What blew up Krypton?

[Vordan]

Pre-Crisis Supes was nature over nurture. His Kryptonian heritage was the most important part of him, and although he enjoyed life on Earth his deepest wish was to have lived a life on Krypton. Post-Crisis Supes was the opposite, his human upbringing and relationship with the Kent’s was more important to him than Krypton. He considered himself human above all.

Nowadays Rebirth kind of straddles the line between the two as did New 52 before it. Honoring both worlds is the way to go imo.

[Kuwagaton]

I mean, Byrne literally has Clark say that he considers his newfound knowledge of Krypton to be "ultimately meaningless", direct quote. I didn't feel like that was a "can't change the past" acceptance of the tragedy, more like a refusal to mourn something he doesn't care about. To me the post-Crisis Krypton always seemed less like something whose memory Superman honored and treasured, and more like something that repeatedly comes back to haunt him in a negative way - a nuisance, a bad penny that keeps turning up. He tries to go to Krypton's remains and winds up hallucinating that if the Kryptonians hadn't all died, he'd have had to kill them. He gets possessed by Eradicator and becomes Krypton Man, a villain. Another life form from Krypton shows up and he has to fight it to the death. You get the idea. It's not all bad, and certainly I don't get the same level of anti-Krypton sentiment from other writers later on as I do from Byrne, but there's still this sense, at least to me, that Krypton was a place that kind of sucked. Even in Exile which is the one that's most pro-Krypton, I think anyway, there's just this story of a horrible tragedy brought on by Kryptonian foolishness and xenophobia.

I don't think much of what he wrote is immune to different takes, for good or bad. Going by what we've seen in the stories, I think that big speech has more to do with learning all of those firsthand details of Krypton and not having any use for it. He can't speak any of its languages with people, and had no intention to make Earth more like Krypton, the reason for which we mainly see in the clone wars. He relates that whole story to Lois as a lesson. He also finds a lesson in that deep space hallucination: that power corrupts. The illusion of Krypton being a utopia and being exceptional is shattered for him there, and in the grand scheme of things that puts them equal with other races, humans included. Kudos from me for showing that a humanoid alien race =/= the good ones. He says that kryptonite has a role in his own life because he's not necessarily above other kryptonians that way, even if his teachings and character serve him well.

I also don't entirely think Krypton Man was a bad guy even though the Eradicator was. More like Namor. And even that thing was sort of an anti-hero later. Basically like the rest of what came back I didn't read it as Krypton not being tragic, but like how you describe it as a nightmare. Krypton coming back from the dead is just a pet cemetery type affair.

[jackolover]

Does anybody remember the first George Reeves TV series? I think in that, Krypton is about to blow up, nobody has time or the capability to leave but Jor-el has this one last space ship he can put his baby son in to get him off the planet in the last moment, and then boom. No indication what the problem is. I liked that explanation.

[Osiris-Rex]

Does anybody remember the first George Reeves TV series? I think in that, Krypton is about to blow up, nobody has time or the capability to leave but Jor-el has this one last space ship he can put his baby son in to get him off the planet in the last moment, and then boom. No indication what the problem is. I liked that explanation.

I have that episode so went back and watched it. Jor-El said the sun (Rao?) was drawing Krypton closer to it and that the gravitational pull would be so strong that Krypton would explode like a giant bubble.
Basically a tidal destruction event. The sun pulls harder on the side closest to it so it stretches the planet until the planet gets stretched so much it breaks apart. Surprised the writers knew enough about
astronomy back in the 1950s to use that idea for the TV show. That has to be one of the most scientifically accurate reasons for a planet shattering in any version of Superman.

[marhawkman]

I have that episode so went back and watched it. Jor-El said the sun (Rao?) was drawing Krypton closer to it and that the gravitational pull would be so strong that Krypton would explode like a giant bubble.
Basically a tidal destruction event. The sun pulls harder on the side closest to it so it stretches the planet until the planet gets stretched so much it breaks apart. Surprised the writers knew enough about
astronomy back in the 1950s to use that idea for the TV show. That has to be one of the most scientifically accurate reasons for a planet shattering in any version of Superman.

Well the other one that was scientifically accurate was it falling into their sun. IIRC their sun expanded and incinerated the planet in the world Superboy-prime was from.

[Jokerz79]

I have that episode so went back and watched it. Jor-El said the sun (Rao?) was drawing Krypton closer to it and that the gravitational pull would be so strong that Krypton would explode like a giant bubble.
Basically a tidal destruction event. The sun pulls harder on the side closest to it so it stretches the planet until the planet gets stretched so much it breaks apart. Surprised the writers knew enough about
astronomy back in the 1950s to use that idea for the TV show. That has to be one of the most scientifically accurate reasons for a planet shattering in any version of Superman.

The funny thing about that scene is Jor-El originally asked Lara to use the rocket and then asked for her to go with Kal it would be a tight squeeze but she could fit. The hilarity of it is the Lara actress was very thin but the opening of the rocket was the size of a Bread Box she wasn't getting in that.

Outside of the very good effect for 50's TV.