SO...what's your opinion I believe Kryptonite is unecessary because superman has other weaknesses like red sun radiation and magic.
Kryptonite was used so extensively over the years that actually the hole Krypton must have been landed on earth.
Character » Superman appears in 18940 issues.
so necessary
Magicians as his main villains would be pretty weak, Fate going trying to kill Superman would be great tho
red sun is just dumb imo why would that effect him?
but yea without kryptonite(which is apparently in the dictionary, no red line under it) he is a god without any boundaries.
@kasino said:
he is a god without any boundaries.
Not really but writers don't want to make too many doomsday/darkseid level people that can kill him roaming loose on the DCU
I know that some people have a hard time with Kryptonite because they think it's silly for the world's most powerful man to be weak to a "glowing rock." I like to think of it as Superman being continually haunted by the death of his native planet. Krypton's destruction is what made him Superman by forcing him to Earth where he gained his miraculous powers. It's also a great tragedy since he'll never get to know his own people and since he will always be a bit of an outsider on Earth. To me, Kryptonite has always been the physical representation of this. The home that had to die so he could be great haunts him and brings him nothing but weakness. Besides, it's a classic piece of his mythology. Can you actually imagine reading Superman comics without any Kryptonite?
@kasino said:
so necessary
Magicians as his main villains would be pretty weak, Fate going trying to kill Superman would be great tho
red sun is just dumb imo why would that effect him?
but yea without kryptonite(which is apparently in the dictionary, no red line under it) he is a god without any boundaries.
He processes white light that manifest into his powers. Red light has the lowest energy frequency compared to all other colors so if I'm right that Red Sun..yenno...produces red light...it makes sense.
The problem I have is that red sunlight not only doesn't give him strength, but takes his power away. That doesn't make sense to me. What about the light drains his energy? I would either like a bulls#!t explanation, or a retconn.He processes white light that manifest into his powers. Red light has the lowest energy frequency compared to all other colors so if I'm right that Red Sun..yenno...produces red light...it makes sense.
@Kal'smahboi said:
@Wboy said:The problem I have is that red sunlight not only doesn't give him strength, but takes his power away. That doesn't make sense to me. What about the light drains his energy? I would either like a bulls#!t explanation, or a retconn.He processes white light that manifest into his powers. Red light has the lowest energy frequency compared to all other colors so if I'm right that Red Sun..yenno...produces red light...it makes sense.
I don't think it drains his energy, it's just not enough to fuel it so he's pretty much human.
Magic is not an actual weakness for Superman he's just equally vulnerable to it as other non magic users, having a villain come up with a way to produce red sun radiation has already got to the point where it ends up just as played out as kryptonite.
No, it drains his energy. When he's under red "solar energy" he doesn't gradually run out of energy, he is immediately weakened.@Kal'smahboi said:
@Wboy said:The problem I have is that red sunlight not only doesn't give him strength, but takes his power away. That doesn't make sense to me. What about the light drains his energy? I would either like a bulls#!t explanation, or a retconn.He processes white light that manifest into his powers. Red light has the lowest energy frequency compared to all other colors so if I'm right that Red Sun..yenno...produces red light...it makes sense.
I don't think it drains his energy, it's just not enough to fuel it so he's pretty much human.
@Kal'smahboi said:
@Wboy said:No, it drains his energy. When he's under red "solar energy" he doesn't gradually run out of energy, he is immediately weakened.@Kal'smahboi said:
@Wboy said:The problem I have is that red sunlight not only doesn't give him strength, but takes his power away. That doesn't make sense to me. What about the light drains his energy? I would either like a bulls#!t explanation, or a retconn.He processes white light that manifest into his powers. Red light has the lowest energy frequency compared to all other colors so if I'm right that Red Sun..yenno...produces red light...it makes sense.
I don't think it drains his energy, it's just not enough to fuel it so he's pretty much human.
Wut e_o yeah guess that parts messed up.
I don't see why people have so much trouble wrapping their heads around the concept that Superman is NOT weak to magic, he's just affected by it. Calling it a weakness is like saying gravity is a weakness to people who can't fly.
indeed. Superman is not weak to magic. He is vulnerable to it.I don't see why people have so much trouble wrapping their heads around the concept that Superman is NOT weak to magic, he's just affected by it. Calling it a weakness is like saying gravity is a weakness to people who can't fly.
@Jekylhyde14 said:
I know that some people have a hard time with Kryptonite because they think it's silly for the world's most powerful man to be weak to a "glowing rock." I like to think of it as Superman being continually haunted by the death of his native planet. Krypton's destruction is what made him Superman by forcing him to Earth where he gained his miraculous powers. It's also a great tragedy since he'll never get to know his own people and since he will always be a bit of an outsider on Earth. To me, Kryptonite has always been the physical representation of this. The home that had to die so he could be great haunts him and brings him nothing but weakness. Besides, it's a classic piece of his mythology. Can you actually imagine reading Superman comics without any Kryptonite?
Basically this.
