Which origin do you prefer?

[Captain Kal]

Surely, Kal's advantages would be much watered-down on Mars as opposed to Earth where he'd clearly be superior.

Whoa.  What an interesting idea.  Jor-El deliberately choosing Earth over Mars precisely because he wanted Kal-El to be the physical superior of those around him.

But on Mars, Kal-El would have been more at home, I think.  He would have been raised by people with powers much like his own.  He might have even learned more powers than he could on Earth.

I'm glad you liked that idea, Daybreaker.

One also has to factor in that Earth is a lot more like Krypton's environment than Mars is.  Jor-El was already settling by giving up on a similarly advanced world, so he wasn't going to give in even more on the ecology if he could help it.  His primary consideration was giving Kal-El a home as safe and similar to Krypton's as possible.  Mars is a barren wasteland compared with Earth for ecosystem.

[Captain Kal]

Someone's discovered some scientific problems with the BIRTHRIGHT origin:

http://comicfacts.blogspot.com/2005/03/kryptonian-astrophysics-101.html

I just rechecked that link and found all the comments -- including my own rebuttals of that article -- have been deleted.

It seems the evidence of the Birthright series itself somehow has less priority than the erroneous preconceptions of the article authors.

Delta House quote: Nothing is impossible for the man who won't listen to reason.

[RedSunOfKrypton]

Hey CK, what were your rebuttals to that article?

[Maximara]

I don't recall Waid making that 25 light-year comment anywhere in BR.  Jor-El just said Earth was 'far'.

I recall Luthor being the one who makes the 25 light year comment. I think it's when Luthor reveals to Superman that the planet he's from is Krypton.

Superman #600 showed that Krypton has to be within the 35 year timespan Superman has been on earth because that when radiation (ie light) reached earth.

[NotSuper]

I get the feeling that Morrison's All-Star Superman may become the new standard bearer on Superman origins (even though the origin scene will only last a few panels...).

[Captain Kal]

Hey CK, what were your rebuttals to that article?

They're quoted earlier on this thread.

http://superman.nu/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1157&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=50

Hey, Forgottenhero, the guy who wrote that 'scientific problems' article clearly didn't read Birthright carefully enough.

First, in the opening pages of BR #1, we see clearly in the simulation Kal-El's starcraft trying to evade hostile alien ships. Also, Jor-El mentions Krypton searching for life 'similarly advanced' as Krypton in BR #1. IIRC, in the last issues of BR, Krypton had wars with other systems. Krypton clearly knew about life in other systems.

Second, Krypton's sun was a 'red dwarf' relative to the Kryptonians' POV. Possibly, what's a 'dwarf' to them is a 'giant' to us.

But that business of a virtually unpopulated Kryptonian galaxy simply doesn't wash given what BR clearly shows us about Krypton knowing about other worlds with life. What they were looking for but didn't find were lifeforms as advanced as they were. That implies Krypton was the epitome of advancement in their galaxy and weren't really interested in lesser advanced worlds for whatever reason. And they clearly showed at least two pieces of evidence that some systems they encountered were hostile thus eliminating them from consideration for Kal-El.

At the last moment, Jor decides that instead of a similar world and culture, he'd settle for one that would maximize his son's chances via super-powers which gave him Earth in our galaxy.

(I've had this debate with ManoftheAtom on the DC boards so I have most of this memorized. I'm surprised MOTA didn't write that article himself.)

I should see if I can comment/rebut that article on its own site.


Note the cloaking shield failure in Lara's simulation as Kal-El's ship tries to evade a hostile alien space fleet in Birthright #1, page 2, panel 3.



Note the cloaking shield actually being used on entry into Earth's environment to prevent Kal's ship from being detected by our instruments. (Birthright #1, page 15, panel 1)



http://superman.nu/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1157&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=60

Lex was using a wormhole to view random scenes from Krypton's past. He calculated the actual explosion occurred about 25 years ago in that book. That doesn't mean it took 25 years for that information to reach him given that wormhole tech and the fact he was receiving images from all over Krypton's history.

[RedSunOfKrypton]

Heh heh, that's what I get for being lazy and not reading it from the get go.