Billie Jean is not my lover
She's just a girl who claims that I am the one
But the kid is not my son.
She's just a girl who claims that I am the one
But the kid is not my son.
A character becomes the parent of a child and finds out about it. Their first reaction? Claiming the child isn't theirs. A lot of male characters do this as a way of exploiting Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe. Occasionally, a female character will try to pull this off. However, male characters are more likely to pull this off due to the fact that they (mostly) aren't the ones carrying the child.
Usually the events leading up to the denial take the form of either someone meeting up with the character and claiming they conceived or a Doorstop Baby being left behind with a note claiming they're the baby's parent. Of course, there are many other situations where a character denies being a child's parent that don't involve conceiving a child naturally. The two most frequent cases include them denying that their DNA was used for a specific clone child or telling others they aren't a child's parent despite said child referring to them as such.
This claim could be debunked in multiple ways. The two most common ones are through either the child expressing similar traits or behavior as the parent or a Daddy DNA Test showing they are related. In some cases, the child is revealed to not be related to the person denying the fact they're a parent, thus proving the denier's claims were true.
Super-Trope to That Thing Is Not My Child! Compare and contrast I Have No Son!. In cases where the character really isn't the parent of a child, this trope could overlap with Is That Cute Kid Yours?, Mistaken for Related, and Mistaken for Different Relative. See also Acquaintance Denial, Sink or Swim Fatherhood and Playboy Has a Daughter, which could cause this trope to occur. Can overlap with Fear of Parenthood. Often the aftermath of a One-Night-Stand Pregnancy. May result from a Short-Term Love Interest. Not to be confused with Parental Abandonment, when a parent denies their responsibilities.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Beast Wars II: Partway through the series, the Maximals encounter a young lion who unexpectedly transforms into a robot and introduces himself as Lio Junior. He addresses Maximal commander Lio Convoy as "Papa" and claims to be his son. Lio Convoy spends a big chunk of the series refusing to acknowledge this claim and even tries to avoid Lio Junior as much as he can. Part of the reason for this is sheer confusion on Lio Convoy's part: he knows he can't be Lio Junior's father since the Maximals haven't been on planet Gaea for long, yet his Energon Matrix can sense that Lio Junior also has an Energon Matrix meaning there is some sort of connection. It's revealed that when Lio Convoy crash-landed on Gaea in the first episode, while he was recovering from his injuries his Energon Matrix somehow resonated with the Angolmois Energy of Gaea to create Lio Junior. He and Junior finally have a heart-to-heart where Lio Convoy explains that so long as the fight against the Predacons is still going on, he has to be a military commander first and a father a distant second. He does, however, at least take Lio Junior under his wing.
- A Certain Scientific Railgun: Played for Laughs. In one chapter, a young girl is brought to the Judgement office that Uiharu works at as they are tasked with helping the youngster find her missing bag. The child falls asleep in Uiharu's lap, and Saten (Uiharu's roommate) teases her by pretending to believe that the girl is somehow Uiharu's daughter. Uiharu keeps trying to protest "Not my child!" only for Saten to remind her not to yell, lest she wake the sleeping child.
- The Daichis - Earth's Defense Family: In episode 12, Dai is running home late and finds Seiko (his mother) with Hayakawa who is the man she has an affair with, Hayakawa asks if that kid is Seiko's and she denies with the words "Never seen him".
Comic Books
- Asterix: In "Asterix and Son", a baby boy is left on Asterix's doorstep. Asterix takes the baby to consult with Chief Vitalstatistix and Getafix the Druid, and while there Vitalstatistix's wife Impedimentia casually observes that, "when a baby is left at the home of a bachelor warrior... well, people are bound to think certain things." A series of Beat panels show Getafix, Vitalstatistix and even Obelix musing on her words, and when realisation dawns Asterix yells, "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MINDS?!" Impedimentia then adds fuel to the fire by adding, "People might even think that that warrior would be able to find the baby's mother," resulting in Obelix having to hold Asterix back from attacking her.
Comic Strips
- Garfield: A newly-hatched chick calls Garfield "Mommy". He tries to explain that he can't be the chick's mommy as he's a male, but that just leads to the chick thinking he must be its father.
