In today’s issue of Detective Comics, the “Titans Tomorrow” version of Batman, a Tim Drake from the future where he is a brutal and remorseless Batman, name-dropped someone fans have not seen in years: Conner Kent.
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The former Superboy’s erasure from continuity following the events of 2011’s The New 52 reboot will be addressed in-story within in the pages of Detective Comics, according to series writer James Tynion IV.
“Part of this story, where we started, was recognizing Tim Drake’s classic origin and realigning Tim to the original iteration of the character,” Tynion told ComicBook.com. “In resetting him back to his core, there’s one part of the core of the character that was not being addressed — that’s still missing. I knew that it would be false to bring back to core of the character and not point to the part of the core that’s missing. Using that as the piece that allows the future Tim Drake — the ‘Titans Tomorrow’ Tim Drake — to realize that this world has changed which means the future is no longer set and time can be changed, that’s what really propels us into the future. It leaves this powerful mystery dangling that Tim doesn’t know the answer to, but he knows it’s important. To see that one play out, you guys are going to have to read the comic books.”
Conner Kent was introduced during 1993’s “The Reign of the Supermen!” and was one of four characters who tried to take over from the Man of Steel following his death. After that story concluded, two of the characters — Connor, now known as Superboy, and John Henry Irons, who adopted the name of Steel — got their own ongoing series.
Conner would also later join Young Justice, where he would befriend Tim Drake. The two became inseparable in the following years, and when Conner died during Infinite Crisis, Tim’s life went off the rails as he became obsessed with resurrecting his friend from the dead.
A version of Conner was introduced in The New 52, albeit with a radically different backstory and personality. That character vanished when his series was cancelled, and the current Superboy is Jonathan Kent, the son of Clark Kent and Lois Lane.
When Action Comics had its recent “Revenge” story arc, ComicBook.com speculated that it would be an ideal time to reintroduce the post-Crisis, pre-Flashpoint Superboy, but that did not happen.
You can get the latest issue of Detective Comics at your local comic shop or digitally via comiXology.
