Twice-Told-Tales: Attack of the Kryptonite Men

Historically, the first man on any Earth to discover Kryptonite was the conman Dan "Swami Riva" Rivers". At that point in the Man of Steel's career, Superman had already established his heroic reputation in the Metropolis of Earth-Two for over five years, and the discovery of these radioactive meteorites caused him considerable trouble.

His younger counterpart, as Superboy, first discovered Kryptonite while working on a geology project. His step-father Jonathan Kent brought the glowing green meteor home, whick caused young Clark Kent to grow sick while in its prescence. He eventually discovered, thanks to one of his robots, of the meteor's deadly effect on him.

By the time Superboy was old to become Superman in the Metropolis of Earth-One, it was common knowledge to both friend and foe that these space rocks could weaken and ultimately kill him. Lex Luthor hatched various schemes using these stellar stones, and eventually concoted a Kryptonite serum which when ingested caused one to emit its radiation. Lex most likely theorized this was possible, as another humanoid known as Kryptonite Kid had himself absorbed and emitted this alien element from his body.

Instead of internalizing Kryptonite as had the Kid, his counterpart Swami Riva found the same fatal fragment which he used years earlier against Superman, yet Rivers still failed in eliminating his fabled foe. However, when he was placed in a jail cell with Alexei Luthor, he unleashed a far deadly threat upon his enemy.

And here is where our Twice-Told-Tale begins, after the aforementioned lengthy setup. Lex and Alexei developed their special space serums, transforming them into glowing green geniuses. When new Superman statues were donated to each world’s Metropolis Park, these lured their inspirations into a clash at that location with their arch-enemies. Initially immobilized by the radiation from the Kryptonite Men*, the Supermen evaded capture and cloaked themselves in a lead-lined suit or a lead-lined tarp to shield them from the death-dealing dose dealt to them by the Luthors.

Ultimately, the Supermen gained the upper hand on the Kryptonite Men by outsmarting them. Superman-One with his pal Jimmy Olsen’s help used the Daily Planet’s helicopter to hold him upright with invisible cords while in Lex’s presence. Surmising the space serums effect was weakening, Lex took the antidote to escape capture but ended up being caught. Superman-Two with his wife Lois Lane Kent’s help used a two-by-four piece of wood to reveal the green Luthor statue in the park as being Alexei himself. A quick burst of heat vision from Superman caused Luthor to be disabled and captured by the authorities.

Although the Luthors would employ a variety of sinister schemes to styme their Super-foe, none had the potential for dire consequences as this Twice-Told-Tale: The Attack of the Kryptonite Men!

* Of course, the original Kryptonite Man was Kryptonite Kid when he returned to Earth-One as an adult. A later Kryptonite Man was the sole survivor of a prehistoric race on Krypton who sought vengeance on the alien Seeders, whom he tracked to Earth-One. These two villains' counterparts on Earth-Two who likewise were empowered by irradiated meteorites of Krypton were Dan "Swami Riva" Rivers and Klarn Arn, respectively.

Sinister Symbionts Siphoning Supermen

Two documented techniques were employed to drain powers possessed by the Supermen, one which left him weakened and the other which potentially had far deadly effects. Interestingly, two pairs of deadly doppelgänger employed each of these techniques against their world's Man of Steel, very nearly leading to the demise of the Last Sons of Krypton. Although each counterpart used a a different technique against Superman than had the other!

The first technique is exposing the heroes to Green Kryptonite, the radioactive substance remaining from the planet Krypton. On Earth-One, the criminal cyborg Roger "Metallo" Corben was implanted with a Kryptonite "heart" with a two-fold purpose, to keep his cybernetic body alive and as a radiological weapon against the modern day Superman. On Earth-Two, the German soldier Heinrich "Atoman" Melch was injected with a Green Kryptonite serum which both empowered his superhuman body and as a radiological weapon against the golden age Superman.

A less common technique is projecting purple energy dampening radiation, coming from an extraterrestrial origin. On Earth-One, janitor turned criminal Raymond Maxwell "Parasite" Jensen was inadvertently exposed to radioactive material brought from outer space, and which Parasite then used against Superman which weakened him. On Earth-Two, scientist turned villain George "Metalo" Grant developed a purple ray projecting weapon which likewise weakened Superman. While Parasite employed his purple ray aura to transfer Superman's abilities to himself, Metalo developed a related super-serum from the purple radiation to grant Grant his Superman-like attributes.

