Does other Kryptonians trivialise Superman's level of restraint?

[Marik Swift]

Perhaps the most defining trait of Superman has always been his level of restraint with both his powers and his choice not to abuse said powers. So, in your opinion, does other Kryptonians existing somewhat make the general public forget/overlook just how much restraint Superman himself is always showing.

Sure, Wonder Woman, Shazam, etc, exist, but their powers are generally portrayed as having an "off" switch to some extent compared to Kryptonians whose powers are always active.

[Agent Z]

No and I don't see why it would.

[HsssH]

While I don't like Byrne's run in general I think that making Superman actually the last one was a good choice.

[NaVi]

Each superman comic tells you that he is the most powerful being on earth but that he is contained, then other kryptonians appear who want to destroy the earth but are just as strong as superman, I suppose they also contain himself. Krypton was destroyed but there are millions of Kryptonians, the destruction of Krypton has long lost all meaning, DC would have to find another origin.

[Thor-Ul]

I would limit the number of kryptonians or put an emphasis about how uncomfortable feels Clark amont those people. He is biologically a kryptonian but mentally he is human.

[Yoda]

Perhaps the most defining trait of Superman has always been his level of restraint with both his powers and his choice not to abuse said powers. So, in your opinion, does other Kryptonians existing somewhat make the general public forget/overlook just how much restraint Superman himself is always showing.

Sure, Wonder Woman, Shazam, etc, exist, but their powers are generally portrayed as having an "off" switch to some extent compared to Kryptonians whose powers are always active.

Wouldn't it work the exact opposite? If the general public saw other Kryptonians without the restraint, like a Zod who goes on a rampage. The example of how Superman doesn't utilize the same powers in such a fashion would be underscored.

[The_Lurk]

Perhaps the most defining trait of Superman has always been his level of restraint with both his powers and his choice not to abuse said powers. So, in your opinion, does other Kryptonians existing somewhat make the general public forget/overlook just how much restraint Superman himself is always showing.

Sure, Wonder Woman, Shazam, etc, exist, but their powers are generally portrayed as having an "off" switch to some extent compared to Kryptonians whose powers are always active.

Not really IMO. Power Girl and Super Girl both learned with/from him to adapt (IIRC there was a nod to that in the SG Pilot where she spoke about it and how she accidentally killed the house cat by trying to pet it).

The other dominant Kryptonians like Zod & Friends that show up usually do not show any restraint or interest in it.

[Jon Clark]

It's a mixed bag.

The more noble Kryptonians like Kara that show up, the less of an exception Superman seems to be. It's not like Clark shows a lot more restraint compared to Supergirl, Mon-El, Conner, Jon, Pre-Flashpoint Chris Kent, ....

And every Zod, Faora or Non that supposedly lack the restraint don't seem to do anything outside of Elseworlds to make you think a ruthless Kryptonian is much of a threat compared to their noble counterparts. Even when New Krypton went to war with Earth there didn't seem to be any major permanent damage from a virtual army of unretrained Kryptonians attacking. Superman probably has done more damage while practicing his "restraint" than a whole army of his fellow Kryptonians.

[Jim Kelly]

The existence of other Kryptonians shows the lack of restraint by writers, who just can't think of anything else to do. I've really grown to hate this and wish they would stop bringing Kryptonians out of the woodwork to challenge the Man of Steel. It smacks of desperation and they don't seem able to live by their own rules.

On the screen, it keeps happening, where they bend all logic just so they can have super-powerful Kryptonians for a big battle. On LOIS & CLARK, which was in the era when Mike Carlin ruled with an iron fist that no other Kryptonians but Kal-El should exist in the comic books, they brought in more Kryptonians at the end of the third season. On SMALLVILLE, where Clark had to slowly develop his super-powers and couldn't even fly--they portaled in so many other Kryptonians who flew around like mosquitos above a stagnant lake. In MAN OF STEEL, which told a new origin story for the Caped Kryptonian, they couldn't even wait for a sequel before Kryptonians showed up to monologue about their superiority.

Is it really too much to expect that Superman might be the last survivor of a doomed planet? It's not like this rules out all other aliens in the galaxy from stopping by the Earth to give Clark a hard time. Have some restraint.

[manwhohaseverything]

It's a mixed bag.

The more noble Kryptonians like Kara that show up, the less of an exception Superman seems to be. It's not like Clark shows a lot more restraint compared to Supergirl, Mon-El, Conner, Jon, Pre-Flashpoint Chris Kent, ....

And every Zod, Faora or Non that supposedly lack the restraint don't seem to do anything outside of Elseworlds to make you think a ruthless Kryptonian is much of a threat compared to their noble counterparts. Even when New Krypton went to war with Earth there didn't seem to be any major permanent damage from a virtual army of unretrained Kryptonians attacking. Superman probably has done more damage while practicing his "restraint" than a whole army of his fellow Kryptonians.

Just have zod blow up planets and try to do with earth.Also,Jon ain't powerful as clark.He frequantly blows up as well.Conner is Clone who is different and has different abilities added on top.Mon el is barely featured.Chris had clark as father if anything went bad.

[KC]

No. All the other Kryptonians are either less powerful than Superman so it still shows his restraint as he is still more powerful than a lot of other Kryptonians but he doesn't show it or they are just as powerful as him but don't have any restraint like Zod, which shows his restraint in contrast.

But really, I don't think Superman's restraint is such a big thing that the other Kryptonians should be shelved to highlight it.

