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Superman Unlimited's Kryptonite revival reverses a 54-year trend on DC's deadly green alien element
In 1971, it was decided to limit use of Kryptonite in Superman comics; that's stayed the case until this summer's new Superman comic book series by Dan Slott and Rafael Albuquerque
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When incoming writer Dan Slott brings Kryptonite back to the DC comic book universe with this May’s Superman Unlimited #1, he’ll be reversing a piece of DC comic book lore than stretches back more than half a century — and restoring a status quo that fans have been missing for just as long.
The opening storyline of Slott’s new Superman Unlimited series with Rafael Albuquerque transforms Kryptonite — the radioactive element that is deadly to Superman — into a “new natural resource on Earth,” according to DC editor Paul Kaminski. When that happens, it’ll be the first time that Kryptonite has been available in abundance since the early '70s, when DC decided to make the radioactive rock far rarer as part of an overall revamp of Superman and his lore.
By 1971, DC Comics was beginning to worry that Superman was beginning to lose steam in the marketplace, and decided to give the hero an overhaul with new creative talent and a new editor, Julius Schwartz — the man who’d previously revamped the Flash, Green Lantern, and the Justice League of America to significant success. Schwartz and writer Dennis O’Neil decided to downplay some of Superman’s more outrageous powers (Sorry, fans of super-ventriloquism or the ability to project a miniature version of himself from his hands), and try to make the hero more relatable to contemporary fans. That meant, however, that Kryptonite would be a casualty of the makeover.
“Those green (and sometimes red and sometimes gold) glowing rocks had become a writer’s crutch,” writer Dennis O’Neil explained in a 2008 collection of the storyline where the 1970s makeover was unveiled. “When in doubt — when the story lacked drama or conflict or interest — have the no-goodnik flip a chunk of Green K at Super and then figure out a way for it not to kill him. What had started as a valuable addition to the mythos had become at best routine, at worst cliched. Away with it!”
O’Neill’s Superman #233 in 1971 established that a science experiment gone awry has rendered all Kryptonite on the planet inert, later writers would try to work around that rule — 1977’s Superman #316 saw new Kryptonite land on Earth, for example — while still trying to limit the use of the element so that readers didn’t become bored. Even when the character was entirely rebooted in 1986, it was quickly established that only limited amounts of the element were available, and that it was also ultimately poisonous for humans as well, albeit at a slower rate than for Superman.
When Superman Unlimited restores Kryptonite en masse to the DCU, it’ll be the first time in 54 years that Superman has been challenged by an overabundance of the deadly element. How will he handle it? We’ll find out May 21, when the first issue of the series hits the stands.
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