One thing I've never understood regarding Superman stories

[indolover]

I know that different Superman media has different continuity involved (,e.g. the films are different to the animated series, which is turn different to the comics).

But if Krypton was so advanced (to the point where, in the films anyhow) that Kryptonians knew the "different types of immortality", then how could they not save themselves from their star being destroyed?

 

[SG-17]

Arrogance.

 

[Nerys Myk]

In English "Jor-el" means Chicken Little

 

[Admiral_Young]

SG-17 hit it on the nail. In all of the incarnations that the High Council we've seen they've been portrayed as ignorant, and arrogant. They didn't listen to Jor-El when he presented them with "irrefutable" evidence that the planet was in danger and refused to do anything about it. In the movies it is because they do not want him inciting the public after Zod's attempted insurrection.

 

[shivkala]

Through the various incarnations of Krypton, arrogance, as SG-17 pointed out, is the common theme. TV Tropes even names a trope after him due to this.

Byrne's Superman: The Man of Steel origin, which I like the best and am most familiar with, presents a Krypton where Kryptonians have given up emotions, even more so than the Vulcans. Even though Jor-El knew the planet was dying (and had been for a long time), no one would abandon tradition and come up with an evacuation plan. Kryptonians had become so distant, they were repulsed by physical contact, that they could not come up with a way.

It was later revealed that Kryptonians were genetically tied to the planet. They could not leave without dying. Jor-El found a way to cure his unborn son of this and that was what saved Kal-El.

In the animated series, Brainiac served as the computer guiding Krypton. In this case, it's mainly Brainiac's arrogance, as he reasons if the ruling council knew about the planet's doom, they would force Brainiac into working on a solution. Brainiac figured that if no one knew, he could upload all of Krypton's information and escape. He went as far as making Jor-El a fugitive in order to distract the council and discredit Jor-El when he approached them.


What's interesting is how a few alternate reality situations where Krypton survived portray Jor-El as a lunatic. "For the Man Who Has Everything" had Jor-El kicked off the Science Council and it turns him bitter. He did fair better in the Justice League Unlimited adaption of the episode, though.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The late Tomar Re was the Green Lantern for Krypton. Apparently he unsuccessfully tried to vent Kryptons core by shafting the planet with maaaaaaaaaaaaasive pylons his ring created.

 

[Christopher]

The question that's always bugged me isn't "Why couldn't they prevent the disaster?" but "If they had space travel, how come they didn't have more offworld survivors?" Now, in the versions where Kal-El's ship is a prototype, as originally conceived, that's not an issue. But some versions of the continuity have given the Kryptonians extensive capability to travel to other worlds, and that's where you have a problem. I think that "kinds of immortality" line in the initial post is a reference to the Donner movie, Jor-El's educational montage, and that's a big problem because it indicates that Kryptonians had extensive knowledge of other worlds, even other galaxies -- so why weren't there any Kryptonian colonies on other worlds? I guess the stagnant, hidebound nature of their civilization could explain that somehow. But then you get a conceptual mess like Smallville, where they kept retconning Kryptonians into ancient astronauts who'd been visiting Earth for centuries, practically commuting there. And that makes it thoroughly ridiculous that they had no means to rescue anyone but one baby. (Although I think they credited Krypton's destruction to a war started by General Zod, so maybe the idea was that it was too sudden for anyone else to escape? But then, if offworld travel was so routine, the question again becomes why they had no colonies, or why nobody just happened to be offworld at the time.)

In the Silver Age comics, they actually went to considerable lengths to explain why Krypton had no spaceflight despite having the technology to achieve it easily. They had this whole backstory about how a spaceflight gone wrong destroyed one of their moons and caused them to cancel their space program. I think the original version of Zod was a scientist who was in charge of Krypton's space program and went rogue because he resented the government for cancelling it, or something like that.

One of my favorite versions is the S:TAS pilot episode. Jor-El's plan there was brilliant: use the Phantom Zone projector to beam Krypton's whole population into the Zone, then send the projector to another world in the prototype spacecraft. That was an ingenious explanation for why the escape craft was so small. And while these Kryptonians did have spaceflight, it seems that until Jor-El's prototype they only had sublight capability; they'd colonized another planet called Argo, which was where Supergirl came from. (DC was adamant at the time about Superman being the last Kryptonian, so the only way to do Supergirl was to retcon Argo City into another planet -- which is splitting hairs since she was still Kryptonian by species.)

 

[Admiral_Young]

I don't have examples to cite...but I'm pretty sure that Bryne's "Man of Steel" relaunch stated that Krypton had some kind of isolationist policy. The retconned back story that Geoff Johns and Richard Donner added to the current comics indicated that Krypton did indeed have space ships and an entire fleet that once was commanded by an Admiral Zod (this was in an Action Comics Annual from a few years ago) whom was an ancestor of Lor-Zod (or General Zod).

 

[Anwar]

The idea that made the most sense was the late 80s Post-Crisis explanation: The Kryptonians were genetically tied to Krypton and literally couldn't survive leaving the planet. Jor-El found out about this and cured Kal-El of it. He was going to cure the rest of Krypton but found out about the imminent destruction and that he could only save his son in the time remaining.

