There have been three different versions of Superman's family tree, benefitting the three different "stages" of the Superman character as presented in the comics. The original had Superman's father as Jor-L, his mother Lora, his cousin Kara Power Girl. This is the Earth-Two or Golden Age Superman Family tree.

Then there was the Earth-One version, whose culmination was found in E.Nelson Bridwell's "Krypton Chronicles", which, although extremely interesting, represent an amalgamation of many stories that sometimes evaded the original intent of Siegel. It seemed sometimes that anyone who did anything interesting on Krypton was named El.

Then there was the post-Crisis Byrne Kryptonian family tree---with Jor-El the son of Seyg-El (cute in-joke), descended from Kem-L, creator of the Eradicator 200,000 years ago and from Ran-L, Van-L, and Jan-L of the Great Clone Wars 100,000 years ago-- and Lara the granddaughter of Nara.

All of them can't be right.

We know that Jor-L/El (since they're pronounced the same, I'm going to go with the more common "Jor-El", okay?) was the second of that name, that his father was named Jor-El I. This from a bust in "Superman's Return to Krypton" that depicted Jor-El I's features. We also know that Lara is Lara II, from a bust of her mother, in the same ceremony. Siegel also mentions and writes stories about Supergirl and her parents, Zor-El and Alura, although he didn't create same.

In the newspaper strip, also written by Siegel, it was mentioned that Lara/Lora's father (actually, her name was pronounced close to "Laura", a sort of middle sound between the two) gave his delivering doctor a black eye, and that his mother could barely keep him from leaping out of her arms. Just like his grandson--Kal-El.(Remember, on the real Krypton, all the Kryptonians had superhuman strength, even in a Kryptonian environment.)

That's all that Siegel mentions of Superman's bloodline. However, an increased bit of information about Kryptonian society came with Supergirl's landing.

There was also a Zat-El, in a story, "Cival War of the Legion" who supposedly lived when Earth's sun was red and brought the dinosaurs to Earth, written by either Edmund Hamilton or Jerry Siegel (I've seen it attributed to both)---I reject it because the time when Earth's sun was red was long before life developed on Earth, and the time before dinosaurs was 500 billion years ago. It seems a little long to be keeping one family name alive...

For that matter, so does 200 thousand years.

Yet---there might be some truth to the story.

Byrne and the current chroniclers seem to have gotten some details of Krypton from Martha Ross Kent (the second Martha Kent) but they got the dates very wrong. Siegel was shown some of Supergirl's notes on Kryptonian culture, but imagine trying to compress the entire history of Earth into a single narrative. He left many hints with Weisinger, who in turn gave the story ideas Siegel hinted at to other writers. Ten thousand years is covered by ENB's narrative---which is 13,000 earthly years, over twice as long as recorded history on Earth. There are huge gaps, between three thousand and four thousand years in some cases.

Since ENB's seems to be the most scholarly and reasonable, I'm going to start with his---albeit with variations.

ENB's family tree starts with Erok-El, son of Tomun, son of Rugad, son of Felu--the first to use patrilineal names. (If he had gone back a little further, he would have gone back to the Great Revolt against the Marvaders who kidnapped the humans from earth and genetically altered them into Kryptonians, among others. After the Great Revolt, though, the Kryptonians settled back into savagery and only slowly climbed back to a high status of civilization.)

Erok-El was a conqueror of an entire continent of Krypton, Urrika, and helped found Erkol, the oldest city on Krypton. He married Milia, the daughter of a rival king. He ended cannibalism, blood-feud, and established a rule of law. He was not super-strong compared to his fellows, lathough he was stronger than normal, even by Kryptonian standards. That was circa 11,900 B.C., when Earth was in the grip of the last Ice Age. That is perhaps believable...just as some people can, without question, trace their descent to King David, circa 1000 A.D. in earthly culture. (But 200,000 years? 500 billion years? Nyaaaah.) Also bear in mind that the average lifespan of a Kryptonian was at least a thousand years, so the "generations" were often much longer.

