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"Secrets of the Supermetal from the Miracle
Planet!"
by Quentin Long
Today we focus our attention on Kryptonite, the dangerous (and prettily-colored) substance that 4 out of 5 Silver Age Kryptonians voted The Most Awkward Souvenir From The Old Country.
Unraveling the puzzle of Kryptonite is no task for the faint of heart. For instance, Kryptonite radiation is highly target-specific. It was taken as a fannish article of faith that Kryptonite, of any variety, just plain didn't affect anyone or anything that hailed from anywhere except Krypton; but -- at the same time -- there were occasional stories in which non-Kryptonians did get "zapped" by one form or another of the big K. Current DC continuity squares this circle by presuming that Terrans are just mostly immune to Kryptonite: a couple of minutes' exposure to K radiation is harmless, but you're liable to get cancer after several solid months of K exposure.
Aside from that, most (if not all) K flavors had levels of hardness and tensile strength high enough to raise serious questions about what sort of atoms they were made of.
To get things rolling, let's begin with a survey of 11 (count 'em, eleven) known flavors of Kryptonite, together with what effect each flavor has on its victims; not to mention what class(es) of victim each flavor can affect.
Green Kryptonite -- Kills superpowered Kryptonians, but good. No effect on non-powered Kryptonians (see also: Argo City).
Anti-Kryptonite -- Kills non-powered Kryptonians, but good. No effect on Kryptonians with powers. Same as Green K in all other respects (color, etc).
Red Kryptonite -- What happened when a flock of Green K meteoroids drifted through a mysterious red cloud while en route to Earth. Also known as "Plot Device Kryptonite". Inflicts random effects (physical transformations, mostly) on Kryptonians. Each specific chunk of Red K has the same effect on all Kryptonians; however, no two chunks have the same effect as one another. Red K effects typically last 1-2 days; or longer if the plot demands it. After that, the Kryptonian in question is forevermore immune to that specific chunk of Red K.
Gold Kryptonite -- Erases Kryptonian powers, permanently.
White Kryptonite -- Kills all plant life; be it Kryptonian, Terran, or whatever.
Blue Kryptonite -- The result of (no, I am not making this up) using Professor Potter's "duplicator ray" on some Green K. Kills Bizarroes dead. No effect on Kryptonians.
X-Kryptonite
-- Supergirl created this stuff while eexperimenting with Green K.
No effect on Kryptonians, powered or otherwise. Bestows superpowers
on Terran lifeforms, most prominently (again, I am not making this
up) Streaky the SuperCat.
Jewel
Kryptonite -- One of the few varieties of Kryptonite with beneficial
properties, Jewel K amplifies the psionic powers of Phantom Zone residents;
allowing them to project illusions into the "real world," or even do a
bit of mind-control.
Slow Kryptonite -- Another Green K variant, this one courtesy of a Terran scientist. As the name implies, Slow K decelerates nerve impulses, movements, etc, of both Kryptonians and Terrans.
Silver Kryptonite -- No such animal. Silver K was a hoax perpetrated by Superman's friends in honor of the 25th (silver) anniversary of Supes' arrival on this planet.
Yellow Kryptonite -- No such animal. Another hoax; this one masterminded by Lex Luthor.
My original theory was that Kryptonite is a superheavy element from the as-yet-hypothetical "island of stability"; a region of the periodic table which may (theoretically) be found somewhere beyond Element #150.
If this were true, one would expect Kryptonite to possess a large number of distinct isotopes (i.e. atoms of Kryptonite which contain differing numbers of neutrons.)
In support of the "superheavy element" theory of Kryptonite, isotopes of a given element can and do vary significantly in their properties. For instance, the two most prominent isotopes of uranium differ from each other by just three neutrons -- all uranium atoms contain 92 protons, but atoms of the U-235 isotope have 143 neutrons; while the U-238 isotope has 146 neutrons.
Despite this seemingly minor difference, the 235 isotope is much more intensely radioactive than the 238 variety. Those of you who are interested can read up on what this has to do with the difference between "weapons grade" and "reactor grade" uranium...
... but: I digress.
The main failing of the "superheavy element" theory is that it doesn't account for the target-specific nature of Kryptonite radiation. Whether superheavy or otherwise, all conventional atoms emit conventional radiation, which comes in a small number of familiar varieties: you've got your alpha, beta, and gamma rays, and so on.