Secret Origin of the Red Sun of Krypton & Krypton Itself!

The story is legendary and often repeated. The planet Krypton had a thriving civilization existing on it for thousands of years, until internal pressured from within culminated in the world exploding. From this world, the last son and daughter of Krypton, along with scant few fellow survivors, were jettisoned from this condemned globe. And so this tale was told... until the untold secret origin of Krypton and its sun was revealed!

Kal-El, the last son of Krypton-One who became the Superman, discovered a mysterious orange sun entering Earth-One's solar system. Intercepting it, he was pulled within and met its creators, the  ancient gaseous beings known as the Sun-Thrivers, whose existence had depended on their encasing themselves within an artificial red sun. However, the sun needed a counter-balance to maintain its internal gravity, and so pulled together enough mass to form a large planet within that red  sun's orbit. This planet became Krypton-One, and as mentioned by the Harbinger during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, "The Earth... and all the planets were duplicated" aside from the world known as Oa. 

And, in fact, there was a Krypton-Two, Krypton-Three, Krypton-Prime... indeed a Krypton and its corresponding red sun, in every universe across the Multiverse. All created in the same manner, through each universe's version of the Sun-Thrivers. And in all cosmos save that of Earth-Three's, the mass upon which their individual Krypton was built proved unstable and doomed to extinction.

A few years after his counterpart met the Sun-Thrivers, who presented Kal-El with their new Kryptonite powered orange sun designed to replace their dying red sun, Kal-L likewise encountered twin Kryptonite powered green suns orbiting Colu-Two. Whether enlisting or enslaving his universe's Sun-Thrivers into creating them, or perhaps using other technology to accomplish this, Vandal Savage of Earth-Two used these green suns against Superman and Power Girl. Conceiving a scheme to weaken the Kryptonians, Savage syphoned their powers in order to extend his formerly immortal life. Vandal engaged Superman in battle and lost. And so, the last son and daughter of Krypton-Two, Kal-L and Kara Zor-L aka Superman and Power Girl, left this artificial planet and its suns behind without a second thought. As for Savage, two shadowy men abducted him, pulling him into Earth-One to meet Kal-El later.

And as most of Kryptonite was absorbed into Savage's suns, so too was most of this same substance absorbed into the Sun-Thriver's red sun and Krypton-One version 2.0. This lessened the threat of either Superman being exposed to this life threatening substance in the future, aside from those meteorites that fell to their native worlds previously or still floated somewhere outside the vast expanse outside the Sun-Thriver's reach.

One of the two sentient Green Kryptonite suns named Aquarius turned insane, causing its stellar twin and the other Council of Living Stars to depower and banish it from their midst. Aquarius would eventually arrive on Earth-Two, steal Starman’s Cosmic Rod allowing the entity to create a new body for itself and greatly amplify its powers.

Battling the Justice Society and, two weeks later, the Justice League, Aquarius eventually found itself within the Anti-Matter or Negative universe, where it was permanently destroyed. 

Kryptonite Can Kill Kent: Synthetic K

When there wasn't a plentiful enough supply of this toxic substance arriving from outer space, various villains of Earths One and Two simply created Synthetic Kryptonite which had similar effects to the original. The Luthers, Doctor Vallin, Professor Benet and various others.. both good and bad scientists, synthesized this substance through various means. 

For instance, Vallin devised the means to do so by fusing gold, silver, lead, and bismuth with acid and crackling electricity. Luthor created his own variation from a Asian homocessandi plant, an oyster, moon dust and the rare element binarium. 

Additionally, more radical departures from the typical green Kryptonite replica were X-Kryptonite, Slow Kryptonite, Magno-Kryptonite, and Mutated kryptonite.. all which produced varying adverse affects on Kryptonians through initial exposure. In the case of X-Kryptonite, however, it enable humanoids and even animals like Streaky the Super-Cat to gain superpowers through temporary exposure. 

Kryptonite Can Kill Kent: Blue Kryptonite

Look in a mirror and what do you see? Your mirror image, only everything is reversed from the part of your hair to the label on your shirt. 