Erok-El's son was the first Kal-El. He became the second bethgyr(king or emperor in the Kryptonese tongue). After him followed twenty generations of kings. Some were benevolent and some were tyranical. One of the last was Wab-El, the tyrant, Vad-El, his tyranical son, and his brother Hyr-El, who fled for his life after a quarrel with Vad-El.

Kyr-El's two sons were famous in Kryptonian legend. Jaf-El was a prophet of the monotheistic worship of Rao, the sun. Tio-El was a naturalist who prized the Winged Ones, gentle huge winged creatures.

When that area of Krypton was enveloped by a Noah-like flood, they and others rode the Winged Ones above the waters. (Other Kryptonians might have swam through the flood, being as strong as Superman, but if so they probably eventually succumbed to a lack of food and rest and drowned.) Let me remind you that, despite what later chroniclers said, all Kryptonians could leap great distances, lift tremendous weights, and were very resistant to injury, and could run at amazing speeds.

Five generations later, Bur-El, a descendent of Tio-El, married Wedna, daughter of Kil-Gor, inventor of the first timepiece, among other things. Kil-Gor lived circa 10,000 B.C....and yet, the next date we have from ENB is circa 2400 B.C., concerning Hatu-El's revolt eight thousand years later. We are asked to believe it took eight thousand years, longer than all of recorded history, for a race of physical and mental supermen to develop the idea of the telescope---even though Kil-Gor plainly demonstrated that two lenses would magnify images? (Of course, Kryptonians had their own telescopic vision past a certain age, but telescopes would make for even greater accuracy. Notice that Sul-El could use a crude, Galileo-style telescope to see creatures in a spacecraft---a spacecraft that could not even be spotted with the naked eye. Such tracking and definitions with a simple Galileio-style telescope would take superman sight and speed to begin with. Try to use a backyard telescope to spot the windows on a space shuttle, and you will see what I mean. ENB was hinting at the Kryptonians' super-abilities on Krypton without overtly defying the "party line" of Kryptonians only being super under a yellow sun.)

The truth for the long delay was hinted at in the otherwise-fictional "Cival War of the Legion". In it we meet Zat-El. According to him, "science was just getting started, when an atomic accident destroyed a small town". The result was to turn Kryptonians fanatically anti-science. A colony of scientists, to escape persecution, fled to the then-uninhabited continent of Lurvan and the Jewel Mountains, and there proceeded to build a Space Ark to flee Krypton altogether, where they were hated.

Zat-El was five generations later than Bur-El, Bur's great-great-grandson. Kil-Gor's discoveries sparked a quick explosion of scientific discoveries. They proved their mental excellence, aided by the photographic memory/total recall that they gain in later life along with their vision powers and advanced hearing.

Zat-El's colony of superhumans were able to construct an interstellar Ark in short order. What they made was a slower-than-lihgt drive powered by continuous atomic explosions, like the proposed Project Orion. Given their long lifetimes, the prospect of spending decades to reach another star was not a daunting one.

The Space Ark journeyed to another star system---one with a red sun---but not Earth in its infancy. Instead they named it--Daxxam.

Lar Gand, also called Mon-El and Valor, was a direct descendent of Zat-El by his duaghter, who travelled with him. So Mon-El's name wasn't quite as much a misnomer as Superman thought. Of course, genetic drift accounted for the Daxxamites' eventual vulernability to lead poisoning and resistence to Kryptonite poisoning.

Zat-El's son, Him-El, decided to stay on Krypton. The Dark Age that followed didn't permit anything as advanced as even a steam engine.

The Dark Ages that followed lasted much longer than our own. But eventually science and discovery became acceptable---around the years 3000 B.C.