And conventional radiation is most certainly not target-specific! If you've got enough gamma rays to put a hurting on Superman, you've got enough to vaporize any normal human at a distance of 100 meters -- not so good.
A much better theory (nobody tell Prof. Selegue that I'm stealing his idea, okay?) is that Kryptonite atoms aren't like those run-of-the-mill atoms we humans are familiar with here, on Earth; in specific, Kryptonite atoms contain an extra nucleon -- an additional subatomic particle which isn't usually found in conventional atoms.
Since I'm an invertibrate punster -- I haven't the backbone to stop -- I now take this opportunity to dub these beasties "kryptons", from the Greek "krypt-", meaning "hidden"; and "-on", meaning "the suffix at the end of a particle's name".
It is these krypton particles that are responsible for the peculiarities of Kryptonian lifeforms and matter. And just as the term "ionized" refers to atoms that carry a non-zero charge of electromagnetic energy, I now propose the term "kryptonized" as referring to atoms that contain a non-zero number of krypton particles. Conventional atoms emit conventional radiation; kryptonized atoms emit kryptonized radiation.
Like anything else, krypton particles are not evenly distributed. Although hard data is difficult to come by, DC's published stories suggest that the planet Krypton originally formed in whichever region of space had the highest concentration of small-k kryptons in all the Universe; and the planet Daxam, in whichever region had the second-highest concentration. Given that the vast majority of DC alien races don't have Superman-ish power levels, it's clear that kryptons are rare, if not altogether absent, on most worlds.
We can make educated guesses about the true nature and properties of krypton particles, based on the published accounts. From the observed fact that Kryptonian matter (living or otherwise) is vastly tougher and harder than conventional matter, we can conclude that krypton particles interact strongly with each other. The rather high binding energy of the krypton:krypton bond means that two kryptonized atoms will form a much stronger interatomic attachment than would two normal atoms; and strong interatomic bonds mean high tensile strength and hardness.
In addition, it's possible that the binding force for krypton particles declines with distance according to an inverse linear rule, rather than the more common inverse square rule.
From the fact that K radiation rarely affects non-Kryptonian life, we can conclude that krypton particles tend to interact weakly with non- kryptons. Obviously, kryptons do interact with non-kryptons -- how do you think conventional atoms ever manage to get kryptonized in the first place? -- it's just that krypton:non-krypton interactions involve far less energy than krypton:krypton interactions; hence, krypton:non- krypton bonds form and dissolve far more easily than krypton:krypton.
A free krypton particle, therefore, is accompanied by a virtual "sea" of comparatively weak, ever-forming, ever-dissolving bonds between it and all the conventional particles around it (more on this later).
This could be what makes it possible for krypton particles to remain bonded to a conventional nucleus for an indefinite period of time: all the particles in said nucleus are crammed very close together, which means that the aggregate bonding strength between a krypton-in-nucleus and the rest of its nucleus is going to be significantly greater than the aggregate bonding strength between a free krypton and whichever random particles it happens to be in the neighborhood of at whatever time. (Note that once a nucleus acquires a krypton to begin with, that nucleus immediately becomes a "krypton magnet"; sucking in new krypton particles at a rate that increases with the number of previously- absorbed kryptons.)
From the fact that K radiation does manage to affect Terran lifeforms every once in a while, we can conclude that kryptons are indeed present on Earth; albeit far less common than they were on Krypton.
This one's a "two-fer." First: all nine varieties of genuine Kryptonite emit mass quantities of exotic radiation. Second: most of the other material substances from Krypton (the kryptonized tissues of Superman's body, f'rinstance) are not particularly radioactive. From these facts, we can conclude that krypton particles can (but are not required to) reduce the stability of atomic nuclei.
I believe that the destabilizing effect of kryptons is dependent on the number of kryptons involved: an atom with a mere 2 or 3 kryptons has nothing to worry about... but an atom with (let us say) 40 or 50 kryptons is glowing for a blow-up, if you will.
From the observed example of cancer in Lex Luthor's hand, we can conclude that Green Kryptonite emits radiation of approximately the same intensity as radium. To a first approximation, the half-life of Green Kryptonite should be 1 to 2 millenia; that is, somewhere in the general neighborhood of the 1620-year half-life of radium-226. Absent any published evidence to the contrary, we may as well presume that all other flavors of Kryptonite likewise have half-lives in the 1-to-2-millenia range.
