Let’s talk about one of the biggest crutches in comic book history, Kryptonite. Sorry, that’s a little harsh, but honestly, the glowing green rock is used rather liberally to make the invincible Superman all too vulnerable. It exists today mostly to make it seem less insane for guys like Lex Luthor, Ruin and occasionally Batman to face off against the big blue boy scout and not be killed instantly since he’s literally invincible otherwise. But that’s not the only function of the final remains of long dead Krypton. The history and varieties of this unusual alien mineral is a bit stranger then you might imagine. Let’s get to it.
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| If it also didn't give humans radiation poisoning and tumors, it'd be a great holiday gift. |
To start off with, I figured I
should mention the rather odd place that Kryptonite came from. The glowing
green rock from Krypton didn’t originate in the comics, but instead on a radio
show. Yeah, back in the day Superman was part of a highly successful radio show
that some postulate was as popular if not more so then the comic book
incarnation. The series was called “The Adventures of Superman,” and was introduced
it in 1943. Superman was only about five years old at the time, so the radio
show was probably all but encouraged to make stuff up as they went. The story
goes that Kryptonite was developed specifically to, or at least in part to,
allow Superman’s voice actor, Bud Collyer, to get a little time off. See, a
radio show can take hours to record even only a half hour of usable content,
which can get pretty demanding on a main character. I’ve done a little voice
work with the guys of Redshift on Fancy Pantsgangsters online, and I know for a
fact that it often takes upwards of 2 and half or more hours of recording time
to get a half hour of useable content. Editing is a pain in the ass,
apparently. The idea was that Superman would be weakened by the rock, and then
the could get someone who sounded vaguely like Collyer to groan and moan. This
would allow the series to continue recording a few episodes of content, while
allow their star some much needed r and r to keep him at tip top shape. A
surprisingly simple, but elegant solution to the problem. Kryptonite must have
really worked in the radio show, as the mineral was introduced into the comics
six years later and became the modern Achilles Heel.
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| Hey, Clark, it's a really bad idea to tell anyone about the rocks that can kill you, buddy! |
In the DC Universe, Kryptonite is
shown to be an irradiated fragment of Superman’s homeworld of Krypton. The
surviving pieces of Krypton turned into glowing green crystals that saps a
Kryptonian of their super strength and makes them physically ill so long as
they’re in its presence. Long term exposure causes a Kryptonian’s blood to turn
green and for their complexion to shift to that color as well. While it doesn’t
affect a Kryptonian’s other powers, the physical illness and pain largely makes
it impossible for them to, say, use their freezing breath to coat it in ice or
something. The effects of Kryptonite can be reduced, albeit only slightly, if a
Kryptonian takes in a huge amount of Sunlight. And the effects can be blocked
entirely if placed in a lead container. As the most common form of the stone, I
don’t think Superman has had a series without the glowing rocks popping up in
one form or another since it’s creation. While this is the most common and
arguably dangerous form of Kryptonite, it does come in other flavors.
The second most common form of
Kryptonite is the Red variety. Which is somewhat fitting, as Kryptonite was
originally started off as red before being reimagined as it’s signature green
color. Red Kryptonite doesn’t affect Kryptonian powers, but their minds.
Kryptonians exposed to Red-K will start behaving bizarrely and impulsively. The
best description I’ve seen is that it makes them act drunk. They’ll lash out
with extreme aggression for little to no reason, and just generally be a jerk.
The effects are temporary, ceasing the moment a Kryptonian is taken out of its
range. It’s been mostly used in series like Smallville or Batman: The Brave and
The Bold, to turn the pillar of morality that is Superman into a legitimate foe
for some of his allies, without having to do something too extreme like
murdering Lois Lane.
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| They really did talk funny in the early days. |
Another flavor is Blue Kryptonite. The
effects of this one varies from series to series. In the main comic continuity,
it has no effect on Superman or other Kryptonians. Instead, it works as an
antidote for Red-K. Guess it’s working on that old opposite ends of the color
spectrum canceling each other out idea.