Fan Works
- Bandit's Belt: When a man at the amusement park is surprised that Brandy could be unmarried, he points out that one of the two girls she's with, Bingo, looks just like her. Brandy says that, no, Bingo is her niece.
Film — Animated
- The LEGO Batman Movie: After accidentally agreeing to adopt Dick Grayson at Jim Gordon's retirement gala, Batman initially treats the orphan more as a disposable asset in his missions and refuses to let him call him "Dad" and similar terms, but he does allow him to call him "Padre" (Spanish for "Dad") since he can consider it a shorthand for "compadre". Later, while infiltrating Arkham to send the Joker to the Phantom Zone, Batman denies that Robin is his son when Barbara Gordon asks, but tries to play it cool when she points out the implications.
- Monsters, Inc.: When Sulley and Mike bring Boo, a human toddler girl, to work disguised as a monster like them, two other monsters (Mr. Waternoose and a daycare lady) wrongly think she is Sulley's daughter. Sulley denies it both times, claiming that she's actually his "cousin's sister's daughter" instead.
Film — Live-Action
- Avatar: The Way of Water: Spider turns out to be Quaritch's son with a female RDA soldier. Quaritch's occasional denial of fatherhood is technically true, as this Quaritch is a Na'vi / human hybrid with the (original, now-dead) Quaritch's memories (up to shortly before his death).
- Daddy Day Camp: Lance Warner has a son, Bobby, whom he truly neglects, thus lying about not being his father. Though Lance often denies having a son because he hates children and often uses him (as his henchman) to help mock Charlie Hinton, Bobby eventually turns against his father for not having a son like him, leading to the destruction of his cheating trophies.
- Delusions of Grandeur: Don Salluste categorically denies having fathered a baby on one of the Queen's ladies of honor. While he was definitely guilty in the original play, here it's more ambiguous (especially since the historical queen was known to use this accusation to get rid of courtiers she didn't like). He's definitely guilty of embezzling taxes, so it may have been a case of Framing the Guilty Party.
- Downplayed in Elf when Buddy tries to reunite with his birth father Walter and accidentally derails the latter's meeting with Miles Finch as a result. Walter tells Buddy to leave his life while also declaring I Have No Son!, but later regrets this. Walter and Buddy eventually get a Daddy DNA Test to prove Buddy is Walter's son.
- The Game Plan: When Peyton arrives to Joe Kingman's home with her birth certificate claiming to be his daughter, Joe denies it. He insists to his agent that he couldn't be the father of Peyton because he and his ex-wife Sarah divorced after marrying too young, their marriage didn't last longer than a year, and they never had children while they were still married. Until Joe backtracks and does the math in his head between the 8-9 years that passed since he and his ex-wife split up and Peyton's age (8) does he realize that he could be her father. Joe continues to deny it until he and Peyton start bonding eventually.
- Godzilla Minus One: In the wake of World War II, AWOL kamikaze pilot Kōichi Shikishima takes in young vagrant Noriko Ōishi and an orphaned baby named Akiko. As the years pass and they grow into a Found Family, Kōichi—who suffers from PTSD and survivor's guilt—rebukes Akiko when she calls him her father, since they're not related by blood. Kōichi's colleagues chastise him for this as he's the only father-figure Akiko has, and he eventually accepts her as his daughter.
- Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang: When the eponymous nanny arrives, Isabelle is babysitting her niece and nephew along with raising her three children. As such, when Cyril, the nephew, starts misbehaving, Isabelle says "That's Cyril. He's not mine." When one of her own sons also misbehaves, she admits "That's Norman. He is mine."
- Pirates of Silicon Valley: Steve Jobs repeatedly denies fathering Lisa with Chrisann and backs it up with a claim that he is sterile. It's implied he later regretted doing this, as he is shown interacting with Lisa while in a gloomier mood.
- The Quick and the Dead: The Kid's main reason for entering the film's quick draw contest is to get the Big Bad Herod to admit they are father and son. He never does, claiming that his wife was unfaithful to him and that The Kid was the result of that.
- Smokey and the Bandit: After Jr. screws up yet again, Sherriff Buford T. Justice hits him with this:
Sherriff Buford: There is no way- no way- that you came from my loins. Soon as I get home, first thing I'm gonna do is punch yo' mamma in da mouth!
