Kryptonite: how did Lex know?
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HellboundHero — 10 years ago(April 12, 2015 02:29 PM)
Is there really much explanation needed? It's an element from his home planet that hurts only kryptonians. We got that much from Lex's dialogue, and the comics don't usually go into that much depth about it either.
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hal-9010 — 10 years ago(April 13, 2015 01:58 AM)
How would they know from where this rock flew, when its source is several galaxies away?
That is a bigger puzzle to me than how Lex would knew it might hurt the man of steel..
Or said differently; I can rationalized that if they would know this to be Kryptonite (which I cannot explain, unless it was on his space pod - and it wasn't) then perhaps this same article with the dude holding the rock also mentioned that the type of radiation from the rock (it glows, remember) was so piercing that even though the rays would pass right through humans then when piercing massive objects like hardened steel, heavy led or lets say Kryptonians, damage would occur on a molecular level. and so Lex deduced what he did and took the chance. He is after all a bit of a crazy.
** I am normally not a praying man, but if you are up there, please save me Superman **
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cvsandstuff — 9 years ago(April 02, 2016 01:19 PM)
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coreycitn63 — 10 years ago(April 27, 2015 03:50 AM)
This was a plothole. In order for Lex to know the effects of kryptonite he would have to see Superman's reaction to kryptonite.Another question is how could Lex knew that the rock came from Krypton cause it could have come from anywhere.
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Verdugo85 — 10 years ago(May 26, 2015 09:25 AM)
This was a plothole. In order for Lex to know the effects of kryptonite he would have to see Superman's reaction to kryptonite.Another question is how could Lex knew that the rock came from Krypton cause it could have come from anywhere.
The only logical explanation is that Luthor was a science genius he calculated where Krypton was positioned at in space and figured that the rare green rocks he saw in the article are meteorite radiactive fragments that could be lethal.. -
grendelkhan — 10 years ago(May 24, 2015 10:05 AM)
Except there is nothing to suggest that anything from his home planet could hurt him, in dialogue form or in print. Luthor just makes that assumption. There is nothing to suggest the meteorite is radioactive. It makes more sense that Luthor would be doing a series of tests on Superman's invulnerability and come across the meteorite, with odd radiation levels; and, then, run a test. However, the script just went with "It's kryptonite and Luthor is a genius."
When John Byrne revamped the character, in the mid-80s, he addressed the kryptonite issue and how it gets to Earth. There is one piece of kryptonite, embedded on the propulsion system of the capsule (in this version, it's not quite a rocket) that brings Superman here. Someone discovers the system and removes the element and makes tests. Luthor eventually gains control of the kryptonite specimen and has a ring made, with the kryptonite as a stone, to prevent Superman fom coming near him. However, the radiation proves lethal to humans, with prolonged exposure. The ring itself eventually comes into possession of Superman, who gives it to Batman for safekeeping and to use if Superman should ever lose control of his abilities.
In the film, you are left to fill in a lot of gaps with your own ideas and knowledge of Superman's history. In the end, the audience didn't care.
Fortunately, Ah keep mah feathers numbered for just such an emergency! -
MrLuthor89 — 10 years ago(August 21, 2015 01:58 AM)
I always figured that since radioactive pieces of OUR home world would negatively affect US ( most likely kill us) that Luthor's deduction was rather elementary.
Also he read in the article that Superman was "over 21" and clearly closer to 30 from the photograph.
So he deduces that he must've landed in our atmosphere roughly thirty years prior and if his planet exploded around the same time as his lift off, then debris probably traveled with him.
It's not too grand a leap for a mad genius like Lex. -
statuskuo — 10 years ago(September 21, 2015 04:52 AM)
This may sound dumb on my part, but I watched this movie over 100 times and I never caught the speechwhen young Clark creates the fortress of solitude and finds Jor-El Marlon Brandoit goes to a star field voice overat the end of it, we "arrive back on Earth" where 12 years have passed. In essence, he'd traveled twice. This was to bridge the gap between the two actors Jeff East & Chris Reeve. And to explain why he is 30. Amazing.
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Marmadukebagelhole — 10 years ago(September 24, 2015 05:25 AM)
He's able to think for himsef. He's probably able to pay attention to the dialogue in movies so that he can pick up on little tidbits like that.
Glasgow's FOREMOST authority
Italics
= irony. Infer the opposite please. -
coreycitn63 — 10 years ago(September 28, 2015 07:14 AM)
Kryptonite on its own could never reached Earth. Even with Krypton exploding and escaping Krypton's gravity and its Sun they never moved faster than light aka Warp Speed or hyperspace. It would take at least hundreds of thousand years to reach Earth and if they luckily had a clear trajectory to Earth not hitting any planet, moon, star or any asteroid on its way. Then it will have to deal with Earth's atmosphere of burning it up.