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Jon Kent was created in July 2015. He a cheerful boy, who was intrigued by being the son of Superman. Together with his father, and later also with his best friend Damian Wayne as the Super Sons, he was learning what it meant to be a hero. With their help he also was able to control his newly powers that manifested over time.
From his perspective we were able to see the world of Superman from close by and how his father dealt with that, while also being the hopeful companion that Damian needed in his dark life. He was a normal kid that tried to make his friend human, because Damian started a life as being an assassin, a weapon, for the League of Shadows.
These are the kinds of things that made Jon an interesting character, especially when he himself was still a young kid. He really wanted to help people as an hero.
But all of that was taken away when for some unnecessary reason Jon needed to be aged up. According to Brian Bendis it wasn't interesting to see a hero do "chores, homework & playing Fortnite". Yet, that's what made a young hero like Jon human and relatable. Even though he didn't do only these three things, he still was a kid in the Kent family. He was allowed to do those things when he was just Jon, not Superboy.
Though he wasn't just aged up. He firstly needed to be sent to the future to be imprisoned and tortured for quite some time. It was a really bad place that he needed to escape. This period caused him trauma. A period that also got him into a very forced and short relationship with Saturn Girl.
Eventually he made it back to earth. But for his parents and friend it was only a short moment in time. When he returned they didn't recognize him at first, because he looked differently. He wasn't the kid that they knew, he was a tall teen now. A teen Superboy, which is basically what Conner Kent is too though.
Jon's uniqueness as a character hasn't really been there anymore. He's getting to a point that he's like a copy of his dad or Conner. Even though the latter one is already a clone of Clark.
In Superman: Son of Kal-El, Tom Taylor was the next writer to try to do something to develop the character and make him stand out again. But the series already pretends that Jon's traumatic period didn't happen and that this new run is a new starting point for him. So he's a happy teenager. Okay, sure we can go from that, but in reality that would mean that what bendis wrote in his run didn't matter in the end.
His parents actually treat Jon differently. Lois is very distant with him, like she doesn't really care about him. And Clark forces his son into his own mantle, Superman, because he needs to be off-planet, even though Jon doesn't want to wear it and is fine being Superboy. But his father insists. It's a way to pushes Jon into the Superman role, but both of his parents should be more supportive of him. Like they were when he was still a kid.
To make Jon more unique and stand out from the other supes, he's taking two route. One of them is to make him more political active. It's not something that hasn't been done before, but making it with modern issues could potentially work (although with his actual traumatic past he wouldn't really care about that, but we roll with it now). One of the issues is climate control. Yet, only making Jon doing a strike while he can single-handedly the planet on his own is actually pretty stupid. He can use his frost breath in the arctics and move the planet if needed, to name a few things (the issue with this topic was actually Jon fighting a kajiu). If Jon should be active in political subjects, it would be interesting to actually do something that makes sense for him.
The other route was saying that Jon is bisexual (which, saying upfront, I have no issues with. I wanted to see Jon liking boys, since I do too). It made big news when the kiss panel got released on coming out day. But when the actual issue came out, it was only that. A kiss. No talk about realizing that, no talk afterwards what just happened. Nothing happened, even though it was Jon's first kiss with a boy. It was as if these two boys were in love for a very long time and kissing them doesn't mean anything to them. It was pretty disappointing to see. This makes it the second time that Jon got pushed into a forced relationship.
Thinking that just a kiss is everything you need to do to have bi representation is far from true. You really need to put effort into it to make it authentic, true, meaningful.
It also doesn't help that the love interest (Jay Nakamura) has only been around for like 5 minutes, is more interested in Jon's reporter mom Lois, and looks like he got hints of using Jon for his own agenda, rather than truly being in love with him. And to make things worse, he looks like a gay stereotypical boy, which to me is pretty offensive to portray that in maybe the biggest media that's trying to do LGBT representation.
Another thing about this that I think is offensive as well, is Taylor's reasoning behind this decision and relationship: "[Jay] would be the *only* person that Jon never has to protect with his life". The thing is, Jay got powers of his own, which has been named as the reasoning why Jon "never has to protect [him] with his life". Clark never ever cared if Lois had powers of her own or not. She was already a badass woman of her own. Saying Jon only could have a boyfriend if he got powers, feels to me like discrimination against non-straight people. Why should it matter if someone has powers? It should be about how someone feels for the other, their personality, how someone is from the inside. And it's not like Jon sees everyone but Jay as a damsel in destress that he needs to save. When he was partners and friends with Damian they saw each other as equals, not like Jon constantly had to save his non-powered friend. And, if we *had* to name a damsel, it would actually be Jon because he hadn't fully controlled his new powers yet so Damian sometimes had to save him for his own good. But that's not in the sense of a damsel, he just needed to help his friend.
Both of the routes that Taylor has taken Jon with in his own run, turns out isn't doing the character any favors. Right now he gets hated by the majority of people. Something that fans of kid Jon never wanted for him. As a hopeful boy, he brought joy to people that read about him. Readers wanted him to naturally age and grow up to one day be Superman, but they would've liked to see that in like a decade, or more. Everything of that progression is skipped and in the end Jon turned out to be a boring character that's no different of the other supes anymore.
Jon was a character that only around for 2-3 years with lots of potential, but all of that was thrown away by aging him up. But there was no reason for any of that. Jon didn't need to be Superman that soon after being created. There was already a character that could've taken up the role when Clark is off-world, one that's been around for decades: Conner Kent. Jon could've had a dynamic with him while being Superboy and growing up. Jon could've stuck around with his best friend Damian and with him the team Super Sons. He could've found more characters to turn into allies and friends. But none of that happened...
I've tried to explain in a neutral way why so many people are asking for Jon to be de-aged, to be rebooted. Kid Jon made fans happy, gave them hope when people needed it, even brought people back to comics or even in for the first time. But most of them are turning off from current Jon, he's not the same person they've been reading since the start. I am one of them.
And Jon can still be bi as a kid/young teen, that part shouldn't have to change if he does end up being de-aged. It's a wrong view that only (young) adults can be non-straight, when in reality most people already know or think they know/are questioning it before they turn 18. So even if you only just started to know Jon when the news broke that "bi Superman kissed a boy", he would still be bi when he's back as a kid and you could still enjoy the character, potentially even better since he's figuring it out who he is as a young teen. That would make him a pretty unique character again.