I am fairly new to comics and started with Superman recently.
But one question keeps bothering me:
If Superman loses all of his powers and essentially becomes mortal when exposed to Kryptonite, why hasn't anyone fashioned a bullet from Kryptonite and shot him with it? Is there a constraint to the processing of Kryptonite I am unaware of? Is it just extremely hard to come by? If so, shouldn't Bruce Wayne have thought of and done it, since he has all the resources he could possibly need?
That's Red Sunlight. Green Kryptonite just hurts him.
>Just put a bullet in him!
You know that's waaaay easier said than done, right?
Yes, it has been thought of. Many times.
Bruce Wayne keeps kryptonite around just in case Supes goes mad or turns bad.
Luthor (in a sequence since retconned) used to wear a kryptonite ring to keep Superman away. In that version, it turned out that kryptonite radiation wasn't ENTIRELY a problem only for Kryptonians. Lex developed cancer and had to have the hand amputated.
Kryptonite was not part of the original mythos. It was first introduced on the Superman radio show so the actor playing Superman (who was in nearly all scenes) could go on vacation. For a week or two, all listeners heard from him was moans and groans of pain.
It was incorporated into the comics because Superman had gotten too powerful. Originally, he could only leap tall buildings and resist anything short of an artillery shell. Eventually, he could move worlds and survive a point-blank A-bomb. Kryptonite (of several varieties) was used to keep the stories from ending with a single punch.
It's availability has also varied widely over time. Sometimes it's rarer than radium. Other times it seems that half the mass of Krypton fell to Earth.
Because Kryptonite had been over-used as a plot gimmick, a new editor decided to do away with it. An atomic chain reaction converted it all to iron.
en.wikipedia.org
That was eventually written out of continuity as well.
(OP)
>If Superman loses all of his powers and essentially becomes mortal when exposed to Kryptonite,
FAKE NEWS
>In that version, it turned out that kryptonite radiation wasn't ENTIRELY a problem only for Kryptonians.
ANY kind of radiation is harmful on the regular; they knew that even before the invention of radio. Notwithstanding the entire flying brick/comic book science issue, the writers should have picked a different device. Even then they never really showed other people just wondering around with it in their pockets, and Batgod himself is shown in keeping it in a lead-line compartment in his Batgod Utility Belt of Many Uses ™
You know that ionizing radiation is harmful. And I know that.
But it was always shown as harmless to humans.
It's effects puzzled me as a kid. 5 feet of concrete didn't shield it but a tenth of an inch of lead did. Same for X-ray vision. Comic book science.
It was NOT generally known 'way back. Madame Curie walked around with a bit of radium in her pocket to impress people with its warmth and glow. en.wikipedia.org
She never acknowledged the danger.
Pierre Curie died in an accident, but suffered terribly from radiation burns while he lived.
Read about the radium girls en.wikipedia.org
For some real horror, read en.wikipedia.org
During WW2, the allies were worried when the radioactive waste from Madame Curie's laboratory was packed up and shipped to Germany. They feared it was either for an A-bomb project or was to be used as a poison, say by spreading it across the beaches where the Allied invaders would have to land.
Turned out to have been done by a German manufacturer who anticipated a boom in radioactive cosmetics after the war. Needless to say, that never materialized.
>why hasn't anyone fashioned a bullet from Kryptonite and shot him with it?
This has been done so many times...
>But it was always shown as harmless to humans.
Luthor got cancer because of Kryptonite poisoning.
>5 feet of concrete didn't shield it but a tenth of an inch of lead did. Same for X-ray vision. Comic book science.
Well, yes, that's the point as far as stupid Bruce and his stupid all-purpose shark repelling belt. The Curie's both knew, there was an excellent series on PBS on chemists and how they had lead to a number of significant discoveries prior to and during/immediately after her time. They devoted an entire episode to her/them. I didn't know about Byers, the story about the radioactive cosmetic is great, someone should use that in a movie as a sub-plot, it sounds like something Tarrentino could make some great sequences with.
It'a actually a plot point in the Smallville episode where Lex is President and Kara has been conned into being Lex's special assistant and number one SS agent, IIRC all due to some of the SV Brainiac's fucking with the time line or some such.
>Why hasn't anyone fashioned a bullet from Kryptonite and shot him with it?
Jeph Loeb did it, twice, if you count Smallville too
they also did it in season 3 I guess, when this guy tried to kill all the meteor freaks
Kryptonite doesn't really hurt Superman, that's just something he tells everyone to trick them.
Is there an explanation for why it didn't kill him? Is it a plot point? Does the bullet have to stay inside his body? Or was it simply never explained?
Harmless to humans BEFORE that sequence. Read Silver Age issues.
That's why Lex was so surprised.
Batman was there to take out the bullet in time, and Supes was weakened by it for while
Kryptonite shouldn't do shit to him though, he moves faster than radiation waves.
>shot, dying
>starts shit talking Batman as he operates
I know this is not the case but I like to think that after ages of doing this shit, Supes just gets burned out enough to want to die
...
>If Superman loses all of his powers and essentially becomes mortal when exposed to Kryptonite, why hasn't anyone fashioned a bullet from Kryptonite and shot him with it?
youtube.com
I saw that and it was excellent. :)
youtu.be
The Mystery of Matter 02: Unruly elements
youtu.be
Some scientists recognized the danger early on, took precautions and warned others.
For some reason, the Curies wouldn't listen.
Radioactives were touted to the general public as cures for baldness, impotence, "women's diseases" and most everything else.
RadioThor horrified the nation and led to crackdown on quacks and their patent medications.
The people who manufactured radium dial watches knew about the risk to workers but funded dis-information campaigns (like the cigarette and oil companies did later on) because nothing mattered except their profits.
Radium is banned in the US now. If you have a luminous dial watch it uses Tritium, which has a much shorter half-life, a much less penetrating emission, and doesn't accumulate in bones.