Zat-El's distant descendent Val-El, read Bur-El's ancient tablet about Kil-Gor's discoveries. With that he rediscovered the principle of the compass. He led a fleet of four ships and discovered (or rediscovered) Lurvan and Vathlo island. His brother, Tro-El, led a near-mutiny, and instead founded Bokos, the island of thieves.

His descendent of a few centuries later, Sul-El, was the aforementioned discoverer of the telescope. He lived in Kandor, on Urrikka. He also spotted the incoming fleet of invading starcraft by a race called Vrangs, who enslaved the superhumanly strong Kryptonians with their ray-weaponry. The enslavement lasted decades---long enough for his young son Hatu-El to grow up.

Hatu-El helped lead the revolt against the Vrangs after the martyr Val-Lor died, discovering the principle of electricity---and much more---from Vrang technology. After that, technology exploded, fueld by a grwoing bioengineering and clone technology---and an equally growing (and justified) xenophobia against aliens.

So naturally--an alien lands on Krypton. Not just a visitor, but a beneficient mystic called the Cleric. He developed a following to rival the Raoist religion, especially differing about the then-current practice of using clones fo replacement parts, gleaned in part from Vrang technology.

The Science Council of that time (the first such body of that name, that assumed emergency power in the wake of the Vrang invasion) appointed one of their own to construct an instrument that will "not only stop the Cleric but prevent any similar act of heresy". The one chosen was Kem-El (or Kem-L), great-grandson of Hatu-El.

Kem-El developed a device called the Eradicator, arguably one of the most complex devices ever developed on Krypton. On many levels---genetic, cultural, environmental---it would work for the "purity" or Krypton. Among other things, if a Kryptonian left Krypton he would die (or actually, if he left Krypton's solar system.) If an off-worlder landed, they would die also.

That's the way it would have worked---except the Cleric, upon leaving Krypton with his following of Kryptonians, took the Eradicator with him, but didn't finish it's job on Krypton---or at least did so imperfectly. (Unless you want to have me believe that the Eradicator really had an effect on Krypton from a distance of several light years...

Meanwhile, a near Golden Age lasted on Krypton---not the 100,000 years ascribed to it by Byrne or others---but a mere 1000 years, from 2000 B.C. to 1000 B.C. roughly. (Which is still a lot longer than most Golden Ages last...)

Kem-El's great-grandson (remember Kryptonians can live at least a thousand years) was Ran-El (or Ran-L), a politican and legislator. His son, Van-El (or Van-L) became a major figure in the Great Clone War that followed. That war lasted a thousand years and devastated Krypton. Many Kryptonians augmented their already great strength with exoskeletal War Suits, which also protected the Kryptonians from environmental damage--gases and radiation. Despite their near-invulnerability, when fighting other Kryptonians, they needed all the protection they could get. That Van-El lasted through the entire thousand-year-war tells you something of Kryptonian longevity.

His son, Jan-El (or Jan-L) was one of the leaders of the Reconstruction Afterwards. (Supergirl's notes give no hint that the Black Zero terrorist organization was the true cause of Krypton exploding, or an act of nature as implied by Siegel...one isn't completely sure.)

Jan-El didn't marry until late in life---circa 1000 A.D. He wanted to make sure the environment was totally repaired before he had any children. After the Clone Wars, there was no centralized government for Krypton, but rather warring city-states and nations.

Jan-El's son Wir-El was an inventor of some reknown.

Wir-El's son Shu-El, was a reknowned mathematician.

Shu-El's two children were of a legal bent. His daughter Fedra Shu-El was a renowned jurist, and her brother Thar-El was a lawyer of some reknown. Thar-El's son, Plen-El was a novelist of great worth, whose novels were still being read in Jor-El's day. (Clark Kent has also written novels.)

Plen-El's son continued in an artistic vein, and was an entertainer of a synthesis of light and music whose bright compositions pleased the eye.

Nox-El's son took a more serious turn, for Fil-El became a doctor and physician.

