Superman Through the Ages! Forum

A friend of mine got into a discussion about whether or not the existence of the city in the bottle is widespread, public knowledge on Earth-1. I said it wasn't (or at least, there was no direct evidence to show that it was), but he said it was, and I thought the conversation was fascinating enough to be worth sharing.

Here's his points, as fairly as I can represent them, and decide for yourself:



On many occasions, Superman has taken reporters - including Lois and Jimmy as well as Lana, on one occasion - into the Fortress of Solitude and shown them around, and they reported on the contents. Leaving Kandor out, which is the single most important object in the Fortress, is not a reasonable conclusion.

MY REBUTTAL: True, reporters have been in the Fortress, but the fact they discussed Kandor in whatever articles they wrote is entirely conjectural. And while we're on the subject of conjecture, there are a great many things in the Fortress that are so potentially dangerous that it wouldn't make sense for Superman to allow it to be reported: for instance, Superman's confiscated deadly weapons, or his huge Kryptonite collection, or the Disintigration Pit.



So many elements about Superman's life and world are available to anyone that wants to know thanks to books like Lois's bestselling book, "World of Krypton," and the bestselling "Krypton Chronicles" by Clark Kent, that a truly major element of the Krypton story like Kandor must be present at least somewhere. If it wasn't, it would be an astonishingly glaring omission. Even dangerous information leaked out - for instance, in Cary Bates's ACTION COMICS #441 (1974), Weather Wizard was inspired by "World of Krypton" to create Black Lightning, a Krypton-only weather phenom, for instance.

MY REBUTTAL: Yes, but like the above point, this may be speculation; there's no DIRECT evidence saying Lois or Clark in their books talked about Kandor. In fact, it would make sense for Clark not to mention Kandor considering he only did research there. Also, the stories in question seem to be limited to Krypton when it was around, not what happened afterward: some moons of Krypton survived the destruction, for instance, and nothing is known of THEM. Further, there is direct evidence that much of Krypton's post-disaster fate IS unknown: for instance, in an issue of DC COMICS PRESENTS, Adam Strange is entirely unaware he is surrounded by Kryptonian ghosts, or that Rann is currently in Krypton's former space sector.



In SUPERMAN SPECIAL #3 (1985) by E. Nelson Bridwell, Amazo, under guidance from Professor Ivo, attempted to steal the bottled city of Kandor and duplicate the powers of all the inhabitants. This is proof that the existence of Kandor is public knowledge.

MY REBUTTAL: Not necessarily. Superman took the inert, deactivated body of Amazo to the Fortress when the League abandoned the satellite and started operating out of Detroit. In other words, Amazo was inside the Fortress for some time - and later, broke out of it. It makes more sense that it would be here that Amazo (and thus, Professor Ivo) would know of the existence of Kandor.



Many of Superman's fellow heroes, including Batman, Robin, Green Arrow, and the Atom, have been inside the Bottled City, notably in Maggin's "The Junkman Cometh" and that issue of SUPERMAN FAMILY where Batman and Robin went into Kandor. Further, Superman has been able to use being on a Mission in Kandor as an excuse for his non-participation in League missions, like MYSTERY IN SPACE #75 (1962).

MY REBUTTAL: True, the Justice Leaguers seem to be aware of the existence of Kandor, but that is not proof the public at large does. It's League policy for JLA members to discuss their secrets with one another - for instance, Green Lantern's weakness to yellow is, by all accounts a secret, but he shared it with his fellow Leaguers.

And is it just me, or does Superman saying "I'm busy in Kandor" the greatest excuse EVER? I bet he uses that one ALL the time. "Gee, uh, I'd love to have dinner with you and the wife, Ralph, but, wouldn't you know it, I have this thing in Kandor tonight..."



The Superman Emergency Squad who have high enough powers and identical costumes, would need an explanation.

MY REBUTTAL: To the best of my knowledge, the Emergency Squad has never acted in a high-visibility context in the public eye that would REQUIRE them to be "explained." True, the Emergency Squad was visible at Superman's funeral along with the entire world, but that was in an Imaginary Story. And yes, in one SUPERMAN FAMILY (that IS canon), there was talk of an Emergency Squad member "replacing" Superman, but that didn't amount to much for obvious reasons. And finally, they don't appear often enough that they would be seen as any different from the myriad weird things that happen to Superman.

Great post and great rebuttals!

As far as the Emergency Squad member, who's to say it is another Kryptonian... from Kandor??  I never read the story, but with all the super-beings on Earth One, one of those folks could have been the possible replacement... or someone from a parallel Earth (was THAT common knowledge on Earths One and Two?  It seems it was and wasn't)

In Action Comics #366, Kandor operates their "blackout screen," which "cuts off all communications with the outside world."  This implies that they are normally in a state of communication with the outside world.

But getting back to that battle with Amazo, here is a direct quote from Action #481, right after Superman and Ivo have just teleported to the Fortress:

Ivo (speaking about the Teleporter): "But the advanced technology you'd need to build such a device would be incredible-"

Superman: "Not so incredible, considering the other accomplishments of present day Kryptonian science as it's progressed among my people here in Kandor!" (pointing out the bottle city to Ivo)

Ivo: "The famous city-in-a-bottle!  Everyone has heard of it--but few Earth people have seen it!  I-I'm honored, Superman!"

Now I suppose you're going to try to get out of that one too, Julian...  ;D

Also, Perry knew to interview the Kandorians for a series on Superman's enemies for the Planet.  You think he was using them as a "deep throat"?

http://superman.nu/tales3/capeandcowl/

Both Luthor and Perry have been to Kandor as well, and the entire population of Atlantis knows about it.  In addition, in Action 309 the Look-Alike Squad appears on Tv along with all of Superman's other friends in a televised tribute to Superman.