[SuperCrab]

Krypton was destroyed but there are millions of Kryptonians, the destruction of Krypton has long lost all meaning, DC would have to find another origin.

If earth were destroyed or rendered uninhabitable, but humanity survived via a colony on another planet or moon (Possibly terraformed and/or in another solar system), I think the loss of earth would still resonate with the remnant of the human race for many generations to come.

In the context of Superman and the destruction of Krypton, with a substantial number of Kryptonians surviving or being in some way reconstituted (bottle city of Kandor, whatever), one issue I could see cropping up is pressure on him to marry or at least procreate with a Kryptonian woman in order to ensure the survival of their species given their more limited gene pool, which would of course conflict with his feeling towards Lois (and marriage vows, if it's in the context of current comic continuity), a very human woman, or even Wonder Woman, a non-Kryptonian earth native (I'm not sure whether she would be classified as a homo sapien or not, but it really doesn't matter in this context- she's not Kryptonian, which is what is relevant here.).

If I recall correctly, and I may not, I also think the pre-2011, but post-Crisis, Superman had a story arc where he wound up being asked to be a General in a neo-Kryptonian army and having to figure out how much loyalty, if any, he owed to New Krypton (Or whatever it was called) relative to what he would have owed to old Krypton and to earth. I think Zod may have also been involved in that somehow, serving in the same army, in a position of authority either equal to or great than Kal-El, which obviously adds another dimension to that whole equation.

However, on a larger level, a species that loses it's home world could, depending on the circumstances of their world's destruction and the culture of the people there, find itself becoming more or less xenophobic than it used to be (More if aliens destroyed their world and they are bitter or feel an enhanced need to protect the remnant of their species at any cost, less if they feel like their path towards survival and influence is to get involved more in galactic politics, trade, and cultural exchanges, possibly spreading their religion and other cultural traits beyond people of their genetic heritage and ensuring the survival of those things even in the event that something happens to the last of their species, or in the event that they interbreed with compatible alien species to the point where there are no Kryptonians left after a few centuries.).

If Krypton's destruction came in full or in part due to an environmental or quasi-environmental plot and the Kryptonian government failing to listen to it's scientists, which has been what happened in at least one version of the Superman mythos, that could lead a very environmentalist New Krypton. One could see Superman and surviving Kryptonians pleading with human governmental leaders to do something about global climate change and such under those circumstances, and not to let what happened to Krypton happen to them (In the very generalized sense of needing to listen to scientists trying to prevent global catastrophe, that is. The environmental collapse of Krypton scenario continuity I'm vaguely recalling involved something wrong under the surface of the planet, not global climate change, but it was still an environmental issue of planetary scope where scientists are speaking out and governmental leaders have been slow or outright refusing to listen in some cases, so there are parallels.).

That said, Superman's role as the last son of Krypton has traditionally defined him and often led him to self-identify as a citizen of earth, and Clark Kent actually is literally an American citizen in most continuities. There was that comic book storyline where Superman renounced his American citizenship so that the United States government wouldn't have to deal with blowback from his actions, especially in instances where it opposed them, but that came fairly late in the timeline of that Superman's active comic book life, was more of a political maneuver than an action of the heart, was not a renunciation of self-identity as a citizen of earth, may or may not have applied to Clark Kent (As his secret identity was a secret in that continuity), and really had nothing to do with whether he was the last Kryptonian or not.

The idea that Clark is the last Kryptonian that he knows about until he is an adult at least into his 20s and he has started his career as a journalist and as Superman I think helps ensure that he goes through thinking he is the last of his kind while being raised as a human during all the formative stages of his development, meaning that any revival or new knowledge of the survival of the Kryptonian species beyond him may raise questions for him in terms of self-identity, but are doing so only after he is fully integrated adult who thinks of earth as his home, thus preserving most of the essential elements of who he is.

That said, I would tend to save Kryptonian revivals (Other that Kara and Zod, and even there I would wait until Clark is at least in costume in Metropolis and working at the Daily Planet) until the later stages of a run of a Superman version before some sort of a reboot introduces a new younger Superman who is once again the last of his kind. I think it has the potential for interesting storylines and is sort of a natural progression to create some inner conflict at a point where Superman typically might not have much of that, but I do think introducing it early cuts off an important part of Superman's development, which not only includes thinking of himself as a Terran by adoption, but also involves him potentially learning about Kryptonian culture at the fortress and having to evaluate how much to allow it to influence him and whether or not he has a duty to spread it and pass it on to the human race so that something of his presumed dead species lives on in others.

Brian Hitch had an awesome Justice League of America run that involved, among others, the New52 Superman interacting with an entity believed to be the Kryptonian god Rao. I thought that was really well done in terms of Clark wrestling with his Kryptonian heritage by presenting him with something that kind of, in retrospect, surprisingly had never happened to any of the prior incarnations of Superman in any medium. It's kind of vague as to whether or not the current Superman experienced those events or not, given an altered and merged timeline that Superman Reborn introduced. Did anything ever establish that one way or the other? I think Hitch may have written something that followed up on those events, but I am not sure if it was the Rebirth Superman (Who didn't experience them) or the Reborn Superman (Who may have experienced them), and whether or not Superman demonstrated a recall of having experienced the events or had to be filled in on them.

[Restingvoice]

No, it should be the opposite. The attack of New Krypton would show how much restraint the Super family has. People can forget, but DC people are dumb with their reaction based on what kind of story the writers want.