Comic Book Review: The Best of DC #36: Superman vs. Kryptonite edited by Nicola Cuti
Kryptonite is Superman’s most famous weakness, the shattered, radioactive fragments of his homeworld Krypton. The prototype version, “K-metal” was created by Jerry Siegel for a 1940 story that would have revealed Superman’s secret identity as Clark Kent to Lois Lane, changing their relationship going forward. Kryptonite itself was invented in 1943 for The Adventures of Superman radio show, to introduce a storyline in which Superman discovers his origins on the planet Krypton.
Surprisingly, Kryptonite was not introduced in the comic books until Superman #61 in 1949 when it was used to help Superman discover that he’d come from Krypton, using some of the same plot beats the radio show had used. Once introduced, it proved to be a favorite device of the writers, used to weaken Superman temporarily and place him in peril. And as time passed, different variations of the mineral were created to have different effects. This digest collects several Kryptonite-centric stories.
“The Curse of Kryptonite!” story by Otto Binder, art by Al Plastino, starts us off with a primer on what Kryptonite is. Superman is digging a trench for an oil pipeline in Death Valley when he inadvertently unearths a green Kryptonite meteorite. The radiation immediately weakens him enough that he can’t fly or crawl out of range. He manages to melt a bit with his heat vision, but that swiftly gives out, and his super-breath isn’t strong enough to blow the remaining boulder away.
Superman remembers that Kryptonite was formed by the atomic reaction within Krypton that eventually caused the entire planet to explode, causing most of its minerals to turn into the green crystalline structure that gives off radiation lethal to Kryptonians. His one big hope is that an Earthling will pass by, as Earth humans are immune to Kryptonite radiation (or at least they were pre-Crisis…). But no Earthlings seem to be about.
There’s no antidote to Kryptonite poisoning other than the removal of the Kryptonite, and no way to make Kryptonians immune. Lead blocks the radiation, but various factors prevent Superman from simply having lead on his person at all times. And while the Superman robots are of course immune, they’re programmed to act as though they weren’t, even when Superman is in danger.
As a last-ditch ploy, Superman attempts a super-shout to summon his cousin Supergirl, who recently arrived on Earth and poses as orphan girl Linda Lee. But his voice has given out.
At that moment, however, a strong wind comes through one of the pipes Superman dropped, blowing the Kryptonite away. It’s Krypto, Superman’s faithful dog companion, who happened by just in the nick of time. Krypto’s the goodest boy, and I’m looking forward to seeing him in the new movie.
“The Greatest Pitcher in the World!” art by Wayne Boring, adapts a story told in the radio series. A criminal nicknamed “Professor” has created a synthetic copy of green Kryptonite. His colleague “Fixer” comes up with a plan to lure Superman in range of this dangerous substance. While the imitation Kryptonite does drain Superman’s strength, rendering him incapable of voluntary movement and in incredible pain, it doesn’t remove his invulnerability to anything else.
So the criminals simply lock him up in a room without food or water for several days next to the Kryptonite while they go on a crime spree. This treatment affects Superman’s mind, and when an electrical storm passes overhead, he involuntarily turns on his heat vision. The ensuing fire causes the Kryptonite to drop out of range, but though some of his strength has returned, Superman no longer remembers that he’s in no danger from the fire itself.
The amnesiac man trades clothes with a scarecrow, and comes to the conclusion that he’s a homeless man called Bud Mack. Under this name, he’s discovered by a last-place baseball farm team and recruited as a pitcher because of his amazing throwing skills.
As his memory intermittently returns, Superman and Bud Mack switch places when convenient for the plot. Eventually, the Man of Steel’s memory is fully restored, and he captures Professor and Fixer after arranging for them to lose all the money they bet on a fixed ballgame. At the end, Lois Lane notes that Clark Kent looks like the now disappeared Bud Mack, and he was gone the entire time Bud Mack was around. Hmm…
“The Untold Story of Red Kryptonite!” story by Otto Binder, art by Curt Swan & John Forte, focuses on the second major kind of Kryptonite. An experimental bathyscape has managed to dive to a depth of ten miles when a red meteorite strikes the ocean and manages to penetrate and smash the fuel pipes needed for it to return to the surface.
