kryptonite
We have seen various takes on kryptonites effect on superman. Its gones from being deadly to disarming to annoying. Its an iconic weakness. In the new 52 what do you believe should kryptonites effect be on superman and should they start going into all the other shades or leave it at green?
I remember watching a Superman special on TV and they said they wanted it to affect superman the way radiation affects normal people but they simply didn't have the time since it is a comic book so they made it have an instant effect on him.
I would like to see it make him weak and groggy instead of actually hurting him.
Kryptonite might have been useful once upon a time when they needed some plot device to weaken a guy who was so powerful that he couldn't get hurt by anything else and was top of the totem pole.
But in the last few decades before the reboot it became variously a writer's crutch, a cliche, or a joke. Nearly every movie he got taken down with kryptonite somehow. Whenever he was with Batman or whoever on a mission, the villain would have kryptonite so Batman/partner could do something. Nearly every damn episode of Smallville, Clark got taken down by the stuff, sometimes just by randomly running into it. It got to the point where every time Clark went to confront some antagonist, you just waited for the green stuff to come out (on purpose or by accident) and Clark to hit the floor. You'd think he would have developed some sort of psychological problems and been afraid to leave his farm there was so much of it around.
Supes later on wasn't nearly as powerful or invulnerable. He wasn't so much more powerful than other heroes/villains that he couldn't be threatened or beaten by them. He accumulated other weaknesses like magic and red sun radiation and power draining that were nearly as bad as k-nite, to the point where even a planet of Kryptonians could be quickly beaten by earth in a war and plenty of heroes could take them down.
In short, why do they still need a kryptonite/special weakness? They don't need it anymore. If they have to have it make it exceedingly rare (won't work because writers are lazy), make it just an annoyance, or make it deadly to ordinary humans.
Originally posted by Endless Mike
I wouldn't mind different varieties of Kryptonite, I never had a problem with the idea in the first place. He should be more vulnerable to green than he was before the reboot until he gets time to build up resistance to it
Problem with that is that radiation isn't like poison, animals just don't build up a resistance, they build up tumours ... Superman should be a bed ridden cancerous mess by now based on the levels of exposure he has had over the years.