Dean Cain is not at all impressed by DC Comics’ decision to make the next Superman bisexual. In fact, during an appearance on “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday, the actor outright called the choice “bandwagoning.”
On Monday, DC announced that Jonathan Kent will come out in an upcoming issue of the comic “Superman: Son of Kal-El” Volume 5, and enter into a relationship with friend Jay Nakamura. But for Cain, who played the Man of Steel in “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman” from 1993-97 and voiced Jonathan Kent in the animated “DC Super Hero Girls” animated projects, the decision doesn’t seem all that groundbreaking.
“They said it’s a bold new direction, I say they’re bandwagoning,” the actor said. “Robin just came out as bi, who’s really shocked about that one? The new Captain America is gay. My daughter in [The CW’s] ‘Supergirl’, where I played the father, was gay.”
“So I don’t think it’s bold or brave or some crazy new direction,” he continued. “If they had done this 20 years ago, perhaps that would be bold or brave.”
Cain even went so far as to imply that a bisexual Superman in the comics might be performative, and that he’d rather see this Jonathan Kent actually fighting for gay rights outside the U.S.
“Brave would be having him fighting for the rights of gay people in Iran where they’ll throw you off a building for the offense of being gay,” Cain said. “They’re talking about having him fight climate change and the deportation of refugees and he’s dating a hacktivist, whatever a hactivist is. Why don’t they have him fight the injustices that created the refugees whose deportation he’s protesting? That would be brave, I’d read that. Or fighting for the rights of women to attend school and have the ability to work and live and boys not to be raped by men under the new warm and fuzzy Taliban. That would be brave. There’s real evil in this world today, real corruption and government overreach, plenty of things to fight against.”