Superman has no powers growing up, until he reaches 18 or so. At 29, he goes to Metropolis and has normal power levels, he can hold his breath for 3 hours, fly at 7,000 miles per hour, etc. but starts hallucinating Jor-El. Going to his Justice league friends, they discover it is from a Kryptonian nanite in his brain, put there by his father. It is full of files that were meant to guide him in the proper use of his powers as he grew. Jor-El thought Kal's body would absorb all the frequencies of energy put out by our sun, but it only has been absorbing those from red suns. All his life he's been living under the powers of a normal Kryptonian. Now we know why the Kryptonian race never flew to other planets.
Jor-El thought he would reach these power levels at two years old, so it is reacting to him as one. They try to reprogram it and find Jor and Lara had done something else.
They checked the environment of Earth and found many substances that would be fatal to Kryptonians before their powers manifested - but are harmless to humans. So they changed some of his chemical reactions to make him react exactly as a human.
This way , if he ever loses his powers, Clark would be susceptible to things safe for us. Like aspirin. Or certain chemicals in food.
But along with this minor change is Ma Kent. She has a miscarriage on the day they drag the ship into the barn. Wearing a typical house dress, it is easy to take the dying embryo into her hands. Distraught at the death of their fourth or fifth baby, she puts the dying embryo into the ship and doesn't tell Jonathan what she did. It then closes and they can't reopen it. Assuming it was just part of its programming they don't think any more of it. Not programmed for this, but with a bit of Artificial Intelligence, it recognizes the tissue as a living being. It then uses its programming as best it can. It keeps the baby alive and makes it able to absorb yellow sun energy giving it all the normal Kryptonian superpowers. But it's only programmed to work with Kal-El's DNA so the child winds up looking like him. However, his personality has genetic aspects of Jonathan and Martha.
Some years later, enter Superboy. He comes out of the Capsule as a newborn and the Kents raise him after Clark goes to college. By the time he starts his career as Superman, Superboy is now 9 and starts HIS career in Smallville.
You get rid of the Luthor half of Superboy's DNA and make him a true citizen of Earth - and the son of BOTH Kents.
Please keep the comments civil. It's just an idea. It's not like I am trying to get DC to publish it or anything. I just want to see what others think of it.
Log in to comment