Krypton's Revisions
Krypton and its history has been altered to a great extent from its previous versions. In the post-Crisis Krypton, sexual reproduction was considered obscene, and thus, all children were conceived in birthing matrices. After Infinite Crisis, this was taken out of Kryptonian culture. Also in post-Crisis Krypton, this planet was located in a solar system within the Milky Way Galaxy close enough that the radiation from the explosion (traveling only at light speed) was able to reach Earth (Action Comics #600). But after Superman: Birthright, it was suggested that the planet Krypton was from an entirely different galaxy. In current continuity, however, Krypton has been revised back to its previous position and is confirmed to be in the sector of space that borders that of Earth.
The Green Lanterns have dubbed Krypton's sector of space 2813 (Earth's being 2814) and was under the protection of Green Lantern Tomar-Re when it was destroyed. Another element to the previous version of Krypton was that all Kryptonians were unable to leave their planet or they would die instantly. This was a result of the Eradicator altering the genetic codes of Kryptonians to keep them planet-bound after a group of them left Krypton to explore and colonize other planets. The Eradicator punished these Kryptonians by altering their genetic codes to be vulnerable to lead, which resulted in the Daxamites.
Originally, Jor-El had a serum that he invented that would allow a Kryptonian to leave the planet safely; which he gave to his son Kal-El upon leaving for Earth. This was created to maintain the rule of Superman being the only Kryptonian survivor which was the theme of the post-Crisis Superman mythos. This was reversed after 2003 when it was revealed that Superboy (Conner Kent) was half-Kryptonian, and then in 2004 when Supergirl (Kara Zor-El) arrived on Earth. The Eradicator did not place the planet-bound restrictions on the Krypton of the current DC universe, but it still seems to be responsible for the Daxamites' lead vulnerability.
The Krypton of the current continuity was at one time an expanding empire that conquered other planets for years, but was dismantled after the Kryptonian high council decided that their methods were too aggressive. The city of Kandor had a lunar city named after the planet-bound city, and when the lunar colony was destroyed, Brainiac kidnapped the real Kandor.
Other multi-ethnic versions of Kryptonians that resemble African-Americans and Asians also make an appearance in current continuity. Though previously, "black" Kryptonians were mainly confined within the Kryptonian continent of Vathlo Island. In the New Earth continuity, dark-skinned Kryptonians are more integrated into Kryptonian society than they were in the Silver and pre-Modern Age DC Universe. The other racially diverse people of Krypton came from a continent called Twenx.
The various Silver Age versions of Kryptonite have also come back into continuity as they were reduced to only green Kryptonite in the post-Crisis universe.
Read more about this topic: Krypton (comics)
Famous quotes containing the word revisions:
“The lore of our fathers is a fabric of sentences. In our hands it develops and changes, through more or less arbitrary and deliberate revisions and additions of our own, more or less directly occasioned by the continuing stimulation of our sense organs. It is a pale gray lore, black with fact and white with convention. But I have found no substantial reasons for concluding that there are any quite black threads in it, or any white ones.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)