Everyone knows how Superman's powers work: He takes in yellow sunlight and he gets superhuman strength, speed, flight, etc. This works by him absorbing solar radiation and processing it into energy, which he can do thanks to his kryptonian genetics. The weaknesses of this are red sunlight and kryptonite: Red solar radiation effectively cancels his yellow energy, dropping his tanks down to empty and rendering him powerless. Usually, due to his natural state of being so strong, this give it the appearance of causing him pain, when in actuality, all it does is remove his powers. Kryptonite, specifically green kryptonite, causes crippling illness for the duration of it's exposure to him. The amount required to cause this fluctuates due to writers, but the end result is that green kryptonite radiation causes extensive crippling pain. Various other kryptonite types have various effects.

But you know this. So you're wondering why I went to the trouble to explain all that, and what it has to do with Gamma Rays. Please allow me a bit further elaboration: The reason kryptonite works on Superman is because kryptonians, unlike humans, have the ability to absorb and process radiation into energy, much like you and I do food. Kryptonite causes various effects much like food poisoning would effect you or I. But it's just a rock. So why? Because of the radiation it emits, which Superman processes exactly like yellow solar radiation, merely causing different effects. So now onto the question: If Superman gets these abilities due to various forms of radiation, what would happen if he were to process gamma radiation? Would he Hulk out? If so, what would the physical and psychological effects be, since each gamma victim changes according to their subconcious desires? Are there any other types of radiation in the Marvel U that may cause interesting effects on Superman, such as cosmic radiation? If so, what might they do to him?

Speculate. Elaborate. Sorry for the wall of text.

tl;dr: Superman absorbs radiation. What would gamma radiation do to him?

And... bump?

@JonSmith: i cant really see anything happening to him due to gama radiation cause does te hulk not emit it? i could be wrong as for cosmic in a special cross over with the FF galactus gave superman the power cosmic and basicaly made a dude with the powers of both supes and the silver surfer.

@Z3RO180: As I explained, Superman takes in radiation and processes it in ways that humans can't, so in theory, even radiation that wouldn't effect most humans in detrimental ways would effect him in a much greater capacity. Since gamma rays are already known as having wide ranging effects, it would stand to reason that it would effect Supes in a very interesting way. But I'm not certain what that might be.

@JonSmith: he fought hulk in Marvel vs DC whitch i have not read but to the best of my knollege nouthing happend to him in tearms of gamma radiation

The gamma radiation would not affect Superman. All stars produce radiation at different levels, even our sun emits some gamma rays. Superman's biology would not be adversely affected by this radiation. If he was exposed to gamma rays and red sunlight at the same time then he would most definitely develop cancer. His rapid healing and dense muscle and tissues, however, would protect him from this while in yellow solar energy

I'm not a physicist (biology ftw!), but gamma rays are just really high energy light (the high energy is what causes all the adverse health problems, its not that they are toxic on their own per se). Same scale as radio waves, x-rays, visible rays and UV rays, none of which I think have ever bothered Supes. The closest to gamma is actually X, if i remember, and he obviously has not had problems with that. :)

They occur during radioactive decay and in some space events. We've see Superman handle nuclear weapons like it was nothing, and he's been to space a million times (he wears the space suit for oxygen, I think?). He'd be fine (as long as his powers were running).

@jonsmith: Well actually Kryptonite technically emits Gamma Rays, Which cause Superman to become weakened or hurt. Gamma rays can be shielded by lead boxes and lead armor, which superman uses on many occasions. In a sense gamma radiation is what cause Superman to become weak. If Superman and the hulk would ever get into a fight the hulk would most likely win because he also emits Gamma rays. Superman wouldn't have adverse changes on a molecular level because his body is already breaking down the gamma radiation to begin with.

Lol. Don't try to apply real world science to comics. Superman even emmits Gamma rays from his eyes (Unchained #1)
And lead is a material that shields not only Gamma rays but X-rays too. Which is another kind of radiation Superman can emmit from his eyes. Superman has the ability to emmit every kind of radiation in the electromagnetic spectrum (Action Comics #2).
Kryptonite has nothing to do with the electromagnetic spectrum as we know it, simply because it is fictional.

