Should Kandor be permanently unshrunk?

[The Red Monk]

Kandor is one of those things in Superman's mythos that always bothered me, in that its story-telling potential is terribly limited in its original form.

We all know how Kandor came to be in Brainiac's possession, then was freed by Superman and placed in his Fortress of Solitude, but...what then?

Kandor pretty much just sits there, in Superman's Fortress, with no purpose, with Superman stuck in an eternal stalemate concerning his attempt to unshrink it. It's effectively just a waste of space.

Which is why I am proposing that Kandor be permanently unshrunk, placed on some uninhabited, distant planet (say...Uranus?), and then become a sort of secondary hub for Superman to go and hang out with his own kind, with its own unique supporting cast and potential for entertaining exploits for the Man of Steel to partake in, much like Asgard is for Thor.

So, what do you guys think of this idea? Like it, or hate it?

[MykeHavoc]

Did you miss the New Krypton stuff? They tried it and failed. Then they rebooted. Kandor works better as an idea and point of motivation. The best I think we'll get is what was done in All-Star Superman.

[The Red Monk]

Did you miss the New Krypton stuff? They tried it and failed. Then they rebooted. Kandor works better as an idea and point of motivation. The best I think we'll get is what was done in All-Star Superman.

I did read the New Krypton saga. And it worked pretty fine there, right up until it was sabotaged by horrid writing because DC wanted to maintain the status quo.

I am simply proposing that it be done permanently, for however long the New 52 universe lasts. I think it could work well. I don't know what happened in All-Star Superman, since I haven't gotten around to reading that yet.

[MykeHavoc]

I suggest getting around to it. At this point, its rather redundant to say so, but it really is the best superman story of all time. I wont spoil what happens with kandor. Nothing big, but it touches on one aspect you suggested. It resolves poignantly and satisfactorily.

[Doctor Know]

All Star Superman also poised the question of what to do with Kandor. Superman unshrank it and placed it on Mars. New Krypton failed because they tried HARD to make the Kryptonians antagonistic to Earth. If the Kandor K's are peaceful and benevolent then I have no problem with them being unshrunk. They could open up a lot of opportunities for support for Superman and other adventures. The abortion of a storyline that James Robinson gave us in New Krypton should be forgetten with all available force.

[Jim Kelly]

Whenever Kandor has been unshrunk in the past, it's either been to get rid of the concept by shunting them off to some distant part of the universe or to release a bunch of malevolent Kandorians upon an unsuspecting public.

Shunting them off just seems a way to abandon the concept, so I don't see how that does any good. Of course, Kandor could just be ignored and the same thing would be accomplished.

Turning Kandorians into a super-powered army of belligerants is distasteful to me, although this seems to be how a lot of people see Krypton in general now. The basic message of Superman has been twisted so Krypton was a horrible place and the only reason Kal-El didn't turn out to be as sadistic as the rest of them was because he escaped to planet Earth where he was raised by salt of the earth Americans: Americans good, eveyone else bad.

The advantages of the bottle city as a concept were shown in SUPERMAN 158 (January '63), "Superman in Kandor," by Edmond Hamilton, Curt Swan and George Klein. This is the first Nightwing and Flamebird story and it also involves a plot to unshrink the city (and there is a small army of belligerant Kandorians for those who like that thing). There's also Nor-Kann, a scientist and old friend of Jor-El, who acts as a surrogate father to Kal-El.

In the classic Superman comics, Kandor was useful as a place where Superman could go and enter a world like his home planet, where neither he nor any other Kryptonian had super-powers. After the Siegel and Shuster era of Superman (1938 - 1947), the editors recognized what a great concept Krypton could be. It confounds me that Jerry and Joe never realized the benefit of Krypton and that they never exploited it in their stories (other than an occasional retelling of the origin)--Superman didn't even remember he was from Krypton, never thought about its tragic end.

Yet Mort Weisinger, as an established science fiction editor, saw that Krypton provided another story idea for Superman's adventures. The thing is Krypton was gone. In the following years (1948 - 1957), there were various ways to revisit Krypton--through time travel, through surviving Kryptonians, through Wizard City. Of these Wizard City came the closest to Kandor. Always having Superman travel through time to Krypton isn't satisfying for a number or reasons. Kandor is better, because it puts the city right there on Earth, easily accessible to Superman (and his associates), but because it's inside a bottle with its own simulated red sun and gravity, it recreates the conditions on Krypton.

[phonogram12]

Turning Kandorians into a super-powered army of belligerants is distasteful to me, although this seems to be how a lot of people see Krypton in general now. The basic message of Superman has been twisted so Krypton was a horrible place and the only reason Kal-El didn't turn out to be as sadistic as the rest of them was because he escaped to planet Earth where he was raised by salt of the earth Americans: Americans good, eveyone else bad.

Yeah, this is exactly what I've hated about most interpretations of Krypton and Kandor since Byrne's Man of Steel (which unfortunately, the movie of the same name picked up on). It's just so xenophobic and arrogant.

[Superlad93]

All Star Superman also poised the question of what to do with Kandor. Superman unshrank it and placed it on Mars. New Krypton failed because they tried HARD to make the Kryptonians antagonistic to Earth. If the Kandor K's are peaceful and benevolent then I have no problem with them being unshrunk. They could open up a lot of opportunities for support for Superman and other adventures. The abortion of a storyline that James Robinson gave us in New Krypton should be forgetten with all available force.

Try not to needlessly spoil All Star Superman for the OP (a quick edit). You also got your facts a bit wrong on what actually happened in it btw.