His grandson Sorn-El turned to agriculture, developing new strains of grain-like growths that helped put an end to Krypton's food problems. (The Clone War had eliminated some species and rendered others sickly or nutritionally weak.)

Sorn-El's grandson Im-El was a physicist, returning to the scientific mode that so predominated in the El family.

He had two grandsons, Yu-El, who entered the priesthood of Rao, and Pir-El was a general in Krypton's Final War, and decisively won.

Pir-El's son, Tala-El, wrote the constitution of the united planet (with a few exceptions)_---opting for reviving the Science Council idea of Kem-El's time. Krypton became a scientocracy, where the scientists who had the most acclaimed developements determined the path of soecity.

Tala-El's son, Gam-El, rebuilt Kryptonopolis (a translation of the original Kryptonese, which basically meant Planet City. Kandor had been rebuilt after the Clone Wars in Jan-El's time.)

Gam-El's son is Superman's great-great-grandfather, oddly mentioned by neither ENB or Siegel or any other writer....Mar-El. Mar-El mysteriously disappeared, investigating a supposed landing by alien beings. Mar-El was married to Arra Dakka-Ra, and he and his father in law, Dakka-Ra, an explorer of the far north, were trying to revise far northern maps when they came across alien starcraft preparing for invasion by blue-skinned aliens. (This from the second Nightwing and Flamebird story. Though it was ficitonal, some of the details of Kryptonian history were suggested by Siegel who suggested them to Weisinger who in turn suggested them to Edmund Hamilton.) Mar-El stayed behind to try to delay them, but Dakka-Ra went back to alert the rest of Krypton. Dakka-Ra had a problem, though---even a Kryptonian such as himself, might not make it from the Arctic continent to Lurvan in time to alert the rest of the Kryptonese population. (The aliens maintained a field that blanked out communicaiton devices.) Even a Kryptonian could not leap the huge span across the sea. So Dakka-Ra rode one of the huge, gentle Winged Ones to Krypton's population centers.

Dakka-Ra became a hero to the Kryptonian people, rather like Paul Revere in American culture. They still hadn't forgotten the invasion of the Vrangs. Yet for Dakka-Ra and his pregnant daughter, it was a hollow victory...for as the Kryptonians arrived in force and drove off the blue-skinned invaders, no trace was found of Mar-El, even his body, and Dakka-Ra was afraid he might have been captured...even dissected.

We may try a guess at what happened to Mar-El, and for that we turn to the Greater Magellenic Cloud, home of the Kree.

We know that the original Kree were blue-skinned, but by "intermarriage" with other races (!) many of them lost that bluish coloring. In my Hall of Worlds, I gave reason for believing that many of the humanoid races in the universe had a similar origin....including the Kree.

We can make a guess at what happened to Mar-El...by noticing a member of the Kree race who later came to Earth, who uncharacteristically for that race held the traits of concern and love for other beings. His name was Mar-VELL, as if the original name had been warped via accented pronunciations by a different language. Captain Mar-Vell was one-sixteenth Kryptonian, having the same great-great-grandfather in common with Superman. The Kree are stronger than humans, although not so mighty as Kryptonians, and though Mar-El would have been freakishly strong among them, a single Kryptonian among the Kree would be overwhelmed, especially thousands of light-years from Krypton. The Kree investigated Krypton---an advanced world with warriors of unparelled strength, yet not an expansionist power---as a possible conquest for the Kree Empire. Krypton, however, was too strong, and the Kree felt that it would be too costly a victory.

That was why Mar-Vell felt so different from his own fellow Kree...and may have been a reason the cosmic entity Eon chose him as a recipient of greater powers. Mar-Vell was originally sent to Earth as an observer for the Kree, to see what use, if any, it might have to the Kree Empire. (The Kree had established stations here eons ago, but left them.) Sadly, Mar-Vell died, a victim of cancer.

