Kandor - the Bottled City

[Captain Kal]

As far as light goes, didn't red sun energy always seem to take precedence over yellow sun energy?  If Superman were out in the sun on Earth but someone pointed a red sun ray at him, he lost his powers despite the ongoing presence of yellow sun energy.

No.  The red sun projectors evidently overwhelmed the amount of ambient yellow stuff in much the same way you can put a bright spotlight on an object in the daytime and still see it.

DC has actually stated in a lettercol that the predominance of the nearer yellow sun takes precedence over the miniscule red starlight bathing the Earth, else Kal would be unpowered even on Earth esp. at night which clearly wasn't the case.  This is not a fan speculation but backed by DC's actual statements on this matter.

[Captain Kal]

the "portion" of krypton that kandor was "on" was pretty big.  krypton's size was somewhere between 5xearth & jupiter.  that chunk of krypton went from the planet's surface to a portion of its core.  the "surface" area included more than just kandor.  it also included part of the scarlet jungle, among other things.   also kandor was the capital of a society thousands of years more advanced than 20th-21st century earth.  kandor as a city probably covered hundreds or thousands of square miles.

In actual stories, Kandor has been likened to having a population matching NYC's which has grown and changed over the years.  The last stated population for Kandor was 7 million on the cover of the first issue of the Krypton No More storyarc in Superman.  A Nightwing & Flamebird story claims Kandor is about the size of Manhatten.

That having been said, I agree more with Ilozymandias that Kandor must have been much larger and more populous with a population probably in the hundreds of millions in the same way that our current mega cities have millions compared with the thousands of ancient times (ancient Troy was only a few square miles compared with NYC's 301 square miles).

Krypton dwarfed Jupiter in some accounts.  My real world calculations suggest it was this side of a brown dwarf star and is about 1/4 the diameter of our own sun.  It's not possible to make a 33 - 35 G planet (as evidenced in BR #1) with anything less than that, IMHO.

[llozymandias]

kryptonians (& daxamites) seem to adapt to any "gravity" when under a red sun.  

   
    i also read those stories that tried tried to show kandor as having the size & population of a modern american city.  possible failure of imagination on the part of the writers.  if krypton's diameter was 1/4 that of our sun,  imagine the surface area.  their total population was probably in the hundreds of billions, at the very least.  no wonder that they waited so long to start exploring space.  they had plenty to do exploring their own planet.  compared to a planet that size, earth would be a small moon.


    why would most kryptonians (& daxamites) avoid god-like power by choosing to live under a red sun?  superman's full power was never shown, but he was able to move, reignite, destroy, or create stars.  one rash act could kill billions of beings.  how many of us would want the responsiblilty of controlling that kind of power?

[dto]

   why would most kryptonians (& daxamites) avoid god-like power by choosing to live under a red sun?  superman's full power was never shown, but he was able to move, reignite, destroy, or create stars.  one rash act could kill billions of beings.  how many of us would want the responsiblilty of controlling that kind of power?

Perhaps that Argo City religious fanatic Jer-Em wasn't so out of the mainstream after all.  Kryptonians who once transformed their hostile planet to a virtual utopia through sheer hard work might be skeptical of superpowers.  After all, if their sun is named Rao, that means Kryptonians who turn away from their God were then rewarded for abandoning their Deity.  So obviously superpowers were the work of the Kryptonian "Devil"!

Obviously Kandorians considered the special circumstances of Superman gaining his abilities, and perhaps his evident goodness in spite of such "evil" powers provoked even greater admiration.  But for the average Kandorian, unless superpowers were used for specific purposes (such as the Superman Emergency Squad), these were seen as merely another temptation from the Outside World that all devout Kryptonians should disavow, somewhat like how the Amish view high technology.

[Beyonder]

Interesting take. It could also explain why Kal-El allways seemed most comfortable when he didn't have to use his powers. (Except when villains stripped him from it during a story, of course.)

[Captain Kal]

I just a thought triggered by that 'Earth would be a moon compared with Krypton' remark.

In Jor-El's Golden Folly, Jor and Lara voyage to one of Krypton's moons, Wegthor, which has sufficient gravitation to have a breathable atmosphere.  That reference would support the idea that Earth would be moon-sized relative to Krypton as moon-sized in our reference frame couldn't possibly hold a breathable atmosphere.

http://superman.nu/tales2/goldenfolly/?page=5

[ProfPotter]

In Kandor's first appearance (Action 241), it was shown having its own sun, originally running on tracks over the city (see this page).

That picture also gives you a sense of scale of the land in the bottle, as the city skyline is way in the distance.

[Captain Kal]

Good post, ProfPotter.  Until you pointed it out, I didn't notice how the landscape surrounding Kandor was so vast.  I also forgot that the first Kandor story had them create their own sun.  That would jibe with my speculation earlier on this thread that they would create an artificial sun like their real one, Rao. (BTW, the definition of a city is a large community that doesn't produce most of its own food.  We know Kandor seemed to need outside air supplied.  It wouldn't be technically a city if they produced their own food, so Kandor must have involved not only the city proper but a fair-sized chunk of surrounding area -- which is exactly what your link shows us.)

An interesting aspect that Byrne got right was his ancient Kandor had a population of 40 million when it was destroyed 100,000 years ago.  Even ancient Kandor was larger than our modern NYC (pop.: 8 million).  That would suggest that a modern Kandor might have a population at least in the hundreds of millions in much the same way as 31st century Metropolis spans the entire Eastern seaboard.  IMHO, one reason Superboy enjoyed visiting the Legion so much was visiting that era was an ersatz way of being on Krypton again as Metropolis and the tech approximated a Kryptonian city.

kryptonians (& daxamites) seem to adapt to any "gravity" when under a red sun.  

That was made-up by the authors of the DC Who's Who and isn't really canon material.

Action Comics #500 had Luthor weaken Superman with an artificial red sun projector so he still had his gravity-based powers instead of becoming instantly a normal man.  It wasn't until Luthor trapped Superman in a cell that duplicated Krypton's high-G that Superman's powers were fully nullified.

The actual books always outweigh the so-called 'official' DC Who's Who.