Edit: on second thought never mind the op did actually ask what happened. But Superman didn't actually unshrink them. He left them small as he still couldn't crack what Brainiac did. But his creativity and outgoingness were boosted so he came up with what he did, and not only freed them but made them cooperative with humans, and he made a Super team of sorts that faces threats that we already have in the world but in a very comic book way.

Best solution by far imo. I feel like he never should get Kandor back in all its glory. Krypton is a should be gone in all it's glory and Brainic's shrink ray should be one of the few times Superman truly fails in such a direct manner. The ingenuity, faith, creativity that it takes to go the way of All Star should be the kept in mind when dealing with the next stage of Kandor. Again IMO.

[Doctor Know]

Try not to needlessly spoil All Star Superman for the OP (a quick edit). You also got your facts a bit wrong on what actually happened in it btw.

Well it's been years since I read it. My bad. However the Kandor part of All Star is such a small part of the entire story, I mean really small. That's it's not that big of a deal. Unlike say Superman Red Son, where Kandor's plight effects Superman's resolve.

[Superlad93]

Well it's been years since I read it. My bad. However the Kandor part of All Star is such a small part of the entire story, I mean really small. That's it's not that big of a deal. Unlike say Superman Red Son, where Kandor's plight effects Superman's resolve.

No worries. I actually just edited my post. The op seemed to be ok with that spoiler and you're right as far as the actual time that was spent on it but I disagree with you on how important it was to Superman in the actual story. I'd say it's just about as important as Red Sun's "Kandor". But the difference is that it's Superman's realization of what was holding him back from really resolving the issue. It shed light on Superman as a bit of a "super-procrastinator" of sorts, finding reason after reason not to truly tackle a problem. Once he got that "boost" in self and the reality check that comes with mortality it all changed for him. Kandor was the culmination of that and the visual representation of it as well, I feel.

Then there was the very real plight of the dying culture of Krypton that hung in the balance, the pride of a race of Supermen a women reduced to less than ants, and the xenophobic ideas of aliens explored which ultimately simply links back into dying cultures and grounds it in something we all understand. Issue 10 was so jam packed, I feel. Kandor in general is a very delicate aspect of the Superman world that can go VERY wrong if used foolishly, but can be one of the most character defining aspects of Superman if used correctly (All Star and Red Sun to name two).

[Jim Kelly]

ALL-STAR SUPERMAN takes some of its inspiration from "The Amazing Story of Superman-Red and Superman-Blue," SUPERMAN 162 (July '63), by Leo Dorfman, Curt Swan and George Klein (with additional art by Kurt Schaffenberger). Both are about Superman at some future point in time when he sets out to solve a lot of his problems that have plagued him over the years. In both stories, Superman tries to make good on his promise to the Kandorians.

Strange that he never released Mon-El from the Phantom Zone--that was always one of those things on his to-do list.

Getting rid of the bottle city works for a final act in the Superman drama, but as I said before I don't see its purpose in the middle of Superman's unfolding adventures. The bottle city exists as a plot device--once you get rid of it, you've done away with that device. If you need Kryptonians to bother Superman there's a whole Phantom Zone for that. Kandor is meant to be the opposite--a nice retreat, where we can revisit all the wonders of Krypton on a small scale--yet where Superman's life is always in danger, because he has no powers.

It's interesting that Superman unshrunk Kandor further on in the Schwartz run of Superman--SUPERMAN 338 (August '79). If you look at the order of stories for the beginning of what is called Earth-One Superman, circa 1958, and the end of the same, toward 1985, it's like all the stuff that was built up at the front end is unravelled at the back end of the Earth-One era.

And by a strange quirk of fate, the unshrinking of the Kandorians for NEW KRYPTON was one of those bozo moves that undermined Superman the last time around, before the latest reboot.

[Jon Clark]

For all of it's use in the new 52, you could basically erase Kandor from history and no one would even notice. I'd rather they actually explored Kandor and let Superman have some Kryptonian adventures there before pushing the place offstage. And if they enlarge it, odds are it would quickly become another ignored part of the mythos.

[llozymandias]

In the story "Let My People Grow" (Superman #338; August, 1979) Superman actually succeeded in enlarging Kandor. It was enlarged on a krypton-like planet, that the Kandorians named Rokyn. Kryptonese for "gift from god". Rokyn's status was weird, For some reason evey so often it would shift between the earth-1 universe & an unspecified parallel universe.

[Prime]

In legion of Superheroes, Superman and the Legion did unshruked Kandor, but brainiac 5 erased Superman's memory so he wouldn't try it on his own time.

[Jon Clark]

In legion of Superheroes, Superman and the Legion did unshruked Kandor, but brainiac 5 erased Superman's memory so he wouldn't try it on his own time.

Strange that he never released Mon-El from the Phantom Zone--that was always one of those things on his to-do list.

The thing in both cases is Superman knowing from a Legion adventure that they'd be accomplished in the future but having his memory messed with. With Kandor the whole Rokyn location was established in a Legion story in the 1960's decades before "Let My People Grow". But somehow neither Superboy or Supergirl ever visited Rokyn that we know of nor did they retain any memory of it that they used to assure Kandor that the shrinking would eventually be reversed.

And Superman knew he had adventures as Superboy with Mon-El in the 30th century so I'm not really sure how he really thought that Mon-El would be permanently released before that time. He had a statuette of Mon-El with his Legion souveniers (per it's use in the Composite Superman stories), so you do have to wonder just how he thought Mon-El was part of the team if Superman freed him in the 20th century.