As far as I know, the distant cousins Mar-Vell and Kal-El never met. Which is a shame, for they had much in common. His life was originally chronicled by Stan Lee and Gene Colan.

Mar-El left a widow and one son, Var-El. Var-El was a crackpot. Some of his strange theories were trotted out in an issue of "DC Comics PResents" which said he mastered a teleportation device that took him to Earth. Unfortunately, his teleportation machine never worked, and his alternative to Einstein's E equals m cee squared was a bust. Val-El, afflicted with depression and melancholia, only did one thing in his life of note. He created a saucerlike device and sent it into the cosmos, to find other thinking beings who might be lonely...like a message in a bottle. His success is shown by the story Theodore Sturgeon called, "A Saucer of Loneliness". (Clark, in his Hugo Danner phase especially, would have identified with his great-grandfather's loneliness.)

His wife was Salva Skar-Var, whose father was a rocket/missile expert.

Skal-Var's story was told in the same Nightwing and Flamebird story in which Dakka-Ra's was. Skal-Var tried to deflect a comet heading straight for Krypton, but the comet's electrical field caused the missiles to go awry. With no time to make another guidance system, he selflessly got into a missile and guided it manually, saving Krypton---but killing himself in the process. It is probable that Jor-El inherited his selflessness and rocket ability from Skal-Var. Certainly his courage was worthy of an ancestor of Superman's.

Var-El and Salva's son was Jor-El I, father of Jor-El II and grandfather to Superman. Jor-El I had one brother, Zim-El, an inventor and specialist in rocket fuels. (Zim-El married a daughter of Ruth-Ar and their son, Kru-El, was a weapons expert and a criminal who was later apprehended by authorities.) Jor-El I was a historian obsessed with the past, although he did suggest ways to improve mass production based on researches into previous eras. Many of the details of John Byrne's version of Jor-El---mode of dress, interests---were drawn from a sketch Clark once did for the second Martha Kent, of his grandfather, Jor-El I, when he was a young man. Martha understandably got the two of them confused---the mode of dress among Kryptonians changed greatly in a generation. (When he was older, he adopted the same dress as those of the younger generation, as shown by his bust at Jor-El II's wedding.)

Jor-El I married a Nimda An-Dor, and thereby hangs a tale.

Interestingly enough, both Jor-El (II) and Lara were one-quarter non-Kryptonian. It may have been one of the bonds that brought them together.

ENB was an accomplished researcher, and I'm convinced, towards the end, he knew much more about the reality of Superman than he let on. He said that Jor-El I's wife was Nimda An-Dor, daughter of An-Dor.

What he didn't mention was that An-Dor---was a title.

It meant the "Healer". The "Physician". Or perhaps more tellingly..."The Doctor".

Indeed, Kara/Supergirl's notes on An-Dor indicate he was a very unusual and eccentric character. He seemed almost afraid of the other Kryptonians, and certainly he never performed any huge leaps or feats of great, Kryptonian-level strength. He travelled in a strange, boxlike affair...which he called a tardis.

From that last detail there can be little doubt that Nimda's father was Doctor Who, of the BBC TV-series of the same name. (The series sprang from a security breach in UNIT, a British counterintelligence group.) Who is over six hundred years old, and ranged over space and time. Certainly there is no physical reason he can't be Jor-El's grandfather. For those who say the good Doctor rarely showed passion in his travels, I can either refer you to the last TV-movie made about him---or to the fact that in his first adventures, he was accompanied by his granddaughter, with the earthly name of Susan Foreman. (Whether she was totally Gallifreyian or part Gallifreyian and part-earthling is debatable. If she was part-earthly, the Doctor would have had an affair with an earthly woman around 1910...which, combined with his recently revealed half-human status, could explain his fascination with Earth.)

Who only stayed on Krypton for a few years, and when he left, he took his Kryptonian wife with him as a companion (and given her strength, no doubt an effective defender). Nimda was an orphan raised by the state. Jor-El, of course, inherited part of Who's brillance, and Who's great-grandson, Superman, also had a habit of picking up strange and eccentric companions....

