Jor-El
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Jor-El is a fictional character that appears in the Superman comics published by DC Comics. A Kryptonian, he is the biological father of Superman and the husband of Lara Lor-Van.
Jor-El was a highly respected scientist on the planet Krypton before its destruction. He foresaw the planet's fate, but was unable to convince his colleagues in time to save their race. Jor-El was, however, able to save his infant son, Kal-El, sending him in a homemade rocket ship to the planet Earth just moments before Krypton's destruction.
After constructing his Fortress of Solitude, Superman honored his deceased biological parents with a statue of Jor-El and Lara holding up a globe of Krypton. In the Richard Donner cut of Superman II, Lex Luthor notes a resemblance between Jor-El and Superman), Jor-El is usually portrayed as closely resembling the later appearance of Kal-El, as the adult Superman.
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[edit] History
[edit] Golden and Silver Age versions
Jor-El was first referred to in Action Comics #1 in 1938, but made his first full-fledged appearance in the Superman newspaper comic strip in 1939, where his name was spelled as "Jor-L"; his name first appeared as being spelled "Jor-El" in a 1942 Superman novel. After the introduction of DC's multiverse system in the 1960s, it was established that the Golden Age version of Superman's father was named "Jor-L" and lived on the Krypton of the Earth-Two universe, while "Jor-El" was the father of the Silver Age version of Superman and lived on the Krypton of the Earth-One universe.
A 1948 retelling of Superman's origin story first delved into detail about Jor-El, though his formal and more familiar Silver Age aspects were firmly established starting in the late 1950s and over the course of the next several decades, with a definitive summarization in the 1979 miniseries The World of Krypton (not to be confused with the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths late 1980s comic special of the same name).
As it was summarized in this miniseries (and in various other Silver Age stories), Jor-El was Krypton's leading brilliant scientific genius, having been the inventor of, among things, the "Jor-El" (a hovercar) and the discoverer of the Phantom Zone (and the inventor of the Phantom Zone projector). He lived in Krypton's major city of Kryptonopolis.
Even before Jor-El's birth, the El family was renowned across Krypton for its various contributions to Kryptonian society. Ancestors of Jor-El included: Val-El, a famous explorer; Sul-El, the inventor of Krypton's first telescope; Tala-El, the author of Krypton's first planetary constitution; Hatu-El, the inventor of Krypton's first electromagnet and electric motor; and Gam-El, the father of modern Kryptonian architecture.
Jor-El had two brothers: Zor-El, who lived in Argo City and eventually became the father of Kara Zor-El, alias Supergirl, and an identical twin brother named Nim-El, who lived in Kandor. In several stories, Jor-El's father was established as Jor-El I, and his mother as Nimda An-Dor.
Jor-El eventually met and married Lara Lor-Van, an astronaut in Krypton's fledgling space program (which was soon permanently grounded after Jax-Ur blew up one of Krypton's inhabited moons), and the two soon had an infant son, Kal-El.
When Krypton began experiencing a series of earthquakes, Jor-El investigated, and soon discovered that Krypton's core was greatly unstable, and would eventually explode, taking the entire planet and its populace with it. Jor-El tried to convince the members of Krypton's ruling body, the Science Council, of this impending disaster, and urged re-establishing Krypton's space program so giant spacecrafts could be built to carry the populace to another habitable world. However, the Council was dismissive of Jor-El's findings, and refused to comply with his plan.
Frustrated, Jor-El continued his work on space travel on his own, hoping to build a spacecraft to save his own family; this included launching several smaller test rockets (one of which included the family dog, Krypto). However, as time ran short, Jor-El soon found that he would only have enough time to build a spacecraft to save his son Kal-El. Jor-El decided to aim for sending Kal to Earth, realizing he would gain superpowers under Earth's yellow sun and lower gravity. As Krypton finally went through its final destructive stages, Jor-El and Lara placed their son in a rocket, and launched him toward Earth, before perishing along with almost all the rest of the planet's population.
[edit] Modern Age versions
After the 1985-1986 miniseries Crisis on Infinite Earths and John Byrne's 1986 miniseries The Man of Steel rewrote Superman's origins, details about Jor-El's background and character were changed. Under Byrne's version, Jor-El inhabited a cold, emotionally sterile Krypton where even bodily contact was forbidden. Jor-El was considered a "throwback" for actually expressing emotions toward his wife Lara, and for his favoring the less sterilized days of past Kryptonian eras. Another change in this version was Jor-El genetically altering his son's fetus (gestating in a "birthing matrix") to allow him to leave Krypton (in this version of the mythos, Kryptonians were genetically "bonded" to the planet itself, not allowing them to leave), and merely attaching a warp engine to the matrix instead of constructing a ship wholesale. The result was that when the birthing matrix opened on earth, Kal-El was "born," on Earth.
