no that’s not just because they lack a cape (though that hurts). Add in that DC Comics has killed any faith I have in the current generation of writers making good superhero comics in the DC mold that made me a DC Universe fan and it just really makes me sad to see the state of my favorite superhero in a culture that seems less and less interested in heroes over social martyrs and activism over heroism. As a kid I loved Superman. As an adult I miss him.