From the facts that:
[a] Kryptonian superpowers are psionic in nature; and --
[b] at least one variety of Kryptonite has the beneficial effect of boosting psi-powers...
... we can conclude that krypton particles have the property of enhancing certain brain functions. Perhaps the aforementioned "sea" of ever-forming, ever-dissolving interparticle bonds that accompanies each krypton has something to do with this form of neural enhancement, inasmuch as such a "sea" would consist of large numbers of distinct probability fields; all of them overlapping each other several times over, resulting in what would have to be a highly overcomplexificationated state vector.
Here I enter the realm of blatantly unsupported speculation, but -- since the highly complex (and little-understood) phenomenon called "consciousness" is known to be able to collapse state vectors on contact -- it may be that a sufficiently complex state vector may be able to directly affect the phenomenon of consciousness.
From the fact that Kal-El had to emigrate from Krypton to Earth before he acquired his vast powers, we can conclude that krypton particles are highly sensitive to environmental conditions. The published stories always point to the difference between the suns of Earth and Krypton (yellow and red, respectively); but this theory dies on contact with even a preliminary, back-of-the-envelope estimate of the energy Superman must expend in order to do what he does.
Myself, I favor the gravitational difference between the two planets; perhaps the exotic effects of krypton particles are inversely proportional to the strength of the gravity field they're in.
Let's move on to explanations of the behavior of the nine genuine flavors of Kryptonite.
Green Kryptonite -- Green K is the most highly kryptonized substance of all. Its radiation contains a vast number of kryptons; when this radiation pours down upon an already-kryptonized material, many of the radiation-borne kryptons end up getting sucked into the target's already-kryptonized atoms. Before long, the affected atoms acquire enough new kryptons to become radioactive themselves; thus perpetuating an exceedingly vicious circle, and explaining how Green K poisoning turns Kryptonians that interesting shade of glowing green before they die.
There is one major aspect of Green K that I haven't as yet covered: namely, the remarkable speed with which Kryptonians tend to recover from its ill effects, once they're no longer "in the blast radius".
Here's the deal: Green K continually adds kryptons to its victim. One effect of a rising number of kryptons is a rising level of psi-power; another is a rising level of indescribable agony, as the influx of kryptons makes the subjects' atoms turn radioactive and all that. As long as the pain continues to mount, the subject can't concentrate enough to make use of its enhanced psionics; once the Green K is removed to a safe distance, however, the pain stops increasing.
At this point, the pain remains at a static level; which allows the subject to grow accustomed to it, and focus on other things besides exploding nerve endings. The subject's survival instinct now takes over to end the pain, using the krypton-enhanced psionics to remove/ neutralize the excess kryptons within a very short period of time.
One interesting note, in closing: in the tale "Kryptonite, Nevermore!", a Terran experiment accidentally transmuted all Green K on Earth to harmless (to Superman, anyway) iron. This is a strong indication that Green K is nothing but highly-kryptonized iron; all the krypton particles got sucked away, leaving behind the conventional, non-kryptonized, atoms in their "natural" state.
While this theory is satisfying, it begs the question: "So how come Superman didn't lose all of his kryptons, and thereby turn normal?"
I believe the krypton-sucking effect had a built-in threshhold; atoms which contained less than X number of kryptons just weren't affected by whatever-it-was. To a first approximation, the threshhold number is somewhere near the number of kryptons it takes to make an atom radioactive.
Anti-Kryptonite -- Riddle me this: how can K radiation possibly be smart enough to distinguish between Kryptonians with superpowers, and Kryptonians without superpowers?
I propose that krypton particles can exist in a "low intensity" mode and a "high intensity" mode; and that environmental conditions (gravity in particular) can force "low kryptons" into the more energetic "high krypton" state. It would be high kryptons that induce superpowers; low kryptons would have little in the way of such exotic side-effects. Low kryptons interact strongly with other lows and weakly with highs; while high kryptons interact strongly with other highs and weakly with lows.
Therefore: Green K and Anti-K are actually the same mineral, differing from each other only in that Anti-K contains low kryptons, while Green K contains high kryptons.
This theory must be regarded as preliminary in nature; I welcome further research in this area.
Red Kryptonite -- Contrary to appearances, the true effect of Red K radiation is that it amplifies psionic powers by some ungodly large factor.