Without that explanation, it really does fall apart.

 

[Admiral_Young]

That was retconned though with Johns "Superman The Movie" back story which I indicated above. Essentially Rao turned super nova like it did in the movie and the shockwaves tore Krypton in half.

 

[Anwar]

And it doesn't make any sense: Really, if they had huge Space Fleets and a "Kryptonian Empire" the "withdrew back to Krypton and became isolationist" thing is unbelievable because they'd still have colonies on other worlds and too big a population to fit all back on Krypton alone.

 

[Greg Cox]

I kind of figure Jor-El was kind of like Al Gore. Everybody kept insisting his inconvenient truth was just an unproven theory or hoax . . . . .

 

[Hound of UIster]

And it doesn't make any sense: Really, if they had huge Space Fleets and a "Kryptonian Empire" the "withdrew back to Krypton and became isolationist" thing is unbelievable because they'd still have colonies on other worlds and too big a population to fit all back on Krypton alone.

Build bigger and better arcologies.

 

[Admiral_Young]

This was far in the past Anwar...any possible colonies that Krypton may have had...or lost for that matter could have easily wanted no contact with the home world any more through time or any number of reasons. It makes perfect sense to me. We know the Romulans for instance have a pretty isolationist policy and have a large fleet that they keep to themselves but they're a young race compared to the Kryptonians.

 

[Hound of UIster]

And many of those stragglers either became Daxamites or were hunted down and wiped out like the Superwoman introduced in Kurt Busiek's run on Superman.

 

[shivkala]

I never quite got why a genetic defect would start to kill someone as soon as they broke free of the planet's atmosphere. How would your body know? Now if there was a specific molecule in the atmosphere, that might make sense. Something that couldn't be easily replicated and was so otherwise insignificant that no one would even consider including it in the air supply.

Anyway, during the "in-between years" (the years in which DC made it clear "Man of Steel" was no longer in continuity, but didn't acknowledge "Birthright" either), Kurt Busiek wrote a story about "The Third Kryptonian," who was in space with fellow Kryptonians, who found out that yellow sunlight gives them powers. They were recalled to Krypton, when the El family came into power and sought to halt Krypton's expansionist ways. Thus, they were off planet when Krypton exploded. They were hunted by Kryptonian Eradicators and another pursuant, and only one Kryptonian, Karsta Wor-Ul, survived.

The story, again, if my memory is correct, seemed to imply more Kryptonians could be out there. However, I was not a big fan of Kurt Busiek's take on Superman, which was a disappointment to me, since I loved his storyline with Geoff Johns that started off Superman's OYL stories, "Up, Up, and Away."

I always thought they should have tied in the Green Lantern Corps. Maybe Krypton, especially with their powers under yellow suns, provided a big enough threat, the Guardians got involved. The way the Guardians are currently written, I could believe that they would restrict a race to their own planet and put in failsafes to make sure they didn't expand again.

 

[Christopher]

The idea that made the most sense was the late 80s Post-Crisis explanation: The Kryptonians were genetically tied to Krypton and literally couldn't survive leaving the planet. Jor-El found out about this and cured Kal-El of it. He was going to cure the rest of Krypton but found out about the imminent destruction and that he could only save his son in the time remaining.

No, that explanation doesn't really make any sense at all. "Genetically tied?" What the hell does that even mean? If it means they were adapted to a narrow range of survival conditions, why couldn't their high technology replicate those conditions on their ships?

This was far in the past Anwar...any possible colonies that Krypton may have had...or lost for that matter could have easily wanted no contact with the home world any more through time or any number of reasons. It makes perfect sense to me. We know the Romulans for instance have a pretty isolationist policy and have a large fleet that they keep to themselves but they're a young race compared to the Kryptonians.

But the Romulans don't all live on one planet, despite what the '09 movie's dialogue seemed to imply. They're called the Romulan Star Empire, which means they rule over and occupy multiple planets. Plus they've got many, many people in spaceships at any given time.

And like I said about S:TAS Supergirl, isn't it splitting hairs to deny their kinship to Kal-El if they're still biologically the same species he is (as Romulans are biologically Vulcan)? The original idea wasn't just that Superman was the last member of his nation, but that he was the last of his species. Long-lost colonists from ancient Krypton are still members of the Kryptonian species, even if they changed their name.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I never said they weren't. Perhaps the Romulan analogy or comparison was a bad one on my part. The problem with Krypton is that it has had so many different retellings on what exactly happened to (even Kevin J. Anderson's Last Days of Krypton attempted a "definitive take on take) really say which is the definitive one. Kandor it's self has been retconned many times as well.

I was merely offering a possible explanation for the original posters question. I don't really think there is a specific answer...

 

[Dark Gilligan]

It's been established in DC continuity that Daxam, the home planet of Mon-El, was a Kryptonian colony (discovered by the astronaut Dax-Am, no less). So we know that at least one planet of post-Kryptonians survived after the homeworld's expantionist period.

 

[Agenda]

Kryptonians suffered from agoraphobia on a cosmic level.