Your take is your own, I see the reasoning, but I do kind of think the inconsistency was the point I supersons? Damian's capacity for handling emotional intimacy is strained and limited and the fact that he isn't consistent in his expression of affection, to me at least, kind of seems like the obvious result of that. Little boys with unhelpful role models for emotional openness can already be like that with their friends, today common, especially with that age pocket and especially when their feelings are intense and they don't have the tools to really communicate and rationalize them. Damian is an extreme version of that dysfunction, so him bothering Jon and being harsh and unkind one moment and devoted the next just kind of read like two sides of the same unhealed, immature coin. Also he's been raised by Batman. The modern Batman.
It just tracks with me experience with helping children manage their relationships is my point, so I wouldn't be willing to call that sloppy or unrealistic characterization.
I don't ... totally disagree.
But my point was more that if this was the point, it was never really treated as such. It was never examined. Damian never got a moment (again, in the Super Sons comics, I feel like that's really important to note because that's what I'm criticizing) of introspection, or at least so far he hasn't.
Obviously a thirteen-year-old boy isn't gonna sit his little friend down and explain all these big emotions to him, he's a child, he doesn't understand what's going on himself, but they do have adults in their lives and even if Bruce is too emotionally constipated to sit them down for a good talk, I don't think Clark or Lois are.
But Lois doesn't factor into this at all, unless we want Damian to degrade journalism for whatever fucking reason, and Clark, too, is written very inconsistently, at first wanting them to spend more time with each other despite Damian being an ass (and Jon giving as good as he gets), then wanting to seperate them because some freak from another timeline says Damian's gonna be responsible for Jon crossing a line in the future after the kid's proven to deeply care for Jon.
And I know this seems like I'm contradicting myself, because I just said I wanted Clark to keep SuperSons!Jon away from SuperSons!Damian but that only goes for the first five or so issues. After that, Damian does start having those sweet moments and Clark as a person is much more likely to foster those, despite any potential risks, than stamp them out by separating the kids.
But Tomasi!Clark is another rant. Or really not, he just often feels too angry and too soldier-y and I don't always like him.
There's good stuff in Super Sons. There's interesting stuff in Super Sons. None of it is ever examined. We can do that, sure, and we might get something neat out of it, but that's you putting in the work, not the author. Which is good to a certain extent, you should have stuff to think deeper about, implications and what not, a book shouldn't serve you everything on a silver platter, I just genuinely don't think Tomasi did this with that thought in mind.
He was writing The Fun Adventures of Superboy and Robin, and his Superboy's a sweet kid who won't take your crap and his Robin's a pretentious little ass who sometimes cares a lot and that's nice on paper but for me often fails in execution.
And, y'know, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm too uncharitable. I'm just one guy and sometimes I'm an idiot.
In that case, agree to disagree (on Super Sons the Book), I guess, because at the moment, I'm not really willing to change my opinion on this. I've spent three days making a spreadsheet, my brain is kinda mush.
