Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for Superman and Lois season 1, episode 4, "Haywire."
Superman and Lois just introduced a new form of Kryptonite into the Arrowverse, one potentially capable of giving Superman's powers to an ordinary human or raising the dead. In addition to being a nice nod to the comics that inspired the show, X-Kryptonite could become the source of many future storylines.
One of the biggest mysteries raised in the first few episodes of Superman and Lois centered around billionaire Morgan Edge and his taking over various mining concerns, including the Shuster Mines in Smallville, Kansas. Lois began investigating Edge's business dealings, determining that he had financially ruined all of the communities he had invested in by destroying unions and paying substandard wages. Lois also discovered that many of Edge's employees had disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
Sinister as this was, Edge had greater motivations than making a profit off the misfortunes of struggling small towns. He was searching for something and the something in question was revealed in the final scene of the Superman and Lois episode "Haywire," as Edge and his henchwoman Leslie Larr explored the Shuster Mine with some sort of specialized energy detector. After the super-strong Larr punched through a stone wall, the two confirmed what Edge had only suspected: the Shuster Mines were full of "enough X-Kryptonite to resurrect an army."
First appearing in Action Comics #261 (February 1960), X-Kryptonite was the product of a failed science experiment that Supergirl conducted while searching for a cure for Kryptonite poisoning. What Supergirl didn't realize was that she'd altered the Kryptonite she'd worked with so that its rays would become beneficial to humans rather than deadly to Kryptonians, transforming her pet cat, Streaky, into a Super-Cat with all the powers of a Kryptonian under a yellow sun. Unfortunately for Streaky, his new life as a defender of downtrodden kittens was cut short, as the effects of X-Kryptonite were temporary. While he did manage to regain his powers enough times to serve in the Legion of Super-Pets, Streaky was left completely powerless after all the Kryptonite on Earth was turned into iron. While Supergirl and Power Girl have both had cats as a nod to the pre-Crisis Streaky, a Super Cat has yet to make his way into any of the modern Supergirl comics.
It's possible that the existence of X-Kryptonite in the Arrowverse could explain the Kryptonian superpowers displayed by Leslie Larr and Subjekt-11, the super-strong and super-durable assassin who tried to kill Lois as she first began investigating Morgan Edge. While it's not impossible that Edge might have found a way to employ Kryptonian criminals, it would be unlikely given that all of the known surviving Kryptonians in the Arrowverse, apart from Superman and Supergirl, are sequestered in a single city, Argo, on a distant asteroid. It seems more likely, given his disturbing reference to resurrecting an army, that Morgan Edge has been financing experiments with X-Kryptonite and using it to give powers to his loyal followers. Doubtlessly the upcoming episodes of Superman and Lois will reveal just how far Edge has gone with his scientific necromancy.
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March 20, 2021 at 05:39AM