In the 1990s series Starman, it was revealed that in his youth, Jor-El met a time-travelling Jack Knight and Mikaal Tomas, two individuals who both bore at various points the "Starman" mantle. Knight and Tomas had been accidentally sent 70 years back in time and hurled across space. It was in this way Jor-El first learned of Earth's existence; in return, Jor-El helped Knight and Tomas escape from his overbearing father, Seyg-El.
In the 2004 Superman miniseries Superman: Birthright, Jor-El, along with Krypton and Lara, was more-or-less reverted back to his Silver Age versions, though with updated touches (such as Lara contributing equally to the effort of sending Kal-El, once again an infant while on Krypton, to Earth). In this version, Jor-El discovers Earth moments before launching his son's spacecraft to Earth; how this affects the continuity of the above-mentioned Starman tale is uncertain. Also, the conclusion of the miniseries has the adult Superman, on Earth, seeing his parents through Luthor's time-space communicator, and on Krypton, seconds before its destruction, Jor-El and Lara see their son alive and well on Earth and know that their efforts were successful.
However, a current storyline co-written by Geoff Johns and Superman director Richard Donner presents yet another version of Jor-El and Krypton which reintroduces the General Zod and the Phantom Zone criminals into mainstream continuity. With art by Adam Kubert, Jor-El is depicted for the first time with a beard and the design of Kryptonian society is distinct yet again from Birthright, incorporating elements of both pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths continuity and Donner's work on the first two Christopher Reeves films, in particular the notion of Krypton's Council threatening Jor-El with harsh punishment were he to make public his predictions of their planet's imminent doom.
Jor-El is shown here to have been mentored by friend and noted scientist Non, who corroborated Jor-El's findings regarding Krypton's impending destruction, when the two were arrested and brought before the Council by Zod and Ursa. When Non defies the council's dire prohibitions and elects to spread the word of the coming apocalypse, he is abducted by Council agents and apparently lobotomised, thus explaining the character's mute simple-mindedness in line with his film portrayal. Appalled, Zod and Ursa propose to Jor-El that they band together and overthrow the council, but Jor-El will have none of it. When their murderous insurrection fails, the Council force Jor-El to banish them to the Phantom Zone and never speak of his findings again, lest he face the same fate. For this perceived betrayal, Zod declares that he will escape and conquer Krypton (confident that Jor-El will actually discover some way to save the planet) and force the scientist and his son to kneel before him.
The current version of the Fortress of Solitude (also designed to essentially be visually identical to the Donner and Bryan Singer films) now contains an advanced interactive "recording" of Jor-El which, although visually dissimilar to Marlon Brando, is otherwise identical in function to that featured in Superman Returns.
Whether this further revision of continuity has an in-universe rationale is as yet unknown, but it may stem from continuity changes wrough by the reality-fracturing conclusion of Infinite Crisis.
[edit] Appearances in other media
Jor-El has appeared (usually briefly) in various media adaptations of the Superman story. Media portrayals of Jor-El tend to vary greatly in how he's presented, often diverging from the original source material.
[edit] Movies
Jor-El was portrayed by Nelson Leigh in the 1948 Superman movie serial. Marlon Brando played Jor-El in the 1978 Superman movie, and filmed additional footage for the sequel, Superman II, before creative differences caused his footage to end up on the cutting room floor. It has been restored for the 2006 revised version, Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut. In 2006, two years after Brando's death, he "reprised" the role of Jor-El in 2006's Superman Returns, through the harvesting of archived video footage and sound clip outtakes. In the 1978 movie, Jor-El is shown as wearing the Superman "S"-shield symbol as the family crest of the House of El (it was in fact Brando's idea to wear the symbol in this manner). In the second-most recent canonized origin for Superman, Birthright, the shield is a Kryptonian symbol for hope, and not only is it worn by Jor-El in a similar manner to Brando of the first feature film, but it adorns all manner of Kryptonian flags, clothing, spaceships and equipment. However subsequent revisions seem to have reverted to the film version in which the shield is unique to members of the House of El, with other Kryptonians wearing individualised family crests.
