James Gunn’s DC Universe will be WB’s second attempt at launching a cohesive cinematic universe. Just like the Guardians of the Galaxy over at Marvel, DC has its fair share of obscure and wacky comic book material that could aid in Gunn’s building of a DC cinematic universe, like Red Kryptonite.
Gunn has announced that his version of the DCU will adapt Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. This, while being a saga set in space, also has its share of wacky space concepts, while also pulling from the weirder history of Superman. If adapