Superman Through the Ages! Forum

If the Sun-thrivers story is accurate, they gathered the material to create Krypton from stars throughout the universe.  What if super-matter is scattered in small (almost undetectible) amounts throughout the universe?  Imagine that it is the true source of the different kinds of "solar" energy that affect Kal's powers.  


   If krypton were actually a giant planet somewhere between 5xearth & jupiter,  then the surface area should be super-vast.  When Kal's ancestor sailed to the other side of krypton, the jouney should have taken decades.  Or even over a century or two.  The crews of the ships should have died enroute.  Unless kryptonian seawater is drinkable.  Most maps (from the silver-age) show two continents  each of them on opposite sides of the planet.  With a couple of islands ( Vathlo & Bokos) inbetween.  Different stories & writers gave different ages to kryptonian civilization.  Some depicted it as ongoing for millions of earth years.  Other had it at 10,000 kryptonian years.  If 18 kryptonian years equal 25 earth years, then 10,000 kryptonian years should at most equal 15,000 earth years.  If the kryptonians were descended from space colonists they should have had advanced science & technology (including space travel) throughout their entire history.  Ok lets assume that the "colonists lost their advanced knowledge, & their descendants regained that knowledge over time.  They should have spread out over vaster regions of the planet's suface.  They should have formed many civilizations & cultures.  As well as many religions & mythologies.  If those colonists were humans from an earth-size planet, their colonization of krypton had to be deliberate.  The colonists specially altered/engineered to survive super-gravity.  Otherwise if they simply crash landed on krypton, they would have died very soon.  Unless they had working anti-gravity gear.  They would have died of suffocation.  If they evolved on krypton as an example of parallel/convergant evolution, in the course of their history they should have had hundreds or thousands of civilizations, societies, & cultures.  They shouldn't have been as homogenized as the comics implied.

What about Daxam?

What about the Volkir whose organic wastes allegedly colonized Krypton in DC COMICS PRESENTS #1-2?

According to TOLSH #325, Daxam is the parent world that colonized Krypton.

It is possible according to Stephen H. Dole's "Habitable Planets for Man" to adapt to a gravity 2.5 x your native one.  It would be extremely difficult but it is achievable.  This is based on high-G centrifuge experiments where chickens could survive sustained accelerations of 3 Gs but lost weight over 2.5 Gs.

Given that, I've supposed that Daxam had a high-G but 2.5 x less (or 0.4 of) Krypton's.  Using 100% efficient conversion of food energy, Daxamites would be capable of living on a 14 G world.  That 2.5 x factor kicks Krypton up to 35 Gs which is my longstanding figure and now enshrined in Birthright canon. :D

Re: Volkir organic waste:

Krypton clearly had native life on it before human colonization.  That native life was due to the Volkir organic waste.  Without that, the colonists would have the added task of terraforming Krypton which they clearly didn't have to do.

Again, TOLSH #325 gives Daxam as the parent world of Krypton's humans.

It's also possible that krypton's humanoids evolved on krypton, that they are native to the planet.  And sometimes it was implied that daxam was an ancient colony of krypton.  Imagine an ancient kryptonian space program.  Daxam was either krypton's first colony  or the first contact they made with non-kryptonians.  A group of kryptonian "astronauts" (several families) leave their star system on a colonization mission.  They discover the power they have under a yellow star.  A child playing with his/her telescopic & heat vision powers, unintentionally destroys several inhabitted star systems.  On both krypton & daxam suppress all knowledge of these events & the latent powers they have.  On krypton that knowledge is limitted to the priests of Rao.  Any research that threatens to repeat those events is outlawed.  Technological progress on both planets is covertly slowed down.

Wow!  I have to say, this is the smartest rationalization about why Kryptonians didn't allow space travel that I've ever seen.  They went to another solar system once, and they knew what would happen if they left the red sun.  It would also make Jor-El's sending Kal-El to Earth all the more interesting if he was privy to the secret knowledge and also knew he was creating a super-being in sending his son there.

Which begs the question as to Jor-El's intent:  was he attempting to create a super-being simply to give an infant the best chance of survival?  To create a force for good?  Or perhaps even to create a galactic dictator?

Dakota Smith

Cool ideas, Ilozymandias.

I'd have no objections to that being published.

Pre Crisis canon contradicts that somewhat but we're a few reboots away from that so I guess the way is clear.

The incredible coincidences of lead vulnerability for the Daxamite race living on a world suspiciously lacking in lead who become nigh-omnipotent outside their environmental conditions does suggest strongly someone engineered that race and situation.  To a lesser degree, this applies to Krypton, too.  That green kryptonite vulnerability does look suspiciously like it's related to a certain Green Power our favourite Oans like to play with.  That's why I've suggested in the past that an Oan offshoot had something to do with Daxam and Krypton.  Those coincidences are just a bit much to swallow even in the fictional DCUniverse.

Ilozymandias' explanation, while not in canon, works better, IMHO than the official Pre Crisis one.

A space-being named Zazura had a nasty habit of killing (eating?) the astronauts of the early Kryptonian space program.  Her one weakness was a red crystal which the Kryptonians seeded in their upper atmosphere (hence dyeing the sky red) to keep her from descending to the planet itself and they aborted their space program out of fear of her attacks.

Well, that's DC's official story on this matter.

The Post Crisis explanation involved the Eradicator genetically bonding Kryptonians to the planet so they'd die if they tried to leave it.

BTW, Zazura is a Cary Bates creation.

Reference: DC Comics Presents #82, June 1985.

riddle me this....

How come in the Sliver Age they had so many Human looking aliens and humanoid aliens?

Scientifically speaking, the odds of even humanoid aliens is nearly impossible if not completely impossible.

Was it that they was just coping Star Trek ?

Most 50's sci-fi films had some pretty wacky looking aliens, which ironic enough would be more likely than Star Trek style aliens.

Answer in canon:

5 million years ago: The Great Humanoid Diaspora throughout the Milky Way Galaxy begins.
Green Lantern v.3 #35 (Jan. 1993)
 
In the DCU, most if not all humanoid races throughout the galaxy are due to world seeding dating from this time and event.

Star Trek had their own answer in ST:TNG but it essentially was world seeding by a common humanoid race, too.

Numerous humanoid species throughout a universe might be explained by the concept of parallel or convergent evolution.  In reality we have no idea how common humanoids might or might not be in our universe.  Science has barely begun studying the evolution of life on this earth.  


      In the Star Trek universe there were two reasons for the prescence of so many humans & humanoids.  Several billion years ago an ancient humanoid species explores space finds nothing like themselves.  They seed many planets, with special genetic material designed to develope humanoid species.  How many planets were seeded like that?  It was never established.  Later the preservers (who may be the same species who did the earlier seeding) have spread samples of various earth human tribes/ethnicities/cultures.  If the preservers & the earlier "seeders" are the same species, that means they have monitored earth.  And most likely many other planets.  They are probably also Gary Seven's benefactors/employers.  


       Scientifically speaking when we say something is possible/impossible, we base those assumptions on current knowledge & theory.  Is there intelligent life elsewhere in our universe?  I believe there is, but i don't know.  Half the time i wonder if there is intelligent life on this earth.  If we share this universe with other intelligent life, we will no doubt be surprised by the forms that life take.  Maybe we are the only humanoids, or maybe humanoids are the most common form of intelligent life.  Currently we have no way of knowing.

The fossil record is rife with convergence, parallelisms...but when you look at the anatomy, many structures betray this...icthyosaurs have many features that indicate their reptilian heritage, camels and litopterns many others (litopterns have completely different braincases and the molar teeth are not selenodont like artiodactyls like camels for example)...so, I suppose its not IMPOSSIBLE, but its pretty dang un parsimonious...

Still, I like unlikely things, that's why I liked comics when I was a kid...

But WHY does the flame dragon have an opposable thumb or the thought beast project images from a third party's view?  :D

I don't have an answer to either of these questions, but I do have some questions of my own regarding Thought Beasts:
1) What did Thought Beasts ever think of other than eating someone/something? Obviously, there was a least one other activity they thought about, but thankfully the Comics Code kept that "off stage". But was a Thought Beast ever shown thinking about taking a nap, or rolling in the mud, or trying to steal cable from another Beast?
2) What kind of potential prey hangs around to watch the entire show? Gives new meaning to the term "in-flight movie".
3) Did the Thought Beast "need" for the prey to see its intentions? In other words, would a Thought Beast avoid eating something that didn't or couldn't see it? This would, of course, make a Thought Beast somewhat akin to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Races_from_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Ravenous_Bugblatter_Beast_of_Traal) from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It would have been interesting to see someone avoid being eaten by simply closing his eyes.

So what was everyone's favorite version of Krypton?

1934 Krypton: http://superman.nu/tales2/adventurestrip/
1945 Krypton: http://superman.nu/tales3/birthOfSuperboy/
1949 Krypton: http://superman.nu/tales3/return0/
1960 Krypton: http://superman.nu/returntokrypton/srtk/
1971 Krypton: http://superman.nu/tales2/goldenfolly/
1973 Krypton: http://superman.nu/origin/
1979 Krypton: http://superman.nu/tales2/world/1/
1981 Krypton: http://superman.nu/tales2/chronicles/1/
1986 Krypton Earth-2: http://superman.nu/tales2/e2-origin/

More Krypton fun:

http://superman.nu/tales2/worldofkrypton.php

Because those were the easiest for the artists to draw?

The oldest known humanoids in the DC Multiverse (earth-1 universe at least) are the Guardians/Controllers.  It could be that there is another group that splintered off.  This one before Krona's time.  They decided to travel the universe, seeding other planets with life.  And since they are humanoids, they decide that most of the intelligent species they "create" will be humanoid.


       In Jor-El's time the kryptonians (some of them anyway) did know that they would acquire superpowers under a yellow star.  They probably did not know the full extent of those powers though.  The phantom zone prisoners were (for the most part) Kal's equals in power.  Yet they were never shown using their abilities at "full power".  Maybe Kal's "holding back" is a trait that is now common to all kryptonians.

Re: parallel evolution: Yes, on Earth, in similar circumstances, similar forms have developed to fill the same needs.

We have two problems with that for humanoid aliens in general and Kryptonians and Daxamites in particular.

First, those alien environments tend to be far different than any Terrestrial ones.  Even all other things being the same, that danged high-G would at the very least tend to produce shorter, more heavily-muscled beings instead of the virtually indistinguishable from us humanoids.  They even tend to look more physically imposing than we do instead of being smaller.

Second, they're demonstrably able to interbreed with us in numerous stories from various eras of Superman.  Sharks and dolphins may have developed similar forms due to parallel evolution but they certainly cannot interbreed with each other just the same.

I maintain that this must be evidence of design for the Daxamite/Kryptonian species (or perhaps, subspecies).  That ability to interbreed is evidence that all such humanoids are subspecies of a larger species of humanity, depending on how one defines 'species'.  This is further supported by the strange super-powers they possess outside their native environments which are highly unlikely to evolve for an environment they've never experienced, and the incredible Daxamite coincidence of a lead vulnerability on a virtually lead-free planet.

Flame dragons having opposable thumbs is no more mysterious than raccoons having similar ones on Earth.  Worse comes to worst, we could suggest design here, but those darn 'coons tend to make me dismiss this as not that important.

The mere existence of Thought Beasts, not even mentioning their showing third person POV, is a glaring example of design.  In the fictional DCU, no way could such a bizarre creature naturally evolve since that darn screen seems to be more of a liability than an advantage.  I suppose if the creatures could deceive others with the screen, like Earth life uses mimicry, then it might somehow work.  But it's clear how the things are portrayed that they tend to display exactly what's on their minds.  Perhaps the third person POV is evidence that they might be partly telepathic, linking with others in their presence.  I see the Thought Beast as the DCU equivalent of the Babel Fish: Glaring evidence of someone designing them since they don't have a logical way to have evolved by themselves.

Then there is The planet Zoron.  The homeworld of Hyperman.  Plus how Oceania is too much like earth, for an alien planet in the same universe.  The fact that the different humanoid species of the DC Universe can interbreed.  Maybe they are all just different sub-species of one larger species of humanity, that was scattered a few million years ago.  Problem there is they should not be able to interbreed.  In 3 million or so years of being isolated from each other, those various sub-species should have evolved into separate species.  Also how about the DC humanoids from mars (& other planets smaller than earth) Shouldn't they be taller & thinner than earth humans?  That also points to design.  All those different humanoids could have evolved separately through a kind of artificial convergent evolution.

You have to wonder just how many "intelligent design" advocates there are within the DC Universe.  :)

My thinking on the breeding cosmology here is that:

1) Everyone is powerful somewhere and weak somewhere else.  There's a "sun" somewhere where us Terrans become "super", or some trick that we haven't discovered yet.  Perhaps the meta-gene?
2) Some nigh-powerful super-being (The Source?) sorted out all the humanoid races to where they are at their weakest.  Think of it like Conway's Game Of Life, writ large.
3) The idea is for all the races to overcome their weaknesses, or die trying (Krypton and Valeron exploded for a reason).  As they do so, they become more genetically compatible.  The goal (conceit?) is for everyone to evolve into "perfect" humanoids.  
4) Eventually, everyone interbreeds with everyone else, ultimately creating some sort of successor being, who ties the end to the beginning of time, and forks off another universe or whatever.  Or maybe there is never an end of time, and when Superman or the Flash go from the end of time to the beginning, they're going from one iteration of the universe to another.  No multiverse, but a "constantly" rebooting single universe.

Following these observations, is anyone uncomfortable with "intelligent design" explanations in comics?

I am not comfortable with so called "intelligent design" in any form, LOL.

That said, we are talking comic books here folks, it's pure fantasy, and gods have been shown to exist in the DC universe, at least Greek gods :)

The theory doesn't work.
Earth-1 was shown to have no signs of advance ancient civilizations that could have build such advance space ships to spread their seed, millions of years ago. Remember that humans millions of years ago on Earth were very different than us and not as smart.

Environment seems to rather huge part on how life evolves, please note those tiny humans that we found.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4127713

In the real world "intelligent design" claims that the universe was specifically designed to make it compatible with life.  Looking over this thread again, i noticed Captain Kal's mention of that 1993 GL story.  He mentions that it claims there was a "great humanoid diaspora" 5 million years ago.  Untill i reread that i thought he said it was 3 million years ago.  If all these populations were isolated from each other for 5 million years, by now each one should be its own separate species.  Or on some planets two or more separate species.  In my scenario a group of OAns/Maltusians (they go off on their own before Krona's time) they explore the universe, they seed countless planets with life.  One of their goals is the creation of intelligent life.  Since they are humanoids they decide to "create" intelligent humanoids.  At each planet they seed, they leave an ai (artificial intelligence) to monitor the developement of life on the planet.  The ai decides which species to help evolve into an intelligent humanoid.  Over time it subtly controls that evolution, in order to enable "its" humanoid to interbreed with the humanoids on other planets.  Also it helps "guide" its humanoid on the path toward a technological society & civilization.


      Kryptonite (& its "isotopes", which i believe include zoronite) is a form of super-matter that doesn't become indestructible under a yellow star.  Super-matter turns into kryptonite under certain conditions.  One of those conditions is the heat & pressure at the core of a planet like krypton.  This is a slow process that takes billions of years to impact the planet.  However once enough of the core turns into kryptonite, it becomes unstable.  Which would explain why planets like krypton tend to explode.

I guess my own preferences run toward the idea that all this intelligent design and early supreme beings is not scientific, so I don't need detailed science on the physics of this kind of universe...it can run at cross purposes to my mind...I still like some science fiction running through my stories, but the fantasy and good stories are more important...

Did dogs come to Krypton as well?

and monkeys and apes... yeah I would like to hear someone explain them! LOL!

And whales too.  Don't forget krypton also had whales.   Remember Eterno?  His creators the Xan were earth humanoids who lived circa 1 billion years ago.  They died when some kind of cosmic cloud (or whatever) destroyed almost all life on earth.  Life in the seas/oceans was all that survived.  Funny they had science & technology far advanced over ours, but they couldn't think of two obvious ways to save themselves.  They could have moved into the ocean untill the "cloud" passed.  They had the technology to do it.  Or they could have simply left the planet.

L. Sprague de Camp once said it was easier to breed with a geranium than it is with an E.T.

Here's one possibility related to future stories involving "Imaginary Story" future children and descendants of Superman: is it entirely possible that said life forms were created artificially, under laboratory conditions and then nursed in the womb?

This does not mean that Superman and his female girlfriends would not have real passion or physical intimacy; it means that intimacy will not result in a viable pregnancy. Perhaps what took place is Superman and Lori Lemaris or Lois Lane or Lana or who have you, married, made a decision to have children, and so through genetic tampering their DNA was combined, and after a surgery, was placed in the womb of the female to grow and gestate.

The technology for this is not entirely farfetched even TODAY; there was a recent article where scientists said they may be able to create babies for same-sex couples that are genetically related to both of them.

But those people are the same species, same number of chromosomes, part of the same gene pool...

You mean Kon-El Superboy, right, son of Superman and Lex?  :)  I also liked the Byrne "real science" idea that even if different races could mate, the result might turn out to be a sterile hybrid mule sort.  Do I think it works for our superheroes to be various flavors of impotent, though?  Probably not.

According to Current thought on human/primate evolution, humans & chimpanzees evolved from a common ancestor circa 5-8 million years ago.  If the were a "human" species 5 million years ago that was scattered throughout the universe.  And these different samples of "humanity" were on separate planets, isolating them from each other.  By now each of those samples should be its own separate species.  For them to still be similar enough to interbreed there needs to be some kind of ongoing manipulation of humanoid evolution on all planets involved.  Or those humanoids could have evolved separately on all those planets, with subtle manipulation to make almost identical over time.  Or what happened could be a combination of the two main possiblities mentioned here.

Excellent analysis, Ilozymandias.

Let me add that another possibility that might have worked in concert with what we've discussed so far are morphogenetic fields.  While these are not as accepted by mainstream science, it does have some anecdotal support.  In the DCU, specifically relating to Animal Man and JLA:WW3, morphogenetic fields are real.  Given that, once a humanoid race of sufficient influence existed anywhere, their template would influence the development of other humanoids elsewhere in the universe.  While active intervention by other races might be a factor, the morphogenetic influence certainly had an effect too towards having a common humanoid form and even genetic code throughout the universe.

Nice thoughts on kryptonite and super-matter.  OTOH, kryptonite can be created from our normal matter so it doesn't seem that extricably tied to super-matter.  The transmutation of Krypton to pure kryptonite is generally accepted (and I prefer this), though rare stories suggest a more logical POV that kryptonite was created in a mixture of radioactives from the explosion.  Also, Superboy has similarly used his super-voice to transmute a planet that was previously transmuted to Sigellian to a harmless element (thus involving two planetwide transmutations to a common element).  While such transmutations would involve nuclear processes unknown to us, they don't seem tied specifically to super-matter.

Well the Maltusians(OAns) certainly fit that bill.  Morphogenetic fields were something i didn't even think about.  Interesting idea.  In the DCU anyway those fields can be manipulated by magic & technology.  Of course those fields could always turn out to be artificially created by whoever seeded the DCU.  However they come to exist, they would be a great way to "guide" evolution.


       I'm aware of kryptonite being created from "normal" matter. :wink:   Synthetic kryptonite seems to have a few shortcomings.  It's super-difficult & expensive to create.  It always seemed to be somewhat less "potent" than real kryptonite.  And probably has a far shorter half-life than the real thing.  It always seemed like making synthetic kryptonite was something you did as a last resort.  Only if you couldn't find any real kryptonite.

Yeah, you're right re: real vs synthetic K.  The real stuff tended to be more effective though only once that I'm aware of, Metallo had synthetic K that had more effective properties like being able to fire laser-like K-beams with it.  That was later retconned into real K being Metallo's preferred power source.

Our matter and super-matter have been implied to be capable of being converted into each other, at least when living super-beings are involved.  Surely the adult Superman is made of super-matter yet he didn't come to Earth with 225 lbs of the stuff.  Baby Kal-El may have weighed around 40 lbs when he arrived.  That means all that other super-mass must have been produced in our environment processed in his super-body.  The same goes for waste passed out of Kal.  It must somehow be rendered back to normal stuff or we have a growing mass of super-matter gradually taking over the biosphere.

Gold K seems capable of accelerating this super-matter to normal matter conversion in Kryptonians so that not only waste is converted but their entire bodies.

I could go on but you get the idea.

The odd thing is, Kryptonians aren't the only ones to have dogs, etc. on their world.  For instance, on Apokolips, giant dogs are bred into a "dog cavalry".  There were horses there, at least on the world that  split into New Genesis and Apokolips.

    I've got my own explanation, that an alien race took some humans during the Stone Age and genetically altered them for various reasons. It would make sense that they would also take close relatives to humans (chimps, monkeys) and animals that were beginning to become man's allies (wolf/dogs, wild horses that are occasionally tamed). That there was a revolution later, and each of the human-occupied worlds drove the aliens out, and each world developed in its own way, yet still could crossbreed with the others....

    Other examples are Barsoom, where John Carter could crossbreed with Dejah Thoris....
   
     Zenna Henderson's The People, psionic aliens who looked like us and could crossbreed with us, yet survivors of a dead world around a red sun...

    In comics, we can think of Guy Gardner's Vuldarian heritage....

     And of course, there's Sarak and Amanda Grayson in the future....

     According to one movie about the Doctor, even Gallifreyians could breed with humans, despite their two hearts and odd blood pressure.  If they can crossbreed, they're all the same species, and MUST have the same origin.

       And if the time-travelling Gallifreyians were among those who revolted against the original aliens, they could have spread humanity across time AND space, so ....many worlds could be "Settled" by humanity-derived gene-altered people even before humanity developed.

     Don't believe me?

     A long time, in a galaxy far, far away....

---Al

I like your idea of invoking time travel to help explain the spread of humans throughout the universe so that they probably all have the same ancestor species.

My only modification to that would be that we confine it to the mainstream DCU.  That means Gallifreyans, Marvel characters, other fictional universes, etc. are disqualified.  While it might be a fun exercise to posit all kinds of neat connections between these different characters and races, the actual published canon would take precedent, not to mention legal licensing issues that DC doesn't own any of these others.  Krypton and Daxam certainly could have been colonized by beings from the future.

We have enough time travellers and time travel capable races in the DCU without having to invoke outside ones.  In that vein, it was suggested in the Elseworlds Superman: Red Son that his version of 'Krypton' was actually Earth millions of years in the future (a tip of the hat to Siegel's original 'millions of years' advanced of us concept from AC #1).  It would be interesting if Earth truly is the root world of humanity and it was time and space travel that seeded the human worlds that seemed to predate ours.

But I do love Doctor Who, myself, and am delighted that the good Doctor's ninth incarnation had such a positive showing.

You guys read this tale before right?

http://superman.nu/tales2/born/


When it comes to stuff like this I rather just go with Cannon rather than just wild theories involving ewoks and the Green Lantern Corps ;)

Those are fun to read and speculate about for sure, but it just confuses the matter.

Unlike the real world, I treat comics like myths, fun and having some internal consistency and resemblances to the real world...so maybe I'm between every one else -- the Krypt and Tonn story I treated as a tale told as an origin myth, but I really could have cared less for a detailed "factual treatise" either...after all, we are just beginning to understand and hypothesize about origins of the real universe, and our own "real world" history is very subjective in its own right...

Yep, I know about and have referenced that story before in my own speculations esp. combining it with LSOK and TOLSH #325 re: Daxam being the parent world of Krypton.

I should have stated in my last post that I can see time travel being involved in the ancestry of Daxam since it's pretty well-documented that Krypton was colonized from there.

Seeing as Maggin himself wrote the Guardians and GLC into the supermythos with "The Greatest Green Lantern of All!" Fabulous World of Krypton story, they're not off-limits.  But, yes, canon always takes precedence over fan speculations.

Since canon cannot violate copyright laws, that's another reason I reject any attempts to link let's say Steve Rogers of the MU with Kal-El of the DCU, or the Marvel Kree with the DC Kryptonians.  Gar Logan of the Teen Titans cannot be related to Logan of the X-Men no matter how fanwankishly neat that might be.

Thanks for the link.  First time i have read that story.  My take is that krypton (like earth) had many creation myths.  That story being one of them.  As for the legion stories claiming that krypton was colonized by daxam.  How was that claim presented in the stories?  Was that shown to be a fact?  Or did Lar-Gand/Mon-El mention that as something he believed?  Also how do you account for the planet Zoron?  Hyperman's home planet.


       I also wondered about matter to super-matter conversion.  As you mention the extra body mass Kal gained as he grew up had to come from somewhere.  However i'm not concerned his waste for two reasons.  One when his powers are active; he does not sweat, his hair & nails don't grow, & he didn't get tired.  I tend to think that when he did eat, his body converted his food (whatever it was) into energy.  Thus no waste.  What about when his powers are deactivated you ask?  If he is on earth,  he is eating Matter.  Since most of the waste comes from the food you eat,  no super-matter to matter conversion would be needed.  Gold-K seemed (to me anyway) to nothing more than permanently eliminate a kryptonian's access to his/her powers.


      Al if all humanoids are part of one species what about the Guardians/Controllers/Zamorans?  Even if they are why would they automatically have to all be descended from earth humans?

This is the spirit of the Silver Age to me (from another thread)...

It was fun to see Mon-el and think about another race of super beings, it was fun to track Mon-el through the Phantom Zone and his Legion stint, tying all these worlds together may make the fun mysteries a little too serious...

Its almost like looking for a "canon" that explains the fall of the Ming dynasty to the Manchus etc...its very subjective, and that really happened...

Mon-El: "I'll let you in on one of the galaxy's hidden secrets, Jo.  Kryptonians and Daxamites share the same genetic heritage."
Gigi Cusmano: "You and him [Dev-Em] related?
White Witch: "We are all products of planetary seeding, officer.  Naltorians can trace their line back ... to the Sorceror's World, and even to Earth!"
Ultra Boy: "Wow!  So, which one was the colony planet, Mon-El?  Krypton or Daxam?"
Mon-El: "Well, I suppose we could be accused of chauvinism, but I was taught in school that Daxam is the parent world."
Dev-Em (awakening, recovering from green K-poisoning): "Uhhhh ... No way, Mon-El.  I'm not claiming you as my long-lost daddy."
-- Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes #325, July 1985, page 6, panels 2 - 6

It must be noted that Lar's med-settings were what helped restore a nearly-dead Dev-Em. Said settings made Jo think Mon had been studying Kryptonian physiology when Mon's explanation was he used settings appropriate for their shared heritage (see quote above).  The fact that Mon's settings saved Dev's life is pretty safe evidence they are indeed related and of the same species, regardless of Dev's woozy protestations.

Also, Lar was both an astronaut and a Daxamite scientist while Dev was a juvenile delinquent on their respective worlds.  I'd be inclined to think Mon had a better education and better credibility on this than Dev.

Zoron was either retconned out of existence by its lack of being mentioned ever again in the stories.  Or if it did still exist in continuity, then Zoron might have been colonized by Daxam too.  We colonize our entire solar system and many other ones in many future histories, so it's not a stretch at all that if Daxam colonized Krypton that they also would do so to any another habitable world in the same solar system.

Krypton could still be the parent world.  It could turn out that the daxamites chose to believe that daxam was the parent world.  While who really colonized who, could be something that was "lost to history".  Or deliberately suppressed.  For all we know Lexor could be the true parent world to both the kryptonians & daxamites. :twisted:   Believing something & knowing it are often two entirely different things.  Also in the real world as we learn more, many of the things we "have always known to be true", turn out to have no real basis in reality.  Here is a funny thought.  What if planets like: daxam; lexor; & zoron really are alternate-kryptons?  By that i mean counterparts of krypton from parallel universes, that were somehow moved from their original universes into the Earth-1 universe.  maybe that is why the universes of Earths X, S, & 4 (among others) didn't seem to have their own kryptons.  Just a thought i have had over the years.

Krypton being colonized from outside is a pretty strongly documented fact, such as it is.

Now, Daxam and Krypton may have come from a common root world themselves, though that opens another can of worms.

The fact that the original colonists struggled for early generations with the higher gravity, felt more comfortable crawling than walking, and the infant mortality rate was frightfully high for many generations can't be discounted.  Consider the strong evidence that the 163 lb Superboy was stronger than the 200 lb Mon-El or the 190 lb Ultra Boy (see LSH thread on that board).  A difference of over 10 lbs is a significant weight advantage in the real world.  To be outweighed by 37 lbs and still be physically superior or even considered an equal is glaring evidence that Daxamite physical development is lesser than Kryptonian development.  Supergirl at 123 lbs is considered at least Mon's equal and certainly superior to Ultra Boy.

I suggest the Kryptonian physical superiority is evidence that Daxam was the colonizing world since they didn't have that adaptation to the relatively higher G yet.  It would be a bit of a coincidence to have that evidence of physical superiority, those references to outside Kryptonian colonization, and the claim Daxam is that parent world.  Once is an accident.  Twice is a coincidence.  Thrice is a conspiracy.

Nice thought on the alternate Kryptons and we just might see that in the books one day.  The creators are known to mine the internet forums for good ideas which is why some of our stuff sometimes is in the books.  I can point to some of my own ideas that 'coincidentally' translated into elements in stories after I posted them.

None of the other kryptonians were shown doing any of Kal's high-end feats.  What if all kryptonians & daxamites have a "holding back" reflex (for want of a better name)?


      I tend to discount the bronze-age claims that kryptonians are not native to krypton, but are descendants of colonists.  When i think of zoron, daxam, & lexor as alternate kryptons; i mean it in the sense that the kryptons in the universes of Earths 1, 2, & 3 are alternate kryptons.  Kryptonians & daxamites are the same species in the sense that humans from Earth-1 are the same species as humans from Earth-2.  Untill relatively recent times daxam (for example) was still in its original universe.  They even started exploring that universe.  Maybe they had colonies that are still in that universe.  Someone/thing as yet unknown, for reasons as yet unknown decided to move several alternate-kryptons into the Earth-1 universe.  Of course they are in separate red star systems.  Some even in other galaxies.  The inhabitants of the dimensionally relocated krypton counterparts are unaware they are no longer in their original universes.  At most they believe they were moved to a different part of their original universe.

Yes, you are truly a citizen of the omniverse... :lol:  I can dig that...

I discount the Bronze Age as well, but for different reasons, I liked the Green Lanterns, Oans, etc, Kryptonians, Daxamites (yeah bring on the manhunters and all the other gobbledy gok) and all as separate beings, interacting to be sure, like many nations interact as they discover and learn from each other through history, but not tied together under some universal "truth"...its not canon to me if I don't think it works...might as well be religion or something (from which the term originated). 8)

Another thing from the bronze-age i discount the idea that except for two alien planets (Vartox's home planet Valeron, & Karb-Brak's unnamed home world) just about everything was depicted as being in the Milky Way galaxy.  Too much like Star Trek.  At least with Marvel we saw nice cool things like galactic empires.  Plus if the Guardians (& the GLC) are only concerned with one galaxy as opposed to their entire universe, shouldn't they be called the Guardians of the galaxy instead of the Guardians of the universe?

Yep...before the Bronze Age decided to wrap it up in a neat "answer" package, think of the possibilities that could have unfolded over the years in space, time, and quantum realities...

In the Golden Age, we had heroes who came from other planets, self trained avengers, people who derived magic from "God", people who derived powers from ancient Egyptian wings and elements, people with personal "genies", people with lantern powers and talking cars, and out and out magicians...that tapestry is far richer than the Oans, Daxamites and a neat continuity...and here the Golden Age is not even "real" because some writer decided to give Lex Luthor red hair longer than Siegal and Schuster...

A gruff and good natured, bah! :lol:

In the bronze-age DC tended think that Comics readers couldn't handle temporary confusion.  Thus they assumed they needed to make the Superman of Earth-2 as different from his Earth-1 counterpart as possible.  This helps explain certain departures from the real golden-age.  Kal-L as Superman's real name, even though he was Kal-El since 1942.  Clark still working at the Daily Star, even though most of his career was at the Daily Planet.  In the real golden-age Clark & Lois probably left the Daily Star & went to work for the Daily Planet.  Reporters in the real world change employers all the time.  Luthor as the red haired Alexie Luthor, since 1941 Luthor was bald & prior to 1960 there was no mention of Luthor even having a first name.  DC could have said that in those first several appearances Luthor was wearing some kind of toupee or hairpiece.  Being a super-genius he could make a super-convincing one.  Why would he stop wearing it?  First time he was put in jail/prison that toupee/hairpiece was confiscated.  Luthor sees no point in wearing that thing once the world knows he is bald.  Maybe it gets pointed out to him, that he looks better bald.

All those things could have been true...what story telling reason justified the small differences introduced in the 40s being so major for distinguishing the Golden Age and Earth 2 Superman?

Was the Golden Age Earth destroyed in the Crisis?

Look I want head ache bands and red suns on my chest - thats all

While fans are free to accept or reject stories and ideas in the books, they don't have the right to make up whole new aspects not reflected at all in the books.

So, sure, go ahead and reject any Bronze Age references to Rao actually being the name of Krypton's sun or the Guardians being involved in Krypton or Daxam being the parent world of Krypton.  But don't think making your own stuff up has greater weight than that rejected canon.  In a very real sense, that kind of rejecting of canon is selective referencing.

As per my discussion with Kurt Busiek on this, fans don't really have input into the creative process except as a marketing feedback mechanism on whether something is accepted or not.  We don't 'inject' ideas but we can accept or reject what is published.  And fan reaction was more along the lines of "D'Oh!  Of course Daxamites and Kryptonians are related, in hindsight!" rather than the vehement rejection acccompanying such works as MOS, Crisis, and OWAW.

Moreover, the neat coincidences of kryptonite being the antidote to Daxamite lead vulnerability and their shared inability to X-ray view through lead (suspiciously the same element that Daxamites are vulnerable to overall) while all other X-ray vision capable races and beings aren't limited by lead (though comet-powered Star Boy had the substitute limitation of copper instead) add more fuel to the fire that Daxam and Krypton are related.  In the Post Crisis DCU, both Krypton and Daxam use birthing pods (ref: MOS miniseries and Invasion!).  Nevermind that their powers are virtually identical to begin with (Daxamites seeming to be more vulnerable mentally and lead having a permanent instead of a temporary poisoning effect like kryptonite has on Kryptonians).

Also, other posters have made much of Krypton being so advanced yet being too stupid to decide to leave the planet or otherwise halt the explosion.  Hmmm, millions of people overeat to get diabetes, coronary artery disease and other obesity related diseases and they still do so.  Millions of people still smoke and get cancer, emphysema and the other tobacco related diseases and they do so in flagrant defiance of the overwhelming evidence that cigarettes are bad for them.  We freely allow the rain forests to be destroyed and the very ecology we depend on to be despoiled for mere short-term gain.  I see no reason why the Kryptonians should be faulted for disbelieving an unpopular doomsday forecast when our own world has so many stupid acts to compare it with.

What most fans misunderstand is all the previous DC Earths/universe were destroyed and a new amalgamated DC Earth/universe resulted from the Crisis.  Earth-1 wasn't the new Earth as it was gone too.  The DCU was rebooted from the Big Bang so the other Earths never existed in the revised timeline, only the one Earth.

The GA Earth may be considered surviving in the same sense as E-1 surviving as part of that composite timeline.  Certainly, key elements of it survived like the JSA/All-Star Squadron and their involvement in WW2.

I've never seen Golden Age Universe listed in any of the indexes of the Universes resources, but I could be wrong...

To be honest, ditto for me.

I think it's assumed that (a) E-2 in the past is the Golden Age Earth, and (b) even if it's not the same Earth then it's firmly established in the Crisis that all the previous multiverse of Earths were erased one way or another and rebooted as a single Earth at the Dawn of Time.  We never saw all the other 'infinite Earths' but it was implied that they were all part of the reboot.  It seems only the five Earths that survived the Anti-Monitors attacks went into the combined final Earth.  The others were completely wiped out forevermore by the antimatter waves.

IMHO ;)

The previous mulitverse was wiped away, but not the current one.   The one described in Justice League: The Nail II

With Infinite Crisis being hyped as to taking place on the worlds of The Kingdom and The Nail, we have a new multiverse

In the early-mid 80s, the writers & editors knew that the Crisis (& the post-crisis reboots) was coming.  A lot of the storylines & revelations in the 80s reflect that.  I imagine there being several DC Multiverses.  They include: The (Pre-Crisis) Crossover Multiverse; the pre-crisis DC/Marvel crossovers take place here.  In this multiverse, DC's Earth-1 & Marvel's Marvel-Earth are the same earth.  The Pre-Crisis DC Multiverse; Crisis never happened here.  The Freedom Fighters are native to Earth-X, the Quality characters used in All-Star Squadron are their Earth-2 counterparts.  This Multiverse was last seen (in our DC Comics titles) in the late 70s-early 80s.  The Crisis Multiverse; Crisis started here.  The Freedom Fighters are natives of Earth-2, who migrated to Earth-X.  When the Crisis "ended" this multiverse was still largely intact.  Minus the 1,000-3,000 universes destroyed by the Anti-Monitor.  This multiverse was last seen (in our DC titles) circa Crisis #10.  The Post-Crisis DC Multiverse; first seen in Crisis #11.  Last seen (in our DC titles) just before the byrne/wolfman Superman reboot.  The Reboot Multiverse (for want of a better name); first seen in the "Manof steel" mini-series.  And i don't doubt that there are many many other DC Multiverses coexisting in the Omniverse.  Sure this is fan speculation on my part.  But it's fun, which is why i do it.

That's where I get "frustrated"...so many people point out the Earth 2 Superman is NOT the Golden Age Superman...I simply forgive some continuity errors, because I can't see the "universal" differences adding up to much...or, I admit, I don't want to see it, because the original introduction of Earth 2 seemed to be in the spirit of reviving the Golden Age heroes, which I love...