It does, however, have the same effect as Green Kryptonite on the
imperfect Superman clone Bizarro and those like him. IE, strength reduction,
physical pain and illness. So, you want to bring this stuff to a crazy
Superman, but keep it from a calm Bizarro. At least in this continuity. In the
long running series Smallville, Blue
Kryptonite instead painlessly strips a Kryptonian of their powers, rendering
them more or less human. It’s used on a few occasions for Clark to play human,
to destroy their Bizarro by supercharging him to beyond what his body could
handle, and to strip a group of clones from the Kryptonian city of Kandor of
their powers. While it was rather different from the main continuity, the
powerless Clark’s adventures and their version of the Kandorians make up some
of my favorite episodes, so I’ll let it slide.
The last variety I’ll touch upon is
Black Kryptonite. This rather new variation of the glowing green rock (it was
only introduced in 2005), has probably the strangest effect. When exposed, a
Kryptonian will be split into two entities, one good and one evil. The two
individuals have the same memories and powers of the original individual, and
will be rejoined if exposed to more Black-K. In the Smallville season 4
premier, a small of Black-K was used to split Clark’s mind. This allowed the
original Clark to suppress and reestablish control over Kal, a personality the
AI version of his father Jor-El had implanted inside him. It was later used on
the Kryptonian supermonster Doomsday to split the monster from it’s human side,
Davis Bloom. The results were less then satisfying, as in this instance both
sides kept about the same level of evil and the human half of the equation
murdered Clark’s friend and ally Henry James Olsen. While this is one of the
stranger flavors of Kryptonite, it is kind of a nod to older Superman stories.
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| Considering we see in another episode that Black Kryptonite does work on and split humans up too, are we supposed to assume Martha Kent is pure good to not be effected? |
From what I’ve read in my research
there was a time when there was a plethora of Kryptonite variants with unusual
properties. These included but are not limited to Red-Green Kryptonite, an
alloy that mutated and disfigured Superman; Red-Green-Blue Kryptonite, that
split Superman’s head into a Red and Blue variety both with increased
intelligence; Jewel Kryptonite, a form of Kryptonite from Krypton’s Jewel
mountain that can give Kryptonians Astral Projection powers, and
Magno-Kryptonite, a variant on the glowing rocks that magnetically attracts
objects from Krypton. Apparently in the 70s and early 80s there was something
of a trend of writing really weird and/or non-canon stories that often turned
out to be either dreams or one offs. The unique flavors of Kryptonite were
mostly used in those. This changed during the Crisis on Infinite Earths
Storyline where one effect of multiple versions of DC’s Earth getting smooshed
together had most of the more exotic Kryptonites turned into K-Iron. It’s
basically just exotic bits of soil, metal, and crystal at that point. The Green
variety remained, though, as well as the ones I’ve listed here, which are
typically made by intentional or accidental tinkering with the common green
variety.
I think Kryptonite holds kind of an
odd, but useful place in the history of superheroes. Yes, the fact that
Superman is so super powerful that they had to invent a substance to make him
weaker so his all too human enemies stood a chance is kind of hilarious. But,
at the same time it was something that got the ball rolling on heroes with
limits and flaws. But back before the introduction of Kryptonite, heroes didn’t
really have weaknesses per say. Stories back in the early days could largely be
summed up as “dastardly villain steals or threatens something, Superman super
jumps in, defeats them and super jumps away.” But as time went on and people
wanted to see their heroes in more peril instead of being the auto-win option,
they had to start introducing things like weakness, starting with glowing green
rocks, but over time adding more realistic weaknesses. Sure, Iron Man’s
alcoholism and weakness for redheads isn’t as crippling as Superman’s radiation
sickness, but it’s kept him from having out and out victories on several
occasions. And then there’s always Peter Parker’s greatest weakness, Rent. Am I
reaching a bit to connect the realistic vices of modern heroes to the
Kryptonite of the original man of steel? Maybe. But the connection does seem
there. That and I’m highly entertained by the thought that the imperfect,
flawed heroes of today can trace their origin back to a glowing Achilles heel
that may or may not have been invented to give a voice actor a day or two off.
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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