We can only speculate about what happened to Who's wife or lover, but we get a good clue from her name, in Supergirl's notes---

Heggra.

Readers of the NEW GODS series by Jack Kirby know that Darkseid, ruler of Apokolips, had a mother named Heggra. Now that Heggra is definitely monstrous in appearance. Yet Darkseid and his two sons, Kalibak and Orion, have immense, Kryptonian-level strength. Could Who's tardis have landed on the dreaded world Apokolips? Could the evil superbeings of Apokolips have captured Heggra, who heroically sacrified herself so Who and his companions would be safe? Could she have later been made a royal concubine and had two children---Heggra the second and Steppenwolf---by a member of the royal family? On Apokolips, her powers would be interesting but not freakish.

That would explain both the immense strength of Orion---and the similarity of names between the two Heggras. It's speculation, but reasoned speculation, I think.

Dr. Who may have had at least two other grandsons on different worlds. One of the few recorded statements by An-Dor (Dr. Who) concerns his three grandchildren---Susan, Ming, and Sarek. All three are very un-Kryptonian names. We know who Susan is. We can make reasoned guesses at the other two...

Could Who's grandson Ming be Ming the Merciless, ruler of Mongo? Like Jor-El and Who, he had a brillant mind---but unlike them, he used it for acquiring power. That would of course mean that his daughter, the plotting and somewhat nymphomaniac Aura, was also descended from Who and related to Jor-El and Superman.

Could Sarak be the Vulcan ambassador of the 23rd century who married a human woman named Amanda Grayson (descended from Sherlock Holmes' family and Dick Grayson, it seems) and fathered Mr. Spock? (I suspect that when Dr. McCoy was sent into the thirties, and was driven temporarily insane, that he lost his tricorder, and there was a small encyclopedia built into its circuits. Later, it was found by Gene Roddenberry and sixties' science, at least, was able to unleash some of the tricorder's files...although Roddenberry filled in the gaps with his own plentiful imgination.)

Mr. Spock, like Who, Jor-El, and Ming, was possessed of a brillant mind, and like Kal-El, he knew what it was like to be always.... different....being a half-human in a Vulcan society, and then a half-Vulcan on a human starship.

It's odd that some of Superman and Jor-El's relatives haven't even been born yet, but such paradoxes happen when you're related to a Time Lord---and it's fitting that a member of the time-spanning Legion of Super-Heroes should have a Time Lord as an ancestor.

Jor-El I and Nimda had two sons. One was Jor-El II. The other was Zor-El, who was the father of Kara/Supergirl. Zor-El, a scientist like his brother, married Allura In-Ze. (Kryptonian female last names are their father's entire names.) In-Ze was the uncle of Lyla Ler-Rol, Jor-El and Lara's good friend, and an emotion-movie actress---the Marilyn Monroe or Sharon Stone of her day. (One might note that Kara/Supergirl occasionally had acting ambitions also.)

(There is a third brother mentioned in the stories, Nim-El, father of Don-El, but that was to explain Don-El's resemblence to Superman. Since Kandor---at least as a minitaurized city in a huge bell jar---is a fantasy/invention of Otto Binder's, we do not need to include him.)

Jor-El married Lara II, who if we can believe ENB, was an astronaut in the fledgling space program of the time. They had built a small colony on one of Krypton's moons, and were looking to expand it somewhat--not to leave Krypton, but to protect it from threats like the Vrangs.

Lara was the daughter of Lor-Van, who was an astronomer. Though a scientist, he was also "a bit of a roughneck", stronger even than the Kryptonian norm. He gave the doctor who delivered him a black eye, and it was with difficulty that his mother kept him from leaping out of his arms. He participated in many Kryptonian sports. (We know of at least one such sport, swimming in anti-gravity floating pools.) He was a great athelete, and one tries to imagine their sports...high leaps over 600 feet, weight lifting in the scores of tons, foot racing as fast as the Indianopolis Speedway...