- Steve Jobs: The titular creator of Apple refuses to acknowledge himself as the father of Lisa, often denying paternity in front of her. He eventually warms up to her after he sees her draw a picture with one of his computers.
Literature
- The Daevabad Trilogy: In the third book, Nahri's violently estranged mother Manizheh reveals that she's really Nahri's aunt via her long-dead brother Rustam. She had in fact tried to sacrifice Nahri in infancy, leading to a fight that killed Rustam, but she was happy to maintain the facade until Nahri refused to join her plot.
- Earth's Children: Shortly after it's widely revealed that sexual intercourse leads to conception, Laramar publicly claims that none of his children with his mate Tremeda — with the possible exception of the eldest, Bologan — are his because he and Tremeda haven't had sex since Bologan was born, while Tremeda has had sex with other men. He uses this as an excuse to abandon the children and wash his hands of any responsibility over them. It's unclear if this is true given Laramar isn't the most trustworthy individual, though he wasn't exactly the most loving and involved father to the children even before this revelation.
- Fate/Apocrypha: In the series' Alternate Universe, both King Arthur and his illegitimate son Mordred were born female but present as men, and the latter was, in fact, conceived in vitro after Morgan le Fay had the former temporarily polymorphed into a male. Since Artoria/Arthur was not aware of any of it, she has vehemently denied ever impregnating anyone, let alone her half-sister, whereas her "son" seems unaware of Artoria's biological sex, so her rejection has messed poor Mordred up something fierce.
- Percy Jackson's Greek Gods: According to Percy, Ouranos argued that he didn't father the Elder Cyclopes when Gaea birthed them.
Ouranos: These cannot be my kids! They don't even look like me!
Gaea: They are your children, you deadbeat! Don't you dare leave me to raise them on my own!! - A Song of Ice and Fire:
- Alys Turnberry claimed her unborn child was fathered by Roy Connington, with King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne suggesting they marry to legitimise the child and lessen the scandal. Roy refused to marry Alys as she'd also been intimate with other men around the same time, insisting the child wasn't his and he wouldn't be saddled with another man's bastard as his heir. Alys did admit to Alysanne she wasn't completely certain who the father was, but the baby was born with distinctive red hair, a trait shared by Roy and other members of House Connington, strongly suggesting he was the baby's father. Jaehaerys had Roy exiled as punishment for refusing to take responsibility, while Alys later married Lord Dustin Pryor.
- It was rumoured that Rhaenyra Targaryen's three eldest sons weren't fathered by her first husband, Laenor Velaryon, but rather by her sworn shield, Harwin Strong, as the boys bore little physical resemblance to Rhaenyra or Laenor, and Laenor was widely known to be gay. Rhaenyra, Harwin and Laenor all denied that Harwin was the father and the boys were legally considered Velaryons, though it did little to stop the rumours and Rhaenyra's enemies openly called her sons bastards or "Strongs".
- Temeraire: Discussed when Captain Laurence's parents mistake his ensign Emily Roland for his illegitimate daughter. A 19th-century English gentleman can't be so crass as to say that he hasn't fathered a bastard, plus Roland's employment would reveal some socially awkward facts about the Aerial Corpsnote , so he feels forced to let the misunderstanding pass without comment.
- Witch King: Midway through the second book, Kai has to clarify to a third party that he isn't the father (nor mother, via Body Surf) of Prince-heir Bashasa's successor Bashat. It's an understandable error, given that Kai was Bashasa's Implied Love Interest and helped raise Bashat.
- Zenith Of Sorcery: Marcus is taken aback to be confronted by a man he doesn't know, Shamshir, who berates him for failing to take responsibility for his actions, and who claims that the elf girl Shamshir has brought with him is Marcus' daughter. Marcus insists that that's ridiculous as she's not even the same species as himself (never having heard of half-elves), internally noting that it's also not physically possible as "His dedication to reaching the pinnacle of magic was pure and absolute!" Shamshir points out that elves are proficient in disguise, so he wouldn't necessarily know he'd slept with an elf, then when Marcus says he hasn't been with anyone, Shamshir raises the possibility of artificial impregnation spells, or memory-wiping spells, before finally admitting that the girl is his own daughter and he just wanted to see what Marcus is like before hiring him to look after her. Nonetheless, the last thing that the bystanders heard before Shamshir erected a privacy field was the allegation that Marcus had fathered a daughter and then neglected her, resulting in law enforcement treating it as a paternity dispute.
