The new Superman will be bisexual in an upcoming comic

DC Comics reveals the new Superman is bisexual 1:10

(CNN) -

Superman has done just about everything since he first appeared in the comics nearly 80 years ago.

He has saved the world more than a few times.

He has died and has come back to life.

He dodged Muhammad Ali's blows and even took on white supremacists.

Until this year, however, every iteration of Superman in the comics has had a crush on Lois Lane.

But in an upcoming issue of a new "Superman" series, the Man of Steel enters a queer relationship.

The fifth issue of the DC comic series "Superman: Son of Kal-El" will confirm that the new Superman, Jon Kent, son of Clark Kent and Lane, is bisexual after falling in love with reporter Jay Nakamura, DC announced this week.

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The series "Superman: Son of Kal-El" follows Kent as he becomes Earth's new Superman and grapples with the immense weight of his new job.

Nakamura, a copywriter with glasses and pink hair, first appeared in the series' third issue as a shoulder that Kent leaned on when the business of being Superman became too difficult.

When the responsibilities of being Superman begin to weigh on Kent, Nakamura is there to help.

But in the next fifth issue, to be published next month, Kent falls in love with the journalist - with such father such son - after he "exhausts himself mentally and physically trying to save everyone he can," according to DC .

Plot details will be revealed in November, but images from the comic show Kent and Nakamura sharing a kiss and sitting together atop a building, their legs dangling over the edge.

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Series writer Tom Taylor said that the evolution of this new Superman lives up to the values ​​the character has always stood for and, more importantly, reflects the experiences of many comic book fans.

"The Superman symbol has always represented hope, truth and justice," Taylor said in a statement.

"Today, that symbol represents something else. Today, more people can see themselves in the most powerful superhero in comics."

In an August interview with Nerdist, Taylor teased that Kent would find "a very good friend from the very beginning ... and that he would have an important role."

That friend, it soon became clear, was Nakamura.

He and Kent are the newest LGBTQ characters, but they are far from the only ones, in the DC universe: earlier this year, the character Tim Drake, one of many Robin fighting alongside Batman, accepted a date with a male admirer.

And before Kent and Drake, there was Batwoman, also known as Kate Kane, who at one point was punished for her relationship with another woman under the old "Don't ask, don't tell" policy of the US military;

Harley Quinn, who dumped the Joker for her friend Poison Ivy in recent comic strips;

and transgender scientist Victoria October, who debuted in a 2017 Batman series.

Robin is bisexual in new Batman comic 0:44

NPR's Glen Weldon, who published a book on Batman and writes regularly on comics, said that characters like Robin and Superman going queer is "progress," but given that those characters are not canonical iterations of heroes - Drake He's not the only Robin in the DC Universe, and Jon Kent's father will always be the best-known Superman - plot developments aren't as significant or gender-shifting as they seem, Weldon wrote this week.

Still, Weldon said, a bisexual Superman and queer Robin are worth celebrating: They are not a one-dimensional villain or a quickly dying minor character, but the "heroes of their own stories."

Fans can read more about Kent's burgeoning romance when the fifth issue of "Superman: Son of Kal-El" is released on November 9.

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