Superman arrives to attempt a rescue, but is warned off as the meteorite has been recognized as red Kryptonite, which has bizarre random effects on Kryptonians. A Superman robot is sent down as a compromise, but it’s crushed by the immense pressure of the ocean depths. (Aquaman does not exist for the purpose of this story, nor do the people of Atlantis come up.)
As Superman decides to risk the danger and slowly swims down, he recalls that red Kryptonite is formed by ordinary green Kryptonite passing through a cosmic space cloud and being further irradiated. The first time he encountered it was as Superboy, when a Martian used the radiation to split him into a good Superboy and evil Clark Kent. Good thing the effects eventually wear off!
Superman recalls other incidents where he was transformed into a tiny version of himself, a sleepwalker, lost control of his heat vision, and started hallucinating.
Superman rescues the bathyscape, and feels the tingle that tells him red Kryptonite is working, but doesn’t notice any other effects. Until he checks in with his friends at the Daily Planet. His head hair, facial hair and fingernails have grown to great length, and become even more invulnerable than usual as he can’t trim them with his heat vision. Lois Lane wonders where Clark Kent is, and Superman realizes he can’t show up as an unkempt civilian.
Fortunately, the combined heat vision of Supergirl and Krypto is able to trim his hair and nails, and a well-groomed Clark Kent deflects Lois’ suspicions.
“The Invasion of the Bizarro World!” story by Jerry Siegel art by John Forte requires a bit more explanation. In the Silver Age, Bizarro was an imperfect copy of Superman created by a defective duplicator ray. While usually well-meaning, Bizarro’s warped thought processes made him a hazard on Earth. Eventually, he was relocated to the cubical planet Htrae, the Bizarro World, along with a Bizarro version of Lois Lane. They populated their new world with other Bizarros and settled down into a parody of Earth society.
One day, strange creatures made of blue Kryptonite burst out of the underground. Blue Kryptonite was also created by the duplicator ray, and is deadly only to Bizarros. We never get an explanation for these creatures or what they’re actually up to. Bizarro society being what it is, the locals either ignore the invasion or welcome it even as it kills them. (Insert political reference here.)
Eventually, a handful of Bizarros, including Bizarro #1, decide that this needs to stop. But how, when the invaders are deadly to even stand near? Turns out imperfectly duplicated lead protects against blue Kryptonite rays. Bizarro-Jimmy Olsen has his salary lowered for this idea.
Bizarro World stories are a particular kind of humor that not everyone likes, and even fans like me find works best in very small doses.
“The Menace of Gold Kryptonite!” story by Otto Binder, art by Al Plastino, introduces us to the next kind of the deadly mineral. Gold Kryptonite is formed by exposing red Kryptonite to certain frequencies of nuclear radiation. Exposure to gold Kryptonite removes Kryptonians’ superpowers permanently, even mutilating their genes to make it hereditary.
A piece of red Kryptonite that had made Superman unable to speak or write any language but Kryptonese is left behind in his Fortress of Solitude while he goes to talk to Jimmy Olsen (who is fluent in Kryptonese from an earlier adventure.) It’s struck by a stray beam of nuclear radiation and transforms into gold Kryptonite.
This is seen by the inhabitants of the bottled city of Kandor. The Superman Emergency Squad is alerted. One of them will have to go outside in a special lead suit to get rid of the danger. The random selection falls on the brave Jay-Ree, but his fiancée Joenne insists on going with him on this hazardous mission.
Unfortunately, the Metal Eater Beast from Krypton has somehow escaped from the Fortress zoo, and nips the mouse-sized (there is technobabble reasons why they can’t be full-sized) Kandorians’ armor, exposing them to the Kryptonite radiation before they can send the mineral into the Phantom Zone.
Due to the hereditary thing, the couple can never return to Kandor lest they spread that mutation among the population with their children. Jay-Ree and Joenne hitch a ride to Metropolis with Jimmy, who agrees to put them up at his place. They have various adventures until their existence is exposed to Superman.
He doesn’t have a cure, but arranges for the couple to get married by Kryptonian custom, and they move into Clark Kent’s apartment…and promptly fell into a memory hole, never appearing again.