Lara I, her mother, was an archivist, and it may have been from her that Clark inherited his passion for collecting facts, which is so necessary for a reporter. Her dress and manner were similar to Byrne's portrayal of Superman's mother, not grandmother---again, he got the two similar names mixed up.

Lara I's last name was given as Rok-Var. That should indicate her father's name was Rok-Var. Actually,her grandfather was named Rok-Var, and was the brother of Skal-Var. That's because Nara, Lara I's mother, had a child out of wedlock.

Way out.

When Nara was young, an alien herald for a world-devouring master came to Krypton, but Nara awoke his compassion, and so he refrained from summoning his master and ending Krypton. This silver-skinned alien was master of strange cosmic forces, and with a gesture, left his "genetic imprint" on the fair Nara---without touching her. The result was Lara I.

The alien was smooth and shiny, like silver, and rode the stars' paths on a silvery flat object.There can be little doubt that this alien was Norrin Radd, native of Zenn-La, herald to the being Stan Lee called Galactus...better known as the Silver Surfer.

It is doubtless from Norrin Radd that Superman inherited part of his nobility, his self-sacrificing nature---and yes, his martyr complex. There has only been one meeting recorded between Superman and his great-grandfather, the Silver Surfer...and neither of them was by the original creators, so we're not even sure of the truth of that.

Lor-Van's mother was Nara Dng-Les. She herself as a news-gatherer--an investigative reporter for the Science Council. She may have been the source of Clark Kent's journallistic abilities. Her father was Dng-Les, a distinguished judge who first banished the death penalty on Krypton.

The Van family claimed to be descended from Val-Van, one of the most famous of Kryptonian heroes, who lived in the era just past Hatu-El's time, and the defeat of the Vrangs. Val-Van had a reputation for honesty and fearlessness---which is why he was chosen to be a Green Lantern by the Guardians of Oa. He not only helped Krypton during this chaotic time, but ended slavery among many worlds, in the Vegan system and others, according to Elliot S. Maggin, who somehow got word of this Kryptonian GL. He is mentioned fleetingly in the otherwise fictional Maggin novel, LAST SON OF KRYPTON.

Val-Van's ring was later owned by Tomar-Re, the Green Lantern of Xudar, who tried--unsuccessfully--to save Krypton from its destruction. That same ring later came into the possession of John Stewart of Earth. So Superman is himself descended from a Kryptonian superhero, the Green Lantern Val-Van.

Val-Van brought a bride from the stars. She didn't have the superhuman strength of Kryptonians, but Val-Van loved her greatly, and used advanced Kryptonian genetics to bring her children to full term. The Kryptonian people loved her because she was beloved by their hero. Her name?

Leia Skywalker.

Leia claimed to be descended from some famous people in her extragalactic culture, including the Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker, and his father, Darth Vader. Note that Luke, like his distant descendent Superman, was basically a farm boy who found out he had extraordinary powers, the foster son of a farming couple. Note that Superman's cape and flamboyant clothing can find an echo in the clothing of his sinister ancestor's---Darth Vadar's.

There is no indication that Superman had any psychic affinity for any mystical "Force"....a trait that has died out by genetic dilution. (It's unknown whether Superman, in his Clark Kent identity, left some information about the "Star Wars" empire with George Lucas, or whether Lucas found another source.)

So, Kal-El has a family tree that goes back over thirteen thousand years....and has roots not only in Krypton, but in many places around the cosmos.

Those interested with comments, suggestions, things I have forgotten, things I messed up, contact me at...
E-Mail:al.schroeder@nashville.com

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Speculations Copyright © Al Schroeder. "Superman", of course, is currently owned by DC Comics/Warner Communications. All other characters copyrighted by their respective owners.