Superman doesn't know what's really going on here, of course; nor has he the specialized training required to deal with psionics. As a result, he is unable to make conscious use of his newly-enhanced psionic power.
Subconscious use is another matter entirely, of course.
Therefore: all that freshly boosted psi-power ends up being commanded by that which lurks in the darkest corners of Superman’s mind. All sorts of crazy impulses float around down there; but said impulses usually aren't expressed in any way that can be detected by outside observers.
With Red K thrown into the pot, however: any of those impulses is liable to find itself expressed in a very obvious manner, indeed; for all to see and puzzle over.
As an example: let's say Superman happens to be pondering the awesome responsibility he has chosen to bear. He might indulge in a momentary fantasy of being two years old again; with no responsibilities to speak of.
Naturally, such an idle wish would normally pass unnoticed; but with a dose of Red K radiation thrown in at just the wrong moment, Superman might very well find himself transformed into the Baby of Steel.
Since Red K is all about psionic enhancement, it follows that the observed effects of Red K must be governed by what might be termed the First Law of Psionic Powers: It Won't Work Unless The Wielder Believes In It.
This Law explains how Superman's powers can be psionic, while appearing to be purely physical. As an example: his vast strength is actually telekinetic in nature; but he can only use it as though it were physical strength (i.e. only on objects he can physically reach, etcetera), because he believes he can only use it in such a manner.
The riddles of Red K cannot be solved by any amount of consideration of exotic particle interactions; rather, the solution must be derived from principles of Kryptonian psychology.
Why is each Red K effect a unique, never-to-be-repeated event? Because the vast majority of them are unpleasant; profoundly embarrassing; or otherwise undesirable, so that it would surely be among Superman's most powerful desires that whatever-it-is never happen to him again. Thus -- again, by the First Law of Psionics -- whatever-it-is never DOES happen to him again; no matter how many times he's exposed to that particular chunk of Red K.
Why does each new piece of Red K induce a different effect? Because Red K brings subconscious impulses to life; and it's vanishingly improbable that Superman would have the exact same subconscious impulse running through his head the second (third, fourth, etcetera) time around. And -- given that a rerun is so vanishingly unlikely to begin with -- it wouldn't take all that many unique Red K events to make Superman believe that Red K is truly unique; at which point, the First Law of Psionics takes over to make it so.
How can Red K have the same effect on different Kryptonians? Strictly speaking, it shouldn't; but consider who ever got "zapped" by Red K besides Superman.
Yes: I’m referring to Supergirl, Kal-El's cousin; who clearly held her older relative in the highest regard. She would (obviously) be prone to believe anything Superman tells her; so (naturally) she'd believe what he says about Red K; at which point, the First Law of Psionics dictates that Red K will affect her in precisely the way Superman said it would.
Gold Kryptonite -- Gold K contains kryptonized atoms, alright -- it's just that the kryptons involved are actually anti-kryptons!
Thus, the particles of Gold K radiation carry antikryptons along with them; when normally kryptonized matter is exposed to this antikryptonized radiation, the positive and negative krypton partices annihilate each other; quickly removing all kryptons from whatever the target was. And -- when all the kryptons are removed from a living thing -- what's left is a perfectly normal lifeform.
Interestingly, this theory suggests that Gold K should (logically) reduce all kryptonized matter to conventional matter; that is, Gold K should permanently negate all other forms of Kryptonite!
Sadly, this suggestion cannot be directly confirmed, because the Silver Age Superman kept all of his various Kryptonite samples locked securely away from each other in thickly lead-lined cases, at all times.
White Kryptonite -- Since this stuff attacks plant life of any variety, its effects are (presumably) focused upon one (or more) of the qualities which distinguish plant-like entities from animal-like ones.
I propose that White K radiation degrades cellulose: the main structural component of cell walls in plants. Exactly why this should be so is not immediately clear; perhaps plants tend to extract and collect kryptons from the soil/environment around them, and concentrate these particles in their cell walls. This would have the effect of strengthening the cell walls; a desirable genetic trait. (It would also reduce the already low number of free kryptons in the environment; making them that much easier to overlook.)
Given its lack of effect on Kryptonian animal forms, White K radiation probably doesn't contain many krypton particles. This, in turn, suggests that White K is among the more weakly kryptonized forms of Kryptonite.