“Superboy Visits the 50th Century!” story by Otto Binder, art by Curt Swan & John Forte, has Superboy drawn to the far future by a “time-sampler machine” from the Halloween celebration in Smallville. The scientist who accidentally summoned him, Thadee Lang, has a daughter named Lita, who’s a dead ringer for her ancestor Lana Lang. The time sampler explodes, and Professor Lang goes into a coma.
The doctor who comes to examine the professor doesn’t believe Superboy’s wild story about being from the past. Between the 20th Century and the 50th, all reliable records of the first were lost. Superboy is considered just as mythical as Peter Pan and Santa Claus. (Never mind that Superboy has previously met the very real Santa.)
Superboy’s powers are not considered evidence of his reality, as common gadgets allow any 50th Century person to duplicate his feats. Only Lita believes that Superboy is real, and is mocked for her delusion. It’s decided that Superboy must be an illegal alien from Xanthia trying to take advantage of Lita’s credulity, and the authorities want to deport him.
The teens head to the Past Age Museum in search of other clues that might prove Superboy is who he says he is. There’s a glowing white rock there with an odd inscription no one can read.
Suddenly there’s a plant menace attacking Earth, and all the gadgets the humans have aren’t able to stop it. Superboy grabs the white rock, and uses it to defeat the veggies. The inscription is in Kryptonese, and this is a hunk of Krypton that turned into white Kryptonite, harmless to animals and humanoids, but deadly to all plant life regardless of origin.
Having proved himself, Superboy returns to Smallville in his own time, where Lana remains ignorant of his secrets.
“Secret of Kryptonite Six!” art by Curt Swan & George Klein, introduces us to a previously unknown form of Kryptonite. Clark Kent ducks out on a reporting assignment, enhancing his reputation as a coward, as he has an urgent appointment in Kandor. On his way there, he spots Lori Lemaris of Atlantis (the merpeople version, not the one Aquaman rules.) She informs him that the Atlanteans are suffering from the spotted plague, which causes blotchy skin and weakens their telepathy, as well as eventually killing them. Superman promises to look into a cure as soon as he’s done with his current mission.
That mission is being head of the Phantom Zone Parole Board for its annual meeting in Kandor. A quick recap. As part of penal reform on Krypton, that technologically advanced civilization developed a way to project convicted criminals into a limbo dimension called the Phantom Zone. While in the Phantom Zone, a person does not age and their normal biological functions do not occur. Phantom Zone prisoners are intangible, even to each other, and cannot normally be seen from the physical world.
However, inhabitants of the Phantom Zone can see into the physical world and can communicate telepathically. This was meant as a stopgap measure until more humane methods of rehabilitation could be devised, but Jor-El got distracted by the groundquake problem, then Krypton blew up. Only relatively recently with the recovery of Kandor has there been a place for Kryptonians released from the Phantom Zone to relatively safely go. Thus this parole board.
First up is Vorb-Un, an elderly fellow convicted of “experimenting with forbidden elements without the Council’s permission.” Given his advanced age and obvious remorse for his crimes, Vorb-Un is released from the Zone, promising to be a good citizen.
Next is Jax-Ur, a much less popular criminal. He blew up an inhabited moon of Krypton with an experimental missile, killing millions and contributing to the ban on space travel research. He’s tried to escape the Zone several times and made life difficult for Superman in particular. No one is buying that he’s reformed.
But Jax-Ur reveals that he once cured a disease similar to Spotted Plague on Krypton. If allowed, he would cure the Atlanteans, proving his sincerity. We don’t see the rest of the parole hearing.
When Superman fails to cure the plague, he decides to give Jax-Ur a chance. Jax-Ur is fitted with a tamper-resistant bracelet that will automatically send him back to the Phantom Zone in 24 hours.
The cure, it turns out, is only available in the past, in Jax-Ur’s secret lab in the Jewel Mountains of Krypton. So the pair must time travel there. The Jewel Mountains are the fossilized remains of “crystal birds” that once ruled the skies of ancient Krypton, and for some reason all came to that area to die.
At the secret lab, Jax-Ur drugs Kal-El’s food so that Superman will sleep for several hours while Jax-Ur pursues his real plan. He finds a crystal spire and transmutes its elements for a specific purpose. Once Superman is awake, Jax-Ur helps him gather the special spore dust for the cure, saving his old enemy’s life in the process.
