The source of Kryptonian powers

[Tom Kalbfus]

I'm ok with the sunlight. I just dislike how it's used as an excuse as to why he doesn't need any other bodily functions.

He should still need to eat, sleep and go to the bathroom, even if it still doesn't make sense.

He needs to do those things on Krypton, not on Earth, that he continues to do them on Earth is more of a reflex than a necessity. For instance he continues to breathe on Earth even though he doesn't need to, cosmic energy sustains his body, that is how he survives in space.

[Alpha]

The take i described earlier is a sort of cross-section of all those.

Their abilities on Krypton were superhuman. A guy on Earth can lift 100lbs with a small effort. But on the moon the same effort would let him lift well over 500 lbs. And on Krypton the same effort might be needed to lift a baseball. So if a Kryptonian can throw a baseball on Krypton as easily as I can throw a baseball on Earth, he can throw a 100 lb object with the same ease on Earth. So guys who naturally leap an eighth of a mile on Earth are superhuman even if on Krypton they seem no more powerful than you and me.

The powers on Earth are natural reactions to the differences in environment. They are designed either by nature or genetic manipulation to be be able to do things on Krypton that other humanoids cannot (like maybe just stand up under that planet's gravity).

Think of them as armored cars. They are built on a physical level out of stronger materials than Earth-people. They have design elements that prevent them from being damaged to enhance the durability of that material. So no matter where you compare them the Kryptonians are simply going to physically more durable (the original/pre-yellow sun origin). But their engines are designed to run on gasoline and a regular car battery. Under Earth conditions they are suddenly getting ultrarefined gasoline that improves their fuel milage and their car batteries now could power whole cities. (the red sun vs yellow sun origin).

That's just super strength thoug, and maybe flight. How about super breath and hearing, and x-ray vision, microscopic vision, heat vision

[Jon Clark]

That's just super strength thoug, and maybe flight. How about super breath and hearing, and x-ray vision, microscopic vision, heat vision

Bad analogy but closest i can come is a Superman character called Regor. His schtick was that he was an Earthman on a planet where people couldn't see through stuff like glass. Not sure of the exact physics of that zany idea, but if you sort of squint at the idea it's a bad metaphor for stuff like X-ray vision. Stuff that would block light from our perspective still can let through stuff like infra-red radiation

Elliot S! Maggin gave some ideas in his Superman novels. Stuff like the atmosphere and light conditions on Krypton requiring a wider sensory range. To a human eye a "clear" day on Krypton might look like pea-soup fog. Abd conversations might sound like you had cotton in your ears all the time. But at the same time the amount of oxygen in that atmosphere might make breathing like either being on a mountain top or a smoke filled room. Therefore survival might require more efficient lungs (take in larger volume of air? run on lower amount of O2?).

Think of Atlantean senses designed for living far under water. To them they see and hear roughly the same way we do (Vulko can "hear" Aquaman from the same distance as you hear him on dry land) so they don't seem superhuman, but in the same environment you wouldn't "hear" as well as you do now.

I'd also have Kryptonian brains designed to process all this. Kryptonians are getting hundreds of times the information we get from sensory input. And they can either be getting this huge composite picture combining all of it into a single image or concentrate on just one single piece. So telescopic and microsopic vision is just ignirong all the information comig in excepy fo that coming from a specific distance. Hearing can detect a single conversation out of a crowded room or note that one irregualr heartbeat in the room.

[SuperX]

I would say kryptonians as golden age Supermen PLUS dark energy as a power source thst takes them to God's

Reason for them not getting off the planet? Either kryptonian higharchy kept it a secret and everyone stayed on planet OR some weird dark energy couldnt pass thru kryptons atmosphere to give them their God like powers

[manwhohaseverything]

The problem with that is that once you reached a certain power level having Superman be the sole survivor made less sense.

A planet full of guys who can leap an eighth of a mile, outrun a train and be unharmed by anything less than a bazooka shell will still die if the planet goes boom. A planet of guys who can fly through airless space and shrug off atomic bombs are less likely to all die when the planet goes boom.

That's the main reason for things like the solar power- it explains why Jor-El would die when Krypton blew up but Kal-El could seemingly survive/escape the same situation. There was some factor (color of the sun, amount of gravity , ...) that lets them be near unbeatable on Earth but utterly able to die by the thousands/millions/billions on Krypton.

Stuff like dark energy or cosmic energy might make a better power source, but you then need to explain why 99.9% of Krypton isn't able to escape their planet's death while Superman drawing on the same power source seems to easily escape or survive things on that scale (black holes, the core of stars).