@kasino said:
@Rumble Man: kinda is without limits if there isn't kryptonite
even Doomsday really couldn't kill him, just put him in something of a coma he wasn't killed at all
But if you put two doomsdays at that time supes will be dead, SPB can kill him if it wasn't earth-2 superman meddling in and recently helspont whooped him
@kasino: Has anybody ever thought of shooting him with a magic bullet? or perhaps one covered in lead shot at a civillian so superman would take the bullet and end up seriously wounded?
there are many ways to kill him, Lex can make red sun dome that covers metropolis if he wants. Speaking of tech there are also heavy hitting robots like amazo and metallo which lex can copy and add to his armor.
I believe that Kryptonite is a necessary weakness. It is not all that abundant on Earth (though writers seem to continually forget this) and it gives the unpowered villains a way to best Superman. It also isn't the rock that is killing him, but the radiation that the rocks are constantly emitting. The link to his homeworld being the thing that kills him is also pretty poetic.
Red Sunlight and magic are not really weaknesses. Superman loses his powers in Red Sunlight because it is the yellow solar energy of Earth that gives him his powers. Red solar energy simply makes him a normal human being, much like blue kryptonite was introduced to do. (The solar light giving powers thing makes absolutely no scientific sense at all as it is just less energetic light, so i suggest just accepting it and moving on) Magic isn't really a weakness to Superman anymore than it is to Batman. Both can be harmed by magic, but neither are more susceptible to its effects.
Aside from the occasional heavy hitters appearing on Earth, Kryptonite is an essential weakness for an otherwise invulnerable powerhouse.
Kryptonite is the ideal weakness for Clark. It's the haunting reminder that he's alone in the universe and the last of his kind. I'm surprised it hasn't been touched upon further in the New 52.
One thing I hope the new 52 does is put a bit more thought into Superman's weaknesses:
Kryptonite: Great tool to use if done properly and not going to the extremes of causing him crippling pain when simply around an ounce of it. Personally I think the best explanation for why Kryptonite affects him so much is by going with John Byrne's idea that Kryptonians had a physical connection to their world (perhaps combining that with the idea that for awhile they were galactic conquerors and as punishment the Guardians changed their physiology so that they couldn't leave Krypton again) and while Jor-El eventually created the serum that allowed Kal-El and Kara to leave Krypton with no ill effect, their is still a lingering connection and as a result being near pieces of their homeworld re-establishes that connection. As those pieces are now radioactive, they cause the harm that is normally associated with kryptonite, like poison. But it shouldn't knock Superman on his ass right from the start. Instead its a gradual effect that slowly diminishes his abilities and causes him pain, but he can still fight through it if needed (modern examples of this way of using it would be when Superman fought a Darkseid mind-controlled Supergirl in the pits of Apokolips while wearing a kryptonite ring.....as Kara was not used to the harmful effects of kryptonite.....or while fighting All-American Boy in Superman/Batman). As for the other colors, the only one that shouldn't exist is gold. Too much of a cope out to simply remove their powers in an instant (even if the modern version only lasted a few minutes). It made sense, somewhat, for the New Krypton stuff but shouldn't be brought back in the new 52.
Once we get that established need to showcase how kryptonite can be used against him outside of as a chunk of rock. For instance, get rid of the idea that punching him with it makes him vulnerable to a normal strike (say, Batman or Lex hitting him with a kryptonite ring on their hand). That just doesn't make any sense. But it would be acceptable that a bullet of kryptonite, with the velocity and force it would be hitting his body coupled with the affects of the radiation, would penetrate his skin. Also, kryptonite-based energy attacks would burn his skin like a radiation burn. That way a villain, like Metallo, can't just be in possession of a chunk of kryptonite and hold it up to him (though in Metallo's case keeping the kryptonite exposed would gradually weaken Supes even as his strong attacks stagger him). They would need to do something extra with it, especially if they only had a small quantity of the stuff.
Red Sunlight: Again, something that has been used correctly at times and then not. The only time I've really thought this concept was used correctly was in the OYL storyline in Supergirl when she and Power Girl were acting as Nightwing and Flamebird in Kandor. In that storyline the two retained their abilities even though Kandor had a red sun because of the solar energy stored in their bodies. However, they couldn't replenish those supplies in a red sun environment. So if they used their abilities too much rather than the mechanical suits they wore (such as when Supergirl used heat vision and Power Girl criticized her about it) they would burn out their stored solar energy. That seems like the best use of this weakness because it fits with the idea of cells storing energy. It wouldn't all be released instantly every second because cells would constantly be getting destroyed and replenished at an alarming rate. Basically Superman would always be fluctuating between normal and super in fractions of a second. That doesn't really work. So keep with the idea that his cells store that energy for awhile and showcase him getting gradually weaker (well, moving towards normal) the longer he's active in a red sun environment. If there long enough his body would naturally run through its stores because energy can't be held indefinitely, just the simple acts of being alive and moving will deplete them, but at least it doesn't instantly make Superman un-super.
Magic: No change to this, think the writers have done it correctly. He's stronger than normal humans when it comes to direct magical attacks (like a bolt of lightning) but has no natural resistances to magical weapons (whether they be held, swords, or natural, claws).
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