So, the basic idea of Superman is that his species is powerless in their natural habitat, but become powerful when exposed to high-energy sunlight. And their body preferentially absorbs sunlight at their “native” frequency, which is why a red-sun-lamp can weaken Superman.
But why did they evolve that way to begin with? Are they basically space camels? Like, does their planet sucks so bad they have to store up extra calories by absorbing radiation?
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I guess I’m trying to find an ecological justification for this trait.
“Warrior races” like Saiyans or Viltrumites evolved their strength from a combination of social selection and high-gravity environments.
But Kryptonians are human-like in their natural environment. So, why bother absorbing solar radiation if it barely does anything?
Or is it like, an essential part of their metabolism? If you took a native Kryptonian and locked them in a cave with food and vitamins, would they die?
Krypton had a Red Sun for a long time and high-gravity. It’s not only kryptonians , even their animals absorbs sunlight and is empowered by it
FYI Kryptonians aren’t ‘powerless’ in their natural environment.
They’re strong enough to walk around and function in a high gravity environment effortlessly. An environment that would pancake most other races. I don’t think a human could stand on Krypton much less walk around. (Yes, if a Klingon took a step on Krypton he’d break his legs and fall down. The local Krytonians wouldn’t worry about fighting as said hypothetical Klingon couldn’t raise their arms to fight)
Its why when Clark and Kara are like double their expected weight when on Earth and have the mussel mass to move that around. They’re still molecularly dense on Earth even when they don’t have powers.
Wrong question. Why are we so weak? You’re starting at a baseline of humanity being normal, but how many aliens in the DCU have what we would consider powers?
It wasn’t always a Red Sun. Life on their planet evolved the radiation absorption powers before it turned into one.
It didn’t get evolved away because they still used it at a lower level.
If the comparison is not obvious to you:
Camels live in harsh, desert environments. So, they keep energy in fat stores (humps). That way, they don’t need as much water as a normal animal of their size.
I’m asking if Kryptonians are like camels. And if they store sunlight in their bodies like camels store fat.
Is Superman what would happen if a camel could store this extra of fat? Like, if you sent Cam-El to the Amazon, and his hump got ridiculously tall because there was more food (yellow sunlight) than his natural habitat?