Blue Kryptonite -- To reiterate: this stuff was the result of (and I am still not making this up) using Professor Potter's "Duplicator Ray" on some Green K.
In recent years, the Grant Morrison-written ANIMAL MAN series established that Robert Sheldrake's theory of the morphogenetic field holds true in the DC Universe. Had anyone but thought to look, they would have realized that the Professor's device had been proving the morphogenetic theory some few decades earlier than ANIMAL MAN.
You see, that "duplicator ray" extracts morphogenetic field information from its subject, and imposes a low-grade copy of that information on a separate region of space; at which point, the matter in that separate region rearranges itself in accordance with the copied morphogenetic information.
If the field-copy were perfect, you'd end up with an exact duplicate of the original model; since the field-copy is inexact (and there is some reason to believe that the field-copy may, in fact, be the inverse of the original field, like a photographic negative), you end up with Bizarroes.
Professor Potter seems to have fallen into (undeserved) obscurity. It woud be interesting to see if any DCU scientists have carried on with Potter's work...
... but: I digress.
Since Blue K is a low-grade morphogenetic copy of Green K, it's possible that any krypton particles it contains are highly nonstandard; thus, the inability of Blue K radiation to affect standard Kryptonian lifeforms.
Further details will have to wait until further research on Potter's device -- and morphogenetic theory, in general -- is conducted.
X-Kryptonite -- This was a product of Supergirl's attempt to find a cure for Green K poisoning; perhaps her attempt to create the equivalent of a "killed virus" vaccine that protects against Green K poisoning.
X-Kryptonite is a weaker version of Green K; one which deposits a lesser quantity of kryptons in whatever gets exposed to its radiation. Terran lifeforms acquire enough kryptons to become superpowered; Kryptonians, already being kryptonized, are not appreciably affected one way or another.
The published stories indicate that X-K-induced powers are of limited duration; X-K-induced powers were explicitly stated to be of limited duration in humans, and Streaky the Super-Cat (I am still not making this up) apparently needed regular "booster shots" of X-K to maintain its powers. (Perhaps Supergirl's procedures resulted in unstable krypton particles, which decayed into other, more conventional, particles within whichever alloted span.)
[Note in closing: while the published stories never addressed this point, there was at least one editorial assertion (in a letter column) that the specimen of X-Kryptonite which empowered Streaky had been neutralized in the same event which neutralized all Green Kryptonite on Earth.]
Jewel Kryptonite -- This stuff (like Red Kryptonite) amplifies psionic powers. Since all other flavors of Kryptonite were rock-like and/or metal-like, I believe there had to have been something significant about Jewel K's crystalline nature.
In every crystal, the atoms are arranged into some specific pattern. I propose that Jewel K's crystal pattern places its atoms --and, hence, its krypton particles -- into a particular arrangement where all those kryptons' psi-boosting fields reinforce each other, through constructive interference.
Slow Kryptonite -- Under normal conditions, nerve impulses move at a speed of roughly 100 meters per second within neurons; and take roughly 2 milliseconds to leap across the synaptic cleft (i.e. "the empty space between where one neuron ends, and the next begins").
Note that these figures apply to normal humans; the corresponding figures for superpowered Kryptonians would (presumably) be several orders of magnitude faster.
I believe that Slow-K radiation reduces the speed of neural impulses to a fraction of its normal value -- perhaps 10 meters per second. This would not merely slow down the nerve impulses in and of itself; it would also increase the amount of time it takes a nerve impulse to cross over the synaptic cleft, since that period is actually the amount of time it takes an axon to accumulate enough energy to discharge across the cleft to the axon of the next neuron in line.
And -- when nerve impulses slow down -- it takes longer for an axon to accumulate the requisite amount of energy.
Slow K radiation affects normal humans as well as superpowered Kryptonians; both end up forcibly decelerated to approximately the same "speed". Since Kryptonians start out with superspeed, this suggests that Slow K affects Kryptonians far more intensely than it does humans; presumably as a consequence of the former being so much more heavily kryptonized than the latter.
This concludes our examination of the hows, whys, and wherefores of Kryptonite. I hope you all enjoyed it, and I'll be interested to see what can be done about the more questionable parts.
Fans of the never-less-than-perspicacious Perfesser can (and should) feel free to e-mail their hero at:
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