Live-Action TV
- Arrested Development: GOB spends the first several episodes of season 3 denying that he's the father of Steve Holt, even to the point of hiding whenever Steve is nearby.
GOB: A young neighborhood tough by the name of Steve Holt’s gonna be here any minute.
Michael: Your son.
GOB: According to him.
Michael: And a DNA test.
GOB: I heard the jury’s still out on science. - Batwoman: Ryan Wilder is the biological daughter of industrialist Jada Jett. Jada denies this vehemently at first, and even tries to have Ryan investigated for misappropriating funds in order to discourage her from pursuing the matter further, but is eventually forced to concede the truth. She later tells Ryan that she didn't give her up out of shame, but to protect her from her sociopathic half-brother Marquis; she feared that Marquis might try to hurt Ryan if he found out he had a half-sister.
- The Brittas Empire: Played With in "Curse of the Tiger Women" when Gavin notices that Carole's twin daughters Jessica and Emily look a lot like Brittas, hinting that he's their father. Carole initially refuses to accept the resemblance, since they've got different faces. She is open enough to the possibility for her to trick Brittas into turning in profile, however, which is enough proof for her to realise that he really is their father.
Carole: Mr. Brittas? They look nothing like Mr. Brittas. What a stupid thing to say.
Gavin: I'm sorry, but they do. They look like Mr. Brittas.
Carole: No they don't. They haven't even got blazers on. How dare you? - The Good Wife: "Long Way Home": Alicia defends Colin Sweeney when he's sued for child support by one of his former mistresses who claims he's the father of her four-year-old son. He denies ever having had unprotected sex with her. To everyone's surprise, the paternity test comes back positive, but it turns out Isobel had collected semen from oral sex and used it to impregnate herself. Colin is so impressed by her audacity that he settles the case in her favor and takes her back as his girlfriend.
- Home Improvement: Played for Laughs in "Up Your Alley". After Brad and Randy Taylor handcuff a bully to an arcade machine and spray him down with silly string, their parents deny being related to them when security comes by and presents them for being troublemakers, which almost gets them into a mountain of legal trouble.
- M*A*S*H: Zigzagged in "The Chosen People". A young Korean woman shows up at the 4077th M*A*S*H stating that one of the doctors was her baby's father. When Hawkeye and Trapper are brought in (or as Henry says to ROK Captain Sam Pak "Stand by for the fingering of the father), the young woman states that it is neither of them, then when Radar enters the room, the young woman says "Him doctor!" Radar initially denies fathering the child, and submits himself to a blood test (as both the series and the timeframe it depicts predate DNA testing). Just as Hawkeye and Trapper reveal that the blood test exonerates Radar, the young corporal has a change of heart, trying to claim paternity, both to help the young mother and because he liked how it felt when the others thought he was sexually active. Radar is informed he's already been cleared, and the young woman and her child find a new family in a set of Korean refugees being moved from the camp.
- Maury: Maury Povich made public paternity testing his bread-and-butter. His show typically introduces the mother, who insists she is 100% or more certain that [second guest's name] fathered her child. Cut to some cute infant or toddler, which draws an "Awwwww" from the studio audience. Then Maury brings out the alleged father, and he and the mother go 'round and 'round with insistence and denial. At some point, Maury waves the DNA test results, reads them aloud (with a suitable pause for drama), often resulting in the father being vindicated. The mother flees in humiliation, spawning the terms "slut run" and "crash couch" for the backstage tear-fest.
- Night Court: In the aptly titled "Paternity", a boy comes to the court claiming that Dan Fielding is his father, which Dan denies. As he spends time with the boy, the boy asks him why he's so opposed to being a father, and Dan explains that as a prosecutor he's seen a good deal of things he wishes he han't, like parents showing up to report their children missing, seeing them in court as they have to watch their children sentenced to long jail terms, having to identify their bodies in the morgue. Dan finds the young boy is starting to grow on him, and even offers to write a large check to buy some things for the boy. He's even proud of the kid when he asks to see Dan's balance before accepting the check. Then the boy's mother shows up and reveals that the father of her child is "STAN Fielding", which the crooked lawyer handling her paternity claim got wrong. At the end of the episode it's shown that while Dan is not the boy's father, he's still willing to spend time with the boy, such as taking him out to ball games.