[edit] Animation
The Superman animated series in the mid 1990s uses the character of Jor-El (voiced by Christopher McDonald) as the hero of its first two episodes. In the first part of the three-part opener, "The Last Son of Krypton", Jor-El is a scientist examining the reasons for various earthquakes across the planet. His findings indicate Krypton's imminent destruction. Here, the animated Jor-El diverges from the comic version. While both version feature the ruling council of Krypton dismissing Jor-El's findings, Jor-El is portrayed as a far less respected member of the scientific community, and the episode also gives a specific reason to the council's dismissal: Brainiac. Brainiac, the operating system that runs the planet and chronicles its history and information, insists that Jor-El's calculations are incorrect, and the council members trust Brainiac much more than Jor-El. (Also, Jor-El's radical plan to put Krypton's entire population in the Phantom Zone while Krypton is destroyed for later transference to another planet is greeted by the council with nothing less than hatred.) This is the same Brainiac who becomes Superman's later nemesis.
When Jor-El investigates the difference between Brainiac's findings and his own, he discovers that Brainiac has lied to the council to save himself. Brainiac counters by sending the authorities after him, leading to a protracted action sequence of Jor-El evading the police. This is one of several scenes which portray Jor-El as a skilled fighter and pilot, his primary vehicle resembling a flying scooter. With mere minutes before Krypton is to be destroyed, he loads Kal-El into the rocketship which had been intended for a single Kryptonian who would restore Krypton's population from the Phantom Zone, and dies with his wife as the planet explodes. Jor-El's legacy on the show is carried on by the constant battles between Superman and Brainiac (he is as much Jor-El's enemy as he is Superman's) and the Phantom Zone criminals Jax-Ur and Mala, who were foiled by Jor-El. Brainiac, in the meantime, has uploaded himself onto an orbiting satellite. Brainiac in this form next appears at the end of the third part of the three-parter, taking over an alien spaceship.
As a possible tie to the resemblance between father and son, Christopher McDonald also voices an older Superman in the Batman Beyond two parter, "The Call".
Jor-El also appears in the Justice League Unlimited episode "For the Man Who Has Everything", an adaptation from the print story of the same name by Alan Moore, which originally appeared in 1985's Superman Annual. In the story, Superman has an induced fantasy where he sees what his life would be like if Krypton had not exploded, after being attacked by Mongul's plant "the Dark Mercy". Jor-El is portrayed as an old man whose sky-is-falling theories disgraced him, but has done well enough for himself since then to have a sense of humor about it. As a bit of an in-joke, his facial design matches Superman's from the first season of Justice League, plus he slightly resembles Marlon Brando. Jor-El is again portrayed by Christopher McDonald.
[edit] Television
Jor-El was portrayed (uncredited on-screen) by Robert Rockwell in the first episode of the 1952 Adventures of Superman television series.
Jor-El was played by George Lazenby in the late 1980s Superboy television series.
David Warner played Jor-El in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.
Terence Stamp played the voice of Jor-El in Smallville. Stamp previously played General Zod in Superman & Superman II. Tom Welling, who plays the young Clark Kent on the show, played a young Jor-El during a flashback showing Jor-El visiting Smallville in the early 1960s. Whilst on Earth Jor-El had an affair with Lana Lang's aunt in which she was killed before he left Earth from a few gunshot wounds that bounced off of Jor-El.
In the television series Smallville, Terence Stamp provides the voice of Jor-El. The character is never seen on-screen, with the exception of a glimpse during a flashback scene in the episode "Memoria" and another flashback episode in which Jor-El is played by Tom Welling (the actor who plays Clark). In a great divergence from any other version of Jor-El (who is usually shown as having benevolent reasons for sending Kal-El to Earth), Clark finds a message from his biological father in the spaceship that carried him to Earth, instructing him to conquer Earth and lead as a tyrant; this was proven to be incorrect by the end of the show's fourth season and continuing into Season 5, when Jor-El's words are revealed to actually mean that he wanted to prepare Clark for the coming meteor shower, the arrival of Brainiac, and by the fifth season finale, the dreaded arrival of General Zod.
Jor-El's relationship with Clark can best be described as turbulent. Throughout the series, Clark defies Jor-El countless times and must deal with the repercussions. In the episode "Exodus", Jor-El demands that Clark return himself to him so that he can begin his quest to rule Earth. Clark, fearing the path Jor-El has laid out for him, destroys his spaceship, which was a vessel for Jor-El's commands. As a result of the following explosion, Martha Kent, Clark's human mother, is injured and loses her unborn child. Overwrought with guilt, Clark puts on a Red Kryptonite ring and runs away to Metropolis.