For the Supermen, their mirror images were Bizarro of Earth-One and Flying Tiger of Earth-Two, each being made of non-living matter designed to replicate their template's powers. In the process, they also gained their opposite number's weaknesses, specially Kryptonite. Superman used the imperfect duplicator ray to make blue Kryptonite from the original green material 

His counterpart didn't need to go that far, instead using the real thing versus Flying Tiger since the bio-ray projector wouldn't have worked on the substance. The end process was the same, as such Kryptonite proved deadly (as much as anything can towards imitation life) to Bizarro and the Tiger

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Kryptonite Can Kill Kent: Red Kryptonite

A small percentage of fragments floating through space that were formerly Krypton-One passed through a red gaseous cloud in space, transforming not only their color but their nature from green to Red Kryptonite*. When Superboy first encountered this substance, he found that its effects were temporary and unpredictable, causing various physical transformations in his physiology more a nuisance than anything else.

A similar strand of Red Kryptonite, formerly part of Krypton-Two, was revealed later in the golden age Superman's career, only from a future era. In that instance, used by the criminal Futuremen**, this element caused the hero to lose control of his abilities and temporary paralysis whenever he encountered it. Which, thankfully, was only on one occasion.

* The range of effects on Red Kryptonians (according to the DC Fandom website) include:

• Transformed into a dragon
• Became evil
• Transformed into a non-powered giant
• Transformed into a dwarf
• Transformed into an ant-headed humanoid
• Transformed into a lunatic
• Rendered amnesiac
• Rendered temporarily blind to anything colored green
• Excessive hair growth
• Loss of power
• Gained telepathy and began to grow a beard
• Lost his invulnerability along the left side of his body
• Generated an evil doppelganger
• Unable to speak or write anything but Kryptonese language
• Growth of extra limbs
• Loss of balance and manual dexterity
• Mental transference
• Rapid aging
• Personality alteration

** E. Nelson Bridwell called "Superman versus the Futuremen" "the last Earth-2 Superman story" something Bob Rozakis reiterated in the Daily Planet letter page Vol 75 number 5 week of Feb 5, 1979 (per DC Fandom website). 

Kryptonite Can Kill Kent: Green Gold & Black Kryptonite

The first and most prevalant form of Kryptonite mythos is the green variety, definitely the most famous and deadly of them all. Superboy first encountered it as a lad, nearly snuffing out his young life before his step-parents removed the harmful element from their home. Several of his foes such as Kryptonite Kid, Lex Luthor, and Metalo wielded it against him.

Although Kryptonite appeared earlier on Earth-Two chronologically speaking, in the jewel of a crook known as Swami Riva, that Superman was an adult when he first encountered it unlike his Earth-One twin. When each visited the others universe, they learned that this element effects them the same even if not from their native universe. Thankfully, they always managed to outsmart foes who used it against them.

At one point, after the explosion of a nuclear reactor all the Kryptonite on Earth-One was rendered inert leaving the Man of Steel invincible, that is until more of this element arrive on his planet from space. 

Earth-Two never seemed to have as much of this radioactive rock land on its surface, although its Man of Steel still faced it several times when its foes found it, such as Swami Riva, Atoman, Alexie Luthor, Tycoon of Crime and the Ultra-Humanite… to named but a few.

Interestingly, it was Chronos of Earth-One who discovered a black-and-green Kryptonite variety on Earth-Two while a member of the Crime Champions. This version was just as deadly to Superman, yet had healing properties for humans like Aquaman!

Kryptonite Can Kill Kent: Colorful K-Metal

In most universes throughout the Multiverse, each planet Krypton faced a similar eventuality... its eventual destruction. While some would survive, a scant few, perhaps the most immense testimony to this dying world are these meteors formed from its exploding mass. Hazardous to any superpowered Kryptonian, aside from Earth-Three's Ultraman for whom it has the opposite effect, every Superman finds this mineral to be his Achille's heal. 

Originally mentioned in an unpublished non-canonical tale when it was known as K-Metal, it was first referred to when Earth-Two's Superman faced the wicked Scarlet Widow and later Atoman who possessed this deadly element, although not in it recognized form. 

On Earth-One, it was a continual feature in Superman's mythos since his days as the Superboy of Smallville, utilized by various foes throughout the years. However, the typical manifestation of this radioactive rock as green Kryptonite was only the tip of the proverbial ice burg, as other variations including red, gold, blue, white and others would reveal themselves over time. Each with their own destinct effects we'll dissect.