Superman’s New Immunity to Kryptonite Comes With a Terrible Cost

The first issue of Superman Unlimited flipped the Man of Steel’s world on its head. After he stopped a mysteriously stealthy meteor made of pure Kryptonite from killing anyone when it crashed on Earth, Superman fell into a coma for three months. When he finally came to, the world had forever changed. Kryptonite was more plentiful than ever before, common enough to be one of the most valuable resources on Earth, jettisoning the once small nation-state of El Caldero into one of the richest places in the world. Now just about anyone can get their hands on Kryptonite, and the world is all the more dangerous for the Superman Family. Of course, Big Blue has a secret weapon in his new golden form, but while it saved his life from the Kryptonite poisoning, it comes at a terrible price.

Superman’s Golden Shield Has a Time Limit

As Batman explains, somehow Superman’s body adapted to survive the Mount Rushmore-sized meteor of pure Kryptonite. Instead of dying, Superman’s body released all of his stored solar energy all at once, which both healed him and provided immunity to Kryptonite. Of course, there is a major downside to this. The new golden glow only lasts for about two hundred seconds, so Superman doesn’t have long to take down whoever is using Kryptonite against him. Still, that’s way more free time than he’s used to when dealing with Kryptonite. Unfortunately, this protective gold casing he’s able to produce takes all of his solar energy, down to the last joule. So yes, Superman will be immune to Kryptonite and stronger than ever when he goes golden, but after a little more than three minutes he’ll be as powerless as a normal human. And even worse, he’ll still be vulnerable to Kryptonite when he powers down, so if he missed any in that timeframe it’s practically game over. As a minor side note, Clark Kent also has to make sure to avoid spectrometers, since they’ll show the residual golden glow on his skin.

So the world just got a lot deadlier for all its Kryptonian’s, but somehow that’s still not the end of the bad news. After finally returning to Metropolis, Superman went to stop some low-level goons from robbing an armored car full of gold. He easily takes them all down, until they reveal they have Kryptonite weapons and bullets. Superman looks to be in trouble, but goes golden and takes them all down with ease.

Watching the whole thing was Metropolis’s resident talk-show host and wackjob the Creeper, who reasoned out that Superman’s golden form probably depowered him. Betting himself that he was right, he launched a high-powered spitball at the Man of Steel, who flinched. The Creeper should have been watching closer, because a social media reporter named Data Scream was streaming the whole thing, and now the entire world knows that Superman loses his powers after going gold. Having accidentally revealed one of the worst secrets possible, the Creeper scampers off, confident he’s going to hell for that one.

Kryptonite Is Here to Stay, But Superman Might Not Be

The entire world practically knows how Superman’s new powers work, but it’s still debating if Kryptonite is too dangerous to be selling or not. The president of El Caldero, Castilho, has an unsurprisingly vested interest in keeping the price of Green K high, and the talks of it being dangerous low. On the surface he’s all for Superman, even modeling their currency after the Man of Tomorrow as thanks for dropping the meteorite inside of El Caldero’s borders. Superman is on the hundred bills, and they even have Krypto the Superdog coins. Predictably though, President Castilho is far less thrilled with the world’s greatest superhero and his friends dropping the global Green K price by talking about its dangers.

Seeking to silence all of the voices that shout against his empire’s Kryptonite foundation, Castilho sends a box of Kryptonite bars to someone he believes will take care of that problem for him. The Toyman, one of Superman’s oldest and most volatile enemies, just received a practically unlimited source of Green Kryptonite to use to take down the Man of Steel, and with his sadistic creativity, he’s going to use it like nobody else could. Superman better be ready to use those two hundred seconds, because he’s going to need every single one to take down the Toyman and live to walk away.

Superman Unlimited #2 is on sale now!

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