Jonathan Kent, Clark's human father, discovers the location of his son and seeks Jor-El's help in retrieving Clark. Jor-El makes an agreement with Jonathan, stipulating that he will help Jonathan if Clark is eventually returned to him. Jonathan agrees and is given temporary Kryptonian superpowers which he uses to bring Clark home but ignores his part of the bargain. Later, at the end of the episode "Hereafter", Jonathan suffers a near-fatal heart attack.
In the episode "Covenant", Jor-El abducts a young girl and reprograms her into a superpowered girl named Kara. Kara manipulates Clark into joining her by saying that Clark's family and friends will betray him. When Kara's predictions prove correct, Clark, having no one else to turn to, returns to Jor-El and is reprogrammed into Kal-El of Krypton, a cold, single-minded being with no memory of Clark's life. Kal-El begins his mission of retrieving three Kryptonian crystals that were scattered throughout the world. Martha disrupts Jor-El's plan by exposing Clark to Black Kryptonite, freeing the "Clark" persona and eliminating the colder Kryptonian side of Kal-El.
In the episode "Sacred", Clark activates a message from Jor-El, and Jor-El explains that Krypton's knowledge was encoded in the three crystals, which were brought to Earth and hidden at far reaches of the world, and that his mission was to have Clark unite the three stones and prevent Earth's ultimate destruction. In the season finale, "Commencement" (and continuing into the fifth season premiere, "Arrival"), Clark unites the three stones, which meld into one crystal, and is transported to the North Pole, where the Kryptonian crystal forms the Fortress of Solitude.
Afterwards, Clark enters the Fortress where the final phase in his journey is about to be completed. However, Clark interrupts his mission by aiding Chloe, who, having been accidentally transported along with Clark to the Arctic, followed him into the Fortress and is freezing to death. Jor-El initially refuses to allow Clark to leave, but relents, stating that Clark must return to the Fortress before sunset. Clark fails to return and as a result, he is stripped of his powers. Although Clark is grateful to finally be able to live a "normal" life, it comes back to haunt him when he is fatally shot in the episode "Hidden."
Jor-El inhabits Lionel Luthor's body and brings Clark's corpse to the Fortress where Clark is resurrected as a Kryptonian. After being revived, Clark is told by Jor-El that there will be a price to pay for this favor: the life of someone close to Clark must be taken in exchange for his. In the episode "Reckoning", the 100th episode of Smallville, when Lana is killed in a car accident and a grief-stricken Clark begs him for help, Jor-El gives Clark a crystal that will send him 24 hours into the past. Clark uses the crystal to go back in time and prevents the accident that took Lana's life, but unfortunately, Jonathan Kent dies of a heart attack following a confrontation with Lionel Luthor. In the original timeline Jonathan was on his way to meet with Lionel but never met him as Lana was killed in an accident. When Clark went back to the past and saved her, Jonathan didn't have a reason to stop and met Lionel and then died from a heart attack.
[edit] Novels
In the Elliot S! Maggin 1978 text novel Superman: Last Son of Krypton, Jor-El is shown as having sent a navigation probe ahead of Kal-El's vehicle, in order to find a suitable foster parent on his new planet.
In Kryptonian society, scientific achievement was a preeminent virtue, so Jor-El's probe was programmed to seek out the leading scientific mind on Earth, presumably to adopt Kal-El. The probe landed (in the early 1950s, although the date is non-specific) in Princeton, New Jersey, where it soon appeared outside the window of Albert Einstein and communicated its mission to him through mental telepathy, along with precise details of where Kal-El's rocket would land (near Smallville, Kansas), several days later.
Einstein concluded he was too old to raise a super-child and would probably not live to see him become an adult. He reasoned the child should have both a father and mother, and also that on Earth, the qualities of kindness and honesty would be more important than sheer scientific knowledge to instill into a super-powerful being. (The real-life fact that Einstein had fled from despotic Nazi Germany not so long before was noted as a possible factor in this decision.)
Einstein then traveled incognito to Smallville to seek out a suitable family (sneaking away from fawning government handlers, assigned to protect/babysit Einstein as a vital national resource).
In the course of several days in Smallville, he encountered Jonathan and Martha Kent and decided they would be ideal foster parents for the Kryptonian child, due to their honest and generous natures. He arranged for the Kents to be in the immediate area when the space-ship landed, thus ensuring Kal-El would be found and later adopted by them.