Back in the present, the cure works, and Atlantis is saved. There’s still a couple of hours left before Jax-Ur has to return to the Phantom Zone, so Superman lets the man fly free to enjoy the real world. As Jax-Ur had calculated, the crystal spire had turned into a form of Kryptonite, Jewel Kryptonite, and a hunk of it is orbiting Earth now. Jax-Ur breaks off a small piece.
The Kryptonian criminal then ambushes and hypnotizes Jimmy Olsen. After Jax-Ur is returned to the Phantom Zone, he reveals his plan to his fellow inmates, but not yet to us. Jimmy “photographs” Superman and only then awakes from the hypnotic spell, realizing this was a trap to expose Superman to Jewel Kryptonite.
Superman now explodes anything that could explode simply by being near it. This makes him a danger to everyone around him. Jax-Ur then says he can cure Superman–but only if the hero releases all the criminals in the Zone. Things get worse and Kal-El is having to strongly consider that offer. But then he realizes that the explosive effect is inconsistent, and checks in with Lori Lemaris, whose telepathic abilities have been restored.
Turns out that Jewel Kryptonite’s actual effect is being a psychic amplifier. The Phantom Zone criminals focused their telepathy on the chunk of it in orbit, creating a psychokinetic beam that would explode stuff. But one of their mistakes was not realizing that certain small items are explosive and thus failing to detonate them. Superman hurls the Jewel Kryptonite into the sun, and that’s the end of that.
“The Super-Outlaw of Metropolis!” art by Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye, has criminal scientist Lex Luthor devise power armor made of a special alloy that absorbs Superman’s “super energy” whenever Superman uses his powers within a certain range. He arranges for multiple disasters and crises to hit Metropolis one right after another to force Superman to exert himself.
Lex then moves on to phase two of his plan. The suit gives him superstrength and invulnerability (but not, it seems, any of Superman’s other powers) and since he’s stored up so much juice, Luthor can now commit crimes with impunity. Every time Superman tries to stop Luthor, he just makes the villain stronger.
The solution, with the aid of Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen, is for Superman to expose himself to Kryptonite, draining away his strength and other powers. Not realizing that he’s no longer getting energy, Luthor burns through his armor’s reserves, and without the power, ordinary police are able to arrest the villain. And once Superman destroys the armor and its rare alloy components, Luthor won’t be able to build another.
“The Fury of the Kryptonian-Killer!” story by Jim Shooter, art by Curt Swan & George Klein, is the final story in this digest. A mysterious figure is going around destroying or abducting everything and everyone connected to Krypton. But who and why?
It turns out it’s a space explorer named Rinol-Jag whose home planet Salitar had been destroyed by a planet-killer-sized Kryptonite meteor. This incident was witnessed by the space pirate Amalak, who had a pre-existing grudge against Superman. He brainwashed Rinol-Jag into believing that Krypton had deliberately destroyed his home, and that he should get revenge.
Rinol has captured all known Kryptonian survivors and has Superman on the ropes. But it’s at this point that Amalak decides to gloat about destroying Earth and manipulating Rinol-Jag, awakening the younger man to what’s really going on. Rinol tries to oppose Amalak and is shot for his troubles, but is able to free Superman from the Kryptonite trap he was in.
Amalak is defeated, Rinol gives up his vendetta, and the space explorer goes off to find a new purpose in life (and is never seen again.) Happy ending!
The inside back cover is the Curt Swan cover of Jimmy Olsen #70, “The Secret of Silver Kryptonite!” I’m not going to spoil that surprise here.
And the back cover, art by Bender & Mahlstedt, is a quick guide to the major kinds of Kryptonite.
The Jewel Kryptonite story is the best in this collection, combining high Silver Age goofiness and deep lore with exciting action. The Luthor story is also nifty, especially as it’s an early one where Kryptonite is still a super rare substance and it makes sense that the villain wouldn’t have taken it into account. And the Bizarro World story is if nothing else, interesting for all the bizarreness it includes.
By comparison, the spotlight stories on green and red Kryptonite are basically slide shows to fill new readers in on the lore.
All of these stories have been published in other collections, but a true Kryptonite fanatic might want to haunt comics shops and shows to find this rare item.
