I’m prone to claim anything’s secretly about parenthood these days but certainly ASS – wasn’t it really all about fertility and empowerment, osmotically passed by, ironically, ASSman’s phallogocentric presence; a reclamation of confused male virtue with things like ‘kindness’ added? Little supermen like pollen. It ends with an artificial womb, which seems a particular fave of Morrison’s. Don’t tell me it wasn’t now.

#12 seems oddly structured, viewed in isolation: I think the crux is dad, other-dad, telling Kal that sometimes being a man means you’re going to have to do something even though you really don’t want to do it, even though it will break your heart, because it has to be done. That is the final lesson, to complement Jonathan Kent’s. There’s some kinda natal symbolism there too with the exploding paradise garden – I find that panel really moving, actually.