Gamma rays empowering people is only a thing in the marvel universe to allow people like the hulk to exist, Stan lee probably thought it sounded smart and sciency at the time of creation, a real gamma blast would effectively incinerate you.......Stupid reality aside, DC physics is different from Marvel physics so doubtful that it would have any effect. Plus Superman is immune to all types of radiation except for Kryptonite.

Short answer – I don’t think that anything unexpected will happen at all.

Long answer – first thing, when exactly was stated that kryptonite emits gamma-radiation?.. Moving on, I’m not that strong in physics, but doesn’t out sun emits pretty much the entire spectrum of various radiation types… We don’t know which part of this array Kryptonian’s bodies absorb to fuel their abilities. Superman could be very well absorbing gamma radiation as well. Even if he isn’t, his invulnerability protects him against harmful effects; so again, I don’t think that gamma radiation will do anything to him. If we’re talking about not-powered Superman, then idk. In Pre-New-52 – I would have said that this would be harmful to him in the long run (depending on radiation intensity – maybe in short run); in New-52 I can’t really tell. Kryptonians portrayed as living sponges for many types of radiation; we didn’t get to see how they react to gamma rays. With equal probability it could harmful to them or instead it will feed them.

Superman’s home planet of Krypton orbits a large red sun called Rao and is located about 50 light-years from Earth. A light-year, as defined by the International Astronomical Union is the distance that light travels in a vacuum in one year, approximately 10 trillion km or 6 trillion miles (“What is a”). In short, Krypton very very very far away from Earth.

Krypton is much larger than Earth, and so it has a much greater gravitational pull. According to the current Superman story, Kryptonians are not naturally super; they are only super on Earth due to its relatively weaker gravitational pull, ,allowing them to perform their gravity-defying feats.

At the beginning of every Superman origin story, it’s shown that baby Kal-El was sent from Krypton to Earth to escape the planet’s destruction. The reason why the planet was destroyed differs, with some saying it was the result of a war and others saying that Rao’s immense gravitational force pulled the planet apart. All scenarios, though, result in Kal-El traveling through space toward Earth while pulling fragments of Krypton, made radioactive in the explosion, along with him. This radioactive debris became what we now know as kryptonite.

Radioactivity in general can be dangerous to all living beings, Kryptonians or otherwise. On Earth, many substances emit radiation by undergoing one of several processes. Alpha decay occurs when the nucleus of a decaying atom emits alpha particles (alpha particles are also called helium atoms, which are made of two protons and two neutrons).

Beta decay occurs when a neutron in a decaying atom’s nucleus spontaneously becomes a proton, an electron, and an antineutrino because the neutron to proton ratio is too great for atomic stability. The atom then ejects the electron and the antineutrino, keeping the proton. The ejected electron becomes a beta particle.

Spontaneous fission occurs when an atom spontaneously splits into two atoms of two different elements, potentially ejecting neutrinos during this process.

Atoms undergoing any of these processes have extra energy that must be released. They emit this energy in gamma rays, which are essentially electromagnetic pulses. In radioactive materials, alpha and beta particles that are released cannot penetrate far into matter. Emissions of pure energy, such as gamma rays, though, can penetrate matter and can displace electrons from atoms, causing cells to mutate.

It’s never made clear how exactly kryptonite decays, but its radiation seems to behave like gamma radiation since it can penetrate objects and affect living bodies. Kryptonite’s debilitating effect on Superman is the result of its interactions with Superman’s cells.

Since Superman’s power comes from the Earth’s yellow sun, we can envision him as either a particularly handsome and muscular plant (if that’s not too weird of a mental image) or a living solar panel. Plants use the sun’s energy to turn water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and sugar, the way that Superman can use the sun’s energy to turn ordinary movements into superpowered movements.

