Kiss him Batman..... yeahhhhh....

I saw people rehashing the same, old tired debate over other board, so I thought of making a poll just out of curiosity.

I am guessing "Who cares" is what most of people will think, but believe it or not, Superman fans have been arguing ferociously about this subject for decades. Usually the argument boils down to Golden Age/90's nostalgia versus Pre-Crisis/00's nostalgia.

I'm sure that whoever knows me will know or guess what my position is. Nonetheless, I think my opinion is validated beyond sheer fanboyism for the fact that DC spent fourteen years trying to replace the original Supergirl, Krypto, the Phantom Zoners and Kandor with short-lived, quickly-forgotten substitutes until they were finally forced to give up, ditch their "No More Kryptonians" policy, and introduce modern versions of the classic concepts.

Superman being the literal “Last Son of Krypton” is constraining in my view. Having characters like Kara, Krypto, and the Kandorians gives Superman some links to his Kryptonian heritage and enrich his connection with both Earth and Krypton far more than it detracts from a “status” that I feel is hardly relevant and is a little cliche.

Of course, there’s a limit to how many other Kryptonians there should be. The tragedy of Krypton’s destruction and cultural death should still be maintained. But that wouldn’t be undermined by introducing a handful well-developed Kryptonian characters that have, on the whole, made Superman a better hero and a better person.

I don't think it should be ridiculous, and I agree with Marv Wolfman's statement that at the time of Crisis being written, it felt like half of Krypton had survived the explosion. But if they didn't have more characters, we wouldn't have Supergirl, Zod, Krypto, or other well-respected parts of the Superman mythos. So there should be a rule of not abusing the new kryptonian trope for storytelling, but we also shoudn't purge the characters that worked.

Even if you enforce a strict "Last Son" policy, writers will still try to find ways to bring the others back.

None of these options reflect my opinion which is: Kryptonian characters should be kept to a minimum.

Supergirl: totally fine.

A handful of evil Phantom zoners: totally fine.

Krypto: Sure, fine.

An ancient shrunken city that's been seperated from Krypton for 1000s of years: Ah... ok, sure why not?

That's about as far as I go.

However, limits on writers can sometimes lead to interesting ideas, like the Matrix Supergirl that went on to star in Peter David's wild series, or General Zod of Pokolistan. Never would have happened without the "last son policy." Furthermore, the post-crisis shift away from Kryptonian lore led to Metropolis lore gettting an expansion, leading to characters like Bibbo Bibowoski, Dabney Donovan, Lexcorp, Intergang, etc. Everytime editorial closes a door, it opens a window.

That's an extremely rough summary of my thoughts.