Out and loud! Jon Kent, the son of original Superman Clark Kent and journalist Lois Lane, is revealed to be bisexual in DC Comics‘ current incarnation of the superhero’s exploits. Yes, you read it right, DC’s Superman comes out as bisexual and it is not a gimmick.
Issue five of ‘Superman: Son of Kal-El,’ will come out on November 9. The young man kisses reporter Jay Nakamura. “It’s not a gimmick,” the writer, Tom Taylor, confesses in an interview from Melbourne, Australia. He is seen wearing a T-shirt with a rainbow-striped Superman logo. “When I was offered this job, I thought, `Well, if we`re going to have a new Superman for the DC Universe it feels like a missed opportunity to have another straight white saviour,” he says.
National Coming Out Day is observed on October 11, in the US to support the LGBTQ+ community. “We didn’t want this to be ‘DC Comics creates new queer Superman,'” Taylor says. “We want this to be ‘Superman finds himself. He becomes Superman and then comes out,’ and I think that’s a really important distinction there.” “I’m seeing tweets of people saying they burst into tears when they read the news. They wish that Superman was this when they were growing up, that they could see themselves,” he adds.
Reactions are mostly positive, Taylor says
DC Chief Creative Officer and Publisher Jim Lee states in a statement, the company “couldn’t be more proud to present this essential narrative from (writer) Tom Taylor and (artist) John Timms.” He adds “We talk a lot about the power of the DC Multiverse in our storytelling and this is another incredible example. We can have Jon Kent exploring his identity in the comics. As well as Jon Kent learning the secrets of his family on TV on Superman & Lois. They coexist in their worlds and times, and our fans get to enjoy both simultaneously.”
