Unpopular Superboy/Kon-El Opinion
*(Saw a popular-ish image post about the Superfamily that made me want to start a conversation on this. I don’t think the main point in the post was wrong but the tired, old, kinda-sorta illogical opinion(s) that came from it just...rubbed me the wrong way.)
It doesn’t actually matter whether or not the reader or writer want Superboy/Kon-El to be called Superman’s “son” or his “brother” because the nature of their relationship (in terms of blood or behavior) is what’s important. Nothing about said current relationship would automatically change unless a writer changed it.
In other words, if someone is treated by you like they’re your child and it’s hinted that others see them that way too, you best believe that they’re your child. Seriously. (Remember, for example, Batman and Robin/Nightwing’s non-biological, adoption-based father-son relationship?)
Therefore Kon-El’s origin doesn’t actually matter as much as some people think it does, nor even his biological connection to either or both Superman and Lex Luthor. Neither of these traits on their own have to change anything significantly about any version of Kon/Conner. That means he can be a basically-full-kryptonian with perhaps added abilities, or a limited-powers, possibly flightless character or a power-mimicking and TTK-or-similar-power having character. He can also be genetically related to both Clark and Lex, Clark and some other gene donor(s), Clark alone, or not have any DNA from Clark at all. He can be “pure good” or “pure evil” regardless of where and who his genes come from too!
And this goes for any Superfamily character btw. Yes, I agree that it should be okay for people to be ‘adopted’ into the fam. We’ve already seen it happen before, more or less. But there’s nothing wrong with many or most members being there by blood either. Both can happen at the same time.
Furthering my point on Kon’s genes: The problem with them expecting fans to accept his connection to Kal-El as that of “cousins” or even “brothers” isn’t that (as far as I’m aware) we Superman-is-Superboy’s-father truthers are against the idea of adopted family or Kon having genetic ‘quirks’ with his powers that lead to him only having some kryptonian abilities, or none at all. The problem is the blatant, mind-boggling dishonesty that the writers and certain fans are engaging in by promoting and accepting this idea, respectively. It literally makes no sense. Not on a genetic basis, age-basis or treatment-basis.
I know ideas are sometimes brought up and then not utilized to their full potential and that this happened when Kon/Conner’s origin was retconned (again?). However, there’s nothing stopping said ideas from finally being used—besides writers themselves. Superboy, in reality, is ‘like’ a son to Superman in more ways than one. If they didn’t want many swathes of the fandom to view him as Superman’s super-progeny, than they shouldn’t have written him to be one or ‘like’ one!
Nuance matters people, as does simple scientific and real world logic. Let’s please not lose these in our quest to have entire worlds and the characters of them written to our exact liking. It could, in some cases, literally destroy a character’s lore, reputation and the character him/herself! The ideal that you want is often much closer to that of others than you think, and easier to achieve, without needing to erase years and years worth of history.