WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Superman: Son of Kal-El #2-3, on sale now from DC.
While the Man of Steel is set to focus on more cosmic matters, Clark Kent and Lois Lane's son Jon Kent is the Earth's newest Superman. However, Jon won't be saving the world by himself. As DC announced last week, the bisexual young hero is about to find a boyfriend in activist journalist Jay Nakamura.
Even though Jay has just been introduced, DC has already has revealed quite a bit about his personality and showed his chemistry with Jon.
Jay debuted in Superman: Son of Kal-El #2 by Tom Taylor, John Timms, Gabe Eltaeb and Dave Sharpe. The comic opens with Jon lying in bed, watching a news program called "The Truth." A masked reporter live-streams updates about a boat full of refugees risking their lives to seek asylum as they flee the island nation of Gamorra. Later, Jon gets up and starts his first day of college, hoping to maintain some sense of normalcy and anonymity by assuming a fake identity under the pseudonym Finn Connors. Wearing a blonde wig, sunglasses, and baggy clothes, "Finn" drives to school in his jeep.
Once on campus, Jay is introduced as a pink-haired young man who asks Jon about signing up to join the college's media department. Jon agrees and is in the middle of signing when a shooter attacks his classmates. Naturally, Jon does not hesitate to respond. Rushing in, he protects people from an onslaught of automatic gunfire using his body. But this blows his cover. His baggy clothes and glasses are shredded by bullets and his wig falls to the ground. Then, Jay picks it up, and as crowds of adoring college students thank Jon for saving them, Jay hands the wig back to "Finn."
After talking with his father about personal responsibility and the difficulty of maintaining a civilian identity, Jon watches another video update from "The Truth," which inspires Jon to save the boat of refugees from the choppy seas. After rescuing them and ensuring that the police do not handcuff or mistreat the asylum seekers, Jon encounters the reporter in person, who reveals himself to be Jay, the pink-haired college student interested in media who previously picked up Jon's wig.
Jay has promised to teach Jon how to maintain a secret identity. He is tech-savvy and passionate about current events, using his platform to address topics that mainstream media networks refuse to cover. Jay's knowledge of international politics is both nuanced and insightful. He demonstrates this when he explains how the refugees fled from the fictional island nation of Gamorra, and how other nations refused to lend aid to the asylum seekers because "No one wants to risk the anger of the resource-rich nation." It is no coincidence that the website he runs is called "The Truth," since Superman has always stood for "Truth and Justice." Now, both Jon and Jay seem dedicated to living up to Superman's new credo by actively working towards "A better tomorrow."
Jay is bold and charismatic, using his platform to help however he can. That his live-streams inspired Superman to greater feats of heroism speaks to the nature of his character. On top of that, he has a sense of style that Jon seems to envy. Jon laments that he can't bleach his indestructible dark hair and is apparently very appreciative of Jay's pink haircut. For his part, Jay claims to prefer Jon's natural look over the blonde wig.
When Jay and Jon met again in Superman: Son of Kal-El #3, the new Superman made a dramatic point by allowing himself to be arrested at a protest. After Kal-El appeared and saw him released from jail, Kay joined Jon and his family for a meal at the Kent family farm in Smallville, where he was immediately star-struck by Lois Lane. However, this evening was interrupted by two dramatic events. First, Superman announced that he was going into space to free Warworld from Mongul. Then, Henry Bendix, the villainous President of Gamorra, destroyed the farm by dropping an explosive metahuman on it.
Thanks to the Coming Out Day announcement of Jon and Jay's romantic status, it's clear that Jay will walk away from this attack unharmed, However, the adventure is just beginning for DC's most important new power couple.