The New 52 Was Bewildering But Nothing Will Ever Top That One Fucking Scene

Toshiro Mifune in "Samurai Rebellion" (1967)

‘Восхождение’ THE ASCENT 1977 | dir. Larisa Shepitko

THE TUDORS + CHRISTMAS 3x03 Dissension and Punishment

“Mental toughness is knowing life is unfair and still playing to win.”

Marcus Aurelius

I always told you, your sweet side is your best side. …I guess that’s why you’re the only one who’s ever seen it.

— Kill Bill: Vol. 2

Katie Ford, from If You Have to Go: Poems; “The Addresses”

[Text ID: “That’s love? to remember I’m remembered? / But I wish someone wanted to have me. / There’s a difference,”]

Ballerina (2023) / 발레리나 | Jeon Jong-seo as Jang Ok-ju

Ballad of a Soldier (Баллада о солдате) 1959, dir. Grigory Chukhray (Григорий Чухрай)

I’m sure it’s because not many people know but kon actually has a lot of different sources for angst potential! He’s engineered to be a copy of earths greatest hero yet constantly struggling to find out who he is outside of a given purpose. He galavants around with the idea that he’s independent enough to be his own boss, but from the moment of his creation he’s been told who to be or exploited by the people he meets. He’s both treated like an adult yet punished for acting like a kid. He makes mistakes and often feels like a screw up but he gets up and tries again every time! He’s acts like the S symbol is both something he already deserves (because that’s what he was made for) yet acts as if he constantly has to prove he’s worthy. He didn’t have a name for the first years of his publication history, and for a long time he didn’t know how to be anything other than Superboy (and maybe he’s still figuring that out). He cried tears of joy when Superman finally gave him his very own Kryptonian name and verbally accepted him into the family, a testament to how important that journey of identity and belonging is to him. At the same time, why did it have to take so long?

His life is constantly being uprooted, and he can never settle in one place long enough to call it home. He deserves agency and stability, yet his life is often slipping out of his own control. He yearns for a mother or father, and maybe if he had one, he wouldn’t feel so lost. For a while, he thought he would never grow up and be who he needs to be, which is ironic given how many people are quick to call him immature. He cares so much for his friends and family, and he is pained when people leave and feels immensely guilty when he hurts the people he cares about. Regardless of what he may think, those people are happy to remind him that they think of him as family too and they’ll travel across time and space and to the ends of the earth for him.

Despite being created in a lab to be a copy of someone else, ironically he is brimming with a unique personality that is sometimes sought to be stifled. But he’s tied so much worth into who he’s supposed to be that shaking that foundation shakes his very core and is a source of insecurity. He acts so differently from Clark, yet so similarly as well. He wants to be Superman, but both emulates him and fights to be Different from him. He believes in seeing the good in people, even if it lands him into trouble, and though he may doubt it or question it he really is a hero at heart. He’s like Clark where it matters, but everything else—his personality and style, his connections to his friends and family, his struggles and triumphs—all of that is completely his own.

He may not have figured out everything it meant to be human, but he’s loved enough to die for it. To die would indeed be an awfully great adventure, but like J.M. Barrie said, “To live would be an awfully big adventure.” And Kon has certainly experienced it all, good and bad.

<3