Warning: This article contains spoilers for Legion of Super-Heroes #11
Kal-El’s descendent Mon-El isn’t being allowed to claim the title of Superman in the latest issue of Legion of Super-Heroes. Despite arguably earning the name by now, the Legion has different thoughts.
While Krypton has been rebuilding itself over the course of a thousand years, the House of Zod has been busy. The central city of Kandor, where Superman’s descendant Mon-El is from, has been a contrasting symbol of peace and justice against Zod. As New Krypton is threatened by Rogol Zaar, who played a major part in destroying the original Krypton, the Legion comes to the fight. The personal attachment that Mon-El has for Kandor plants a seed for some tension in Legion of Super-Heroes #11, which is written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by Ryan Sook.
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The heroes of the future have had their own equivalent to Kal-El in Mon-El for a while, but ever since Superman’s own son Jonathan Kent, AKA Superboy, joined the Legion, things have taken a turn. Mon-El verbalizes how he wants to go by the iconic title of Superman, but his fellow Legionaires don’t believe he has earned the name yet. This fuels Mon-El’s inevitable resentment toward Jon Kent, much like an older brother jealous of a parent’s bias toward a younger sibling. On top of it all, with New Krypton at stake, Mon-El reasonably has more personal attachment to protecting his homeward than Jon, who wasn’t even born there.
Arguably, some readers feel like this is a betrayal of Mon-El’s development over the years, as Jon Kent was introduced much later. While Mon-El has been the right age for a while to take on the mantle, it seems like a sudden jump for Jon to be on the path to becoming Superman, as fans have known him longer as a child. Recently, Jon Kent’s eventual career as Superman was announced in the event Future State, fittingly set in the near-future. However, for the purposes of Legion of Super-Heroes, it’s somewhat perplexing to think Mon-El has been robbed of Superman’s legacy by a much younger hero, who isn’t even fully Kryptonian.
Readers can only imagine this dynamic of tension between Mon-El and Jon will continue in the foreseeable future and play into upcoming issues. This refusal from Mon-El’s fellow Legionaires has the potential to divide the team further, and lead to trouble on the battlefield. Whether or not things play into Future State remains up in the air, but it seems like the perfect opportunity to tease where Jon Kent is headed as Metropolis’ future Superman. It obviously raises a few questions, including whether Mon-El is aware that Jon became Superman in his timeline’s past. Legion of Super-Heroes #11 is available now.
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