- Once Upon a Time (2011): At the end of season 6, and at the start of season 7, a dark-skinned girl named Lucy knocks at white adult Henry's door saying she is his daughter. Henry denies having a daughter, for his wife and daughter are dead. Or so he thinks: Lucy is indeed his daughter with a version of Cinderella from the New Enchanted Forest, and Drizella's version of the Dark Curse scrambled his memories to appear that his family died in a fire and Lucy was not his daughter.
- A Prince Among Men: In "Who's That Girl?", Gary learns that he might have a daughter called Katie. However, he refuses to believe it, thinking that either her or her mother is a gold-digger looking for his money and refusing to build any sort of relationship with her. His suspicions prove to be correct, as Dave is the girl's actual father, but only after a Daddy DNA Test which Lisel suggested to him to help settle the matter.
- Sesame Street:
- In one skit, a newly-hatched honker calls Luis "daddy". Luis explains that, since he is a human and the baby is a honker, he can't be the dad.
- When Oscar injures himself, Maria takes him to the doctor, but he keeps referring to Oscar as Maria's son. Maria says "Oscar's not my son", but the doctor misinterprets that as saying he's a girl.
- Subverted in Sesame Street Home Video Visits the Hospital. When Maria takes the sick Big Bird to the emergency room, the receptionist asks her if she's Big Bird's mother. She replies "Not exactly... Well, sort of... Yeah."
- Sherlock & Daughter: For most of the first season, Sherlock Holmes strenuously denies that Amelia Rojas is his daughter, and believes that the fact that she was born a year after he last saw her mother is proof of this. He later discovers that he got the timeline wrong — Lucia Rojas was already three months pregnant when they parted ways, and thus he truly is Amelia's father.
Music
- "Billie Jean": The song discusses Michael Jackson denying the paternity of the titular woman's son, referencing how groupies who would have one-night stands with musicians like Jackson would later come forward and claim their children were conceived from said affairs.
Video Games
- Black & White 2: In one sidequest, one of your worshippers accuses you — a giant ball of light with no biological sex — of impregnating his daughter. Despite the implausibility, the only way to clear your name (unless you play along) is to find the real father.
- In Crusader Kings II and Crusader Kings III, if a male player character fathers a child out of wedlock, he has a choice between acknowledging the child as his or refusing to come forward and leaving the child to be considered fatherless.
- Final Fantasy XIV: In the later half of the Heavensward expansion, the Warrior of Light and the Scions seek the aid of Hilda Ware, also known as the Mongrel, to aid them in rescuing Ser Aymeric from the traitorous Archbishop Thordan VII. In her backstory, Hilda was born as the bastard daughter of a highborn Elezen and a Hyuran maid. Her father refused to acknowledge her existence to the day he died though her mother never spoke ill of him. Due to her background, Hilda developed a dislike for Ishgard's highborn upper-class while becoming something of an voice and protector of the commonfolk and the less fortunate. Nonetheless, Hilda was loyal to Ishgard and as such aided the Warrior of Light in rescuing Ser Aymeric as he was the nation's best chance for creating meaningful change.
- Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location: In the Soap Within a Show "The Immortal and the Restless" vampire Vlad keeps denying his partner Clara's baby is his. This is in spite of the fact that the baby is an obvious Dhampyr, and it's clear he's just saying it to get out of paying child support.
- Red Dead Redemption 2: At the start of the game, John Marston is in denial that Jack is his son, using the excuse that Jack's mother is a former prostitute. John knows deep down that Jack is his, but claims otherwise because he doesn't feel ready to be a father and is uncomfortable with the life it would drag Jack into. He gets over this after Jack is kidnapped at the end of Chapter 3.
- Rhythm Thief & the Emperor's Treasure: Duchess Elisabeth denies being Marie's mother.
Web Animation
- MoniRobo: In "Husband went to a friend's funeral, but when I found whose funeral it REALLY was…"
, when Sayaka storms over to Rikako's funeral and confronts her cheating husband Kazuya for hosting it despite promising not to see her again, he tries to appease her by not only denying he's in a relationship with her, but also denying he's the father of the baby she had with him before her death. However, Sayaka has none of it and chews him out in front of the guests.