If he functions more like a solar panel, we can think of him as being composed of solar cells (also known as photovoltaic cells) that can store energy from the sunlight and convert these storages into his superpowers. Photovoltaic cells contain semiconductors such as silicon. When light comes into contact with these semiconductors, electrons are released and an electric field forces them to flow in a particular direction, producing an electric current.

In either case, it’s understood that Superman utilizes energy from the sun at the cellular level. Kryptonite interferes with this process, but the method by which this happens is left ambiguous. The radiation from green kryptonite might interfere with and overpower the solar radiation providing Superman with his powers. Kryptonite could simply interrupt some organic process within his body the way that a plant’s photosynthetic process could be blocked. Or, if Superman functions like a solar panel, then the radiation from kryptonite displaces electrons in Superman’s cells, preventing the movement of the electrons to create energy flow (Wilson).

In each of these scenarios, Superman can no longer access the powers gained from Earth’s yellow sun, making him vulnerable and leading to his death if the kryptonite exposure is sufficient.

Sources:

http://why-sci.com/kryptonite/

http://www.scienceclarified.com/Ga-He/Gamma-Ray.html

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/arts/comic-books/kryptonite1.htm

It took me 10 minutes of studying to find out that Krytonite does emit Gamma Radiation, and because Superman not only pulls energy from the sun to himself, but all rays on the spectrum it effects him. A regular Beta or Alpha Gamma ray would not hurt Superman, when Krypton exploded it seemed to have create a different wave length in the Gamma ray, so it effects Superman particular Kyptonian cell make-up.

Also, they have a word for Kryptonites radiation. Its K-radiation lol, but it's Gamma.

To the guy that said Hulk would win, you ~could~ be right, BUT its a giant IF.

If Hulk and Superman every collided either Hulk would port Superman to the edge of Time-space to Kang Trophy room, OR Superman would just float Hulk in space until he found an astroid to hitch hike on. There's no fighting it out with them.

That being said, I think that Hulk has the potential to manipulate Gamma to harm Superman, but the waves he has put off lately would not.

The possibility also didn't come until after Hulk went World Breaker and started emitting uncontrollable amounts of Gamma Radiation, Marvel data base says "Not usually a power associated with the Hulk, but there is enough evidence that Hulk possesses at least a limited ability to manipulate forms of energy, particularly gamma radiation. The Hulk's body works like a "gamma battery" by creating and radiating gamma energy".

@sirslamsalot: Where exactly did you fine it stated that kryptonite emits gamma radiation?

http://www.supermanhomepage.com/comics/comics.php?topic=articles/LexFiles003

@sirslamsalot: That article is nice and all but the problem is they are trying to use real science and apply it to a comic book. A comic book where the characters break the laws of physics each issue. In other words unless a writer states kryptonite radiation emits gamma radiation it doesn't no matter how much it doesn't make sense.

Unless they make up a new word for it in their Universe the only radiation it could be is Gamma, so it's almost quite the opposite. Until they state otherwise, logically you would have to assume it is Gamma. Doesn't matter to me, Hulk smash either way.

Considering Superman can emmit Gamma rays from his eyes and that humans aren't affected by Kryptonite, your whole theory is thrown out of the window :P

@sirslamsalot: They do have a word for it it's kryptonite radiation.

@squalleon: even if he can emit gamma radiation that doesn't mean it can not effect him. being able to emit and be immune to outside sources are two different thing and Kryptonite does in fact effect humans as lex luthor got cancer from prolonged exposure

Only in one continuity and only after years of exposure.

Usually Kryptonite doesn't affect people and there is no other instance that it has affected someone.

Superman enters and baths in the sun core, only to leave stronger. So to say the least he can withstand huge amounts of radiation and the sun in his core has gamma radiation.

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Considering Supes gets energy from heat from the earth. Electricity or magic from an enchanted sun or even energy from a green lantern ring....why wouldn't he be getting energy from gamma rays? He seems to be getting it from alot of things instead of soley just sunlight. Heck he even has Gamma vision for petes sake.