I always wondered - if they're so smart, why didn't they figure out that they become gods when exposed to any type of solar radiation except their own? It seems Jor-El knew. And if he knew, I take it he knew for awhile. And if he knew for awhile, he shoulda just built a bunch of tanning machines for the population and had they fly out of there....
well there are several problems with that.
first, I'm pretty sure that Kryptonians all knew about they're super powers
second, even if they had built machines that would emit yellow sun rays as soon as they were exposed to the red sun of thier solar system (which they would be exposed too all the time) they're powers would be drained by the red solar energy.
the only way would be to construct suits that would shield them from the red sunlight. (and who wants to live in a huge bio-suit they're whole life?)
otherwise even if they were exposed to yellow sunlight they would only have they're powers for a matter of minuets, maybe less before they were back to normal.
On krypton, kryptonians were slightly above human in their attributes. However, they didn't possess any super powers or anything. As mentioned by a poster, they lived a long time( tens of thousands of years) because they aged slower than what we as humans do, due to being kryptonian and genetic engineering.
Anyone who cells ages slow in comparison to how human cells age, would be somewhat natural healthier and more conditioned than a human being, despite not having any super abilities.
It would seem that a kryptonian(average Kryptonian) on krypton would be equivalent to an Olympic level fit human being here on earth, although they probably couldn't do the same things that an Olympic level athlete could do, since that takes special training and practice.
Originally posted by demigawd
I always wondered - if they're so smart, why didn't they figure out that they become gods when exposed to any type of solar radiation except their own? It seems Jor-El knew. And if he knew, I take it he knew for awhile. And if he knew for awhile, he shoulda just built a bunch of tanning machines for the population and had they fly out of there....
They did that with Supergirl when they sent her to earth to take care of Superman. She was supposed to be taking care of Superman while he was a baby while she was just an adult.
Originally posted by Hegemon875
Hmm seems like he aborbs all sunlight except red.
6 and a half years late, but no, he absorbs red sunlight too. The problem is, it doesn't power him. Displaces yellow solar energy. At least that was the case for much of Post-CRISIS, Pre-DCnU. I think later Batman theorized it simply cut-off access to his powers or something like that.