Well,they could still have not tapped into the potential yet.I mean,superman had to work to get to that level.first it was the train,then to the gun,then rocket cars so on and so forth.These guys weren't about that sort of thing,the physicality that superman was about.They were more focused on technological and genetic advancements(byrne).Heck!original take had them be experts at building aircrafts because they needed to create ultra-lightweight but sturdy structure to escape the gravity and withstand kryptons chaotic environment.In fact,i believe superman will be called a barbarian for his pursuits by kryptonians in general(all star/pre crisis,there was also a gag about kryptonian thinking clark's fashion choice being wierd).Just like tarzan is percieved by us.It would also explain why clark whoops even Genetically engineered miltary guys. Cause,he is like a gorilla and unless miltary guys have a gun they won't be able to touch a powerfull ape in a fist fight.

As for dark energy causing them to survive.Well for that, they would need to know how to. Vegeta had no clue how to sense ki/powerlevel until he went to earth.Instead of making the energy absorbtion some kind of involuntary thing like heartbeats.Making it a volunatry action like flexing arm muscles would do the trick.Something these guys need to learn,control and master would be enough.But,they had no clue how to.It would also explain how clark and why gets more powerful.Cause he gets refined with adversity.keep in mind,my ideal would be to have no explanation.Just leave it mystery why clark is a uberpowerful dude.

[stargazer01]

Over the years there have probably been different explanations for kryptonian powers, but the only one I can recall is the high gravity thing which is very outdated.

I want to read about how people have explained both kryptonian powers and what kryptonians know of those powers and why they don't travel to another galaxy.

I've always felt that the best explanation is that at some point in time kryptonians used technology to change their physiology and that gave them powers, and for generations they were able to fly on Krypton. Eventually a war broke out and one side decided to infect their yellow sun and turn it red so that they could deescalate the conflict, and the reason why kryptonians didn't travel that much to other planets is that their interstellar technology wasn't very developed specifically because they had all those powers.

I really like the solar radiation that powers his cells. It's just so cool, he's a sun god.

I also think Kryptonians are just physically superior to humans due to genetical engineering and a harsher environment. I think the Fleischer cartoons even mention they were a race of super men.

It's pseudo science and fantasy, I don't think too hard about it and just accept it.

[achilles]

The Sun only produces 1400 watts per square meter on Earth at most, that is not enough to power the things Superman and his kin do. I have a better theory, nanites infect Kryptonians and the red sun of Krypton suppresses them, the yellow rays of of our Sun releases them and they tap into dark energy when activated by the Sun to power those abilities, but the Sun does not power them directly.

Yeah, that's something I came up with a couple years ago on comicvine and a couple other places. It's a bit more complicated than the straight on dark energy only thing, but it has the advantage of tying in the sun thing without relying on the sun for the actual power, just to get the reaction started. So in that case, a huge retcon isn't required, just a note on how they actually work which leaves the sun intact. It's just easy either way, and solves sundry problems that exist currently. Not the nanite thing, though, that's something I considered, but abandoned because it sounded too low tech for Kryptonians, and I doubted nanites could do anything to Kryptonians once they were invulnerable. That was just my own thoughts, and I admit I still go back and forth on the nanite issue, but otherwise yeah, pretty much how I'd favor it.

As for the problem of why they don't have powers on their own planet; yeah, a big problem. As is the one about why such powerful people weren't a multi star system species. I was unable to come up with any really good ideas for that, but for what it's worth, for the former I leaned on the idea that for reasons low level radioactivity on Krypton kept them from it without killing them or otherwise hurting them. I was not satisfied with that, but it was the best I could do. The latter I just leaned on them being a rather arrogant species who just really didn't see anything better elsewhere, and had perhaps other cultural and religious reasons for staying on Krypton. My theory there was if you can't come up with a physical reason for them to not leave Krypton, come up with a religious or psychological one instead.

[achilles]

Super hearing also doesn't make any sense. So what? It's about thematic and tonal cohesion. The truth is that there is no actual scientific way for Superman to work the way he does. But granting only a "sense of science fiction" is more than enough to solidify the character

I think the point we're making is not that dark energy or whatever is an actual scientific explanation---you're quite right; Kryptonians just aren't possible. But these days anyone who has even just watched the odd episode of any of dozens of different shows on science on TV knows the flaws with the solar powered explanation, which takes you out of the feeling that it is sort of sci-fi. Dark energy, unlike the mechanics of solar power, is sufficiently vague and not understood at all, save for theories on how potent it is---which means that an average reader or viewer can just sort of take it as another "a wizard did it" explanation, and get on with it, without thinking much more on the subject.