Was it Ar-Val who was chosen to replace Superman in the story mentioned above?

Another question: does the world know that the Fortress is near the North Pole or where it is exactly?



 

Yes.

Yes.


No.

They just look for the big fricking yellow key!
No...thats just an airplane marker! ;D

Imagine if a powerless Superman had to get into the Fortress to regain his powers, hypothetically because he gave them up to do the nasty with Lois Lane?  The heavy key thing never struck me as making sense.  I liked the "splashy" S:TAS entrance to the Fortress.

No, it didn't make sense. I suppose the rationale behind it was Superman making a big, spectacular entrance.

I have often wondered about these so-called airplane markers.  Why, I wondered, is the one used by Superman the only one I've ever seen or heard of?  And why is it at the North Pole?  How many planes fly over the Pole, anyway?  Wouldn't someone say, how did that get here?  And after 1950, say, why would anyone use one?

I suspect the huge discussion of air markers that took place during WWII was remembered by Superman's writers:

The business of the key has more flaws than those mentioned. (Telle, interesting about the air markers. And I agree: which planes were flying over the Pole? And that's the thing with those HUGE land and sea areas and distances: what are the chances, if you needed the arrow/key, that you'd fly near it?)

By the time the key to the Fortress was introduced, weren't there enough super-types around that it made the key a bad call anyway? Which good guys and bad guys were around at the time who could have used it? Green Lantern was on the horizon, so that means Sinestro was around, and he could have used the key no sweat. Superman also had super-strong opponents by then who could also have used it. And if you have even one baddie that can use it, it's obsolete. The Fortress being well-hidden was its biggest defence, I think. And why have the Fortress on Earth at all? Why not hollow out a section of the Moon(?), because we are talking about a Silver Age/Bronze Age supreme being who could fly from Metropolis to the Moon and back in one second.

The moon would have been best.  Maybe harder to fly Lois there with only a cape wrapped around her...

To get back to Kandor, I can't help feeling that an above-board fellow like Superman would have felt obliged to tell the people of earth that he had just brought eight million refugees over. I mean, he'd have looked a bit stupid if a Kandorian got out and started flying around: "Oh yeah, I was meaning to tell you about them..."

Obviously, he'd be taking a big risk, revealing the existence of something so precious, but I doubt he'd feel it was fair to lie about Kandor.

Why keep the Kandorians in a bottle?  Wouldn't they just a little safer under a yellow sun and not in a glass container -- give 'em a chance to help out Earth? 

They are really tiny!
Plus not all of them are good, you know.

http://superman.nu/wiki/index.php/Category:Kandorians

Is there any consensus on the population of Kandor? 

I think Mxy asks a good question.  The bad ones could be kept in the bottle or sent to the Phantom Zone.  I think the real answer is that letting all those Super-powered Kandorians run free on the planet would change Superman's reality to be far too different from our reality.  The same reason he couldn't stop wars or toss all the nukes into the sun.  But I think it would be interesting to see a story that plays with this idea and lets us see how civilization would be altered - maybe give them an island or something to all live on.  A lilliputian race of Kryptonian Supermen.

Just how tiny are they?

Super Monkey is right. They are really tiny. Microscopic, in fact. Look at the size of the entire metropolis compared to a normal-sized human being.

In the comics, when Kandorians escape, their size always seems to be tweaked "upwards", however, so that normal human beings can see them. But it's ridiculous, of course. Even at five or six inches tall, a city of such people would be FAR bigger than the Bottle City.

They are smaller than small bugs.

Why can't they be let out to do good deeds? Because the comic book world already has Superman and The Atom. The territory is covered. Then there's the question of just how strong a microscopic Kryptonian can be....

So how many Kandorians can dance on a head of a pin?   ;)

I seem to remember it being referred to as "eight million", which seemed to be the standard size of a big city in 1970s DC comics: Metropolis and Gotham City are also said to have eight million inhabitants.

There's some sort of enlarging gas so the artist doesn't draw them using a tiny dot of ink (that would still be oversized). 

Given the scale of strength demonstrated by Superman, a microscopic Kryptonian would still be hugely formidable...  heck maybe even moreso in some ways since they'd be so hard to detect.  And then there's those brains filled with advanced technology which become super under our yellow sun.  Let them out for a few minutes and their enhanced brain power plows through possible solutions that would take years otherwise.  They could potentially solve their size problem on their own, without Superman having to be their savior.

Of course, it's not as cool as a bottled city... 

Specifically, Lois Lane's hairpin.  I can see the story now -- "The Secret Of Lois Lane's Invisible Friend".  :)

One counter-argument is that even minute portions of Kryptonite might be lethal, because they're not so minute to a Kandorian.  But, then again, they can probably feel the effects of relatively-vast amounts of Kryptonite at a relatively-great distance and avoid it by flying away at super speed. 

In effect, they would be microscopic super-powered nanites that could do pretty much anything.  Take over computers and computer networks and re-program them on the fly; enter human bodies to rebuild and/or heal them (brain surgery, eye surgery, DNA enhancement) or give them super-powers; inhabit automobiles or other machinery in order to create "flying cars," etc.  The man walking down the street would see a building collapse due to some accident - then somehow re-coalesce and "heal" itself, unaware that the Kandorians were fixing the accident as it happened.  There could be an entire super-powered microscopic civilization inhabiting the planet and seemingly performing miracles.

I can't find a reference to population anywhere myself.  I remeber we had a discussion about the population of Krypton as a whole, about which Supermanica says:


Although later sources I'm sure say "billions".

Al Schroeder says:

and dto claims that the population was set at 7 million in 1977:

http://superman.nu/smf/index.php?topic=2452.msg19266#msg19266

I keep thinking of Atom Ant here for whatever reason ("up and at 'em!")...