- VCraft Enchanted: Vetruvius II claims to be the Spin-Offspring of Vetruvius I and Willerton from Niji ENchanted, which is generally accepted as fact by all of the other denizens of the town…except for Willerton’s reincarnation, whose personality and memories were transferred from a point in time in which Willerton had a "He Is Not My Boyfriend" attitude towards V1.
Webcomics
- El Goonish Shive: Protagonist Elliot uses an ancient magical artifact to try to undo his Magitek-induced Gender Bender, which has the unexpected side effect of separating his female form into a new person named Ellen. Elliot parodies this trope in response, as he says he's "too young and too male to be the mother of a seventeen-year-old female".
- In No Rest for the Wicked, the Fearless Boy (of The Boy who Set Out to Learn What Fear Is fame) mentions that he doesn't know his own name, and that he "would say 'son of,' but Pa made me swear never to let on that I was his!"
- Phantomarine: Chapter 6 has the Wham Line from the goddess Cheline that not only was she not the mother of the prophetess Soshana, Cheline despised her. She only reveals this to a lone captive, so word hasn't yet gotten out that her church is founded on a lie.
Web Original
- Dark Simpsons: In "Ralph Calls Miss Hoover Mommy", Ralph accidentally calls Miss Hoover, who is his teacher and not related to him, "Mommy". His classmates laugh at him, and Miss Hoover says "The children are right to laugh at you, Ralph."
- Not Always Right: In this story, a woman wrongly thinks that a little boy is the son of the girl who's with him, when they are actually cousins. The girl tries to correct the woman, but she doesn't believe her, claiming the family resemblance is too great.
Western Animation
- Aqua Teen Hunger Force: A tiny cup resembling Master Shake arrives at his house and calls Shake "daddy". Shake initially tells the cup that "daddy" is his neighbor Carl instead, but it backfires since Carl whips out a shotgun and sends the cup back to Shake. Frylock offers to do some DNA testing on Master Shake and the cup, named Ezekiel, and by the end of the episode the results come in and reveal Ezekiel and Shake are not related. Ezekiel also reveals he's Really 700 Years Old.
- Arthur: In "Baby Steps", D.W., who is worried that Kate will grow up dumb, has a Fantasy Sequence of her still being baby-like at age seventeen. The imaginary twenty-year-old D.W. walks Kate in a stroller, and a passing woman asks how old D.W.'s "baby" is. D.W. explains that Kate is actually seventeen, and that they're sisters rather than mother and daughter.
- The Casagrandes: In "No Egrets", two baby egrets hatch and start calling Sergio (a male scarlet macaw) "mama". He keeps protesting that he's not their mama, until he eventually humours them. Fortunately, however, they're soon reunited with their actual mother, a female egret.
- Family Guy:
- In "Quagmire's Baby", Quagmire gets a Doorstop Baby with a note claiming the baby girl is his. He tells Peter him there's no guarantee the baby really is his until she says his Character Tic.
- "Tea Peter" has a Cutaway Gag where Quagmire marries a giraffe and nine months later, a giraffe with Quagmire's face is born. Quagmire denies the offspring being his.
- Futurama: Robot Buddy Bender conceives a son with the new vending machine. Bender claims the vending machine's baby isn't his (despite the Strong Family Resemblance), but is Instantly Proven Wrong when the baby mutters "Wipe my tiny metal ass", a variation of Bender's "Bite my shiny metal ass".
- Harry and His Bucket Full of Dinosaurs: In "Can I Keep It?", Sid is sitting on a giant egg, which hatches into a large baby bird who they dub "Junior". Junior calls Sid "mama", and he protests that he A.) didn't sire Junior, B.) is a reptilian dinosaur, not a bird, and C.) isn't even female.
- The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: In "Find Her, Keep Her", Rabbit finds a young bluebird named Kessie. Apparently not knowing who her real parents are, she starts calling him "daddy". He refuses to be called that and tells her to call him by name. She mispronounces it as "Rabbie", but he thinks that's close enough.
- Young Justice: Superman spends much of the first season vehemently denying any sort of paternal (or even familial) relationship to Superboy. That Superboy turns out to be a clone created from a mix of his DNA and that of Lex Luthor doesn't help. They eventually reconcile, with Superman adopting something of an older brother relationship to Superboy.