[Stanlos]

I really like the solar radiation that powers his cells. It's just so cool, he's a sun god.

I also think Kryptonians are just physically superior to humans due to genetical engineering and a harsher environment. I think the Fleischer cartoons even mention they were a race of super men.

It's pseudo science and fantasy, I don't think too hard about it and just accept it.

I don't like it because the mechanic lends itself far too easily to neutralization. That is part of why I obsess over Warren Ellis getting carte blanc to do an alternate take on the character with heavy sci-fi to explore other dynamics like maybe unified field association or something else.

[godisawesome]

I had a favorite bit of head-canon where Kem-L (The El family’s lunatic mad scientist ancestor and the creator of the Eradicator) heavily modified an originally very mortal and mundane primordial Kryptonian species to create the ones we know and love, with his super science offering an excuse for why they seemed to win the super-power lottery. In my head canon, he did it to win an inter-stellar war between the Old Gods, Oans, and his Kryptonians... then had his xenophobia creep up and cause the isolationism that locked the Kryptonians to their own world and left Daxam as their last enclave.

Basically, he would have made Kryptonians capable of some small scale “genetic nuclear fusion” powered by outside radiation, and run through a modified brain that contained some very subtle telekinetic/aspects... with the whole package also gaining the ability to mutate and accommodate to higher sources of radiation and atmosphere of given the chance.

So... part of the reason Earth is such a great place is because the solar radiation supercharges the cells of the body, which strengthens the muscles and bones over time (and gets supplemented by Earth’s atmosphere), while the brain undergoes some low level mutation to cause tactile telekinesis (which would also cause stuff like heat vision and ice breath in small ways).

A child Kryptonian will likely take some time to develop all of these, especially as the tactile telekinesis requires a more mature brain. An adult may quickly gain the TTK aspects, but will lack the genuine muscle and durability without it, and therefore be more vulnerable for a time before adjusting.

[SuperX]

I had a favorite bit of head-canon where Kem-L (The El family’s lunatic mad scientist ancestor and the creator of the Eradicator) heavily modified an originally very mortal and mundane primordial Kryptonian species to create the ones we know and love, with his super science offering an excuse for why they seemed to win the super-power lottery. In my head canon, he did it to win an inter-stellar war between the Old Gods, Oans, and his Kryptonians... then had his xenophobia creep up and cause the isolationism that locked the Kryptonians to their own world and left Daxam as their last enclave.

Basically, he would have made Kryptonians capable of some small scale “genetic nuclear fusion” powered by outside radiation, and run through a modified brain that contained some very subtle telekinetic/aspects... with the whole package also gaining the ability to mutate and accommodate to higher sources of radiation and atmosphere of given the chance.

So... part of the reason Earth is such a great place is because the solar radiation supercharges the cells of the body, which strengthens the muscles and bones over time (and gets supplemented by Earth’s atmosphere), while the brain undergoes some low level mutation to cause tactile telekinesis (which would also cause stuff like heat vision and ice breath in small ways).

A child Kryptonian will likely take some time to develop all of these, especially as the tactile telekinesis requires a more mature brain. An adult may quickly gain the TTK aspects, but will lack the genuine muscle and durability without it, and therefore be more vulnerable for a time before adjusting.

You just explained kon+els powers lol. He had TTK 1st and he was more vulnerable, until years later when he started getting physically tougher, then the rest.

It usually explained the other way around, kryptonians getting physically "tougher" 1st then get the extra powers later,but I guess if you count the TTK as another physical "tougher" than it happens the same way for both.

Getting his powers can be a chain reaction, the exposure to solar energy sets off thst chain reaction in every cell of his body, and turns them into little nuclear reactors. That way you can still say solar energy is his power source, but it starts the explosion of power in him, but doesmt have to create all the power his body creates on its own

[Tzigone]

I had a favorite bit of head-canon where Kem-L (The El family’s lunatic mad scientist ancestor and the creator of the Eradicator) heavily modified an originally very mortal and mundane primordial Kryptonian species to create the ones we know and love, with his super science offering an excuse for why they seemed to win the super-power lottery.

I'd like for someone not named "El" (and in no way directly connected to the family) to do something really important in Krypton's history. Though I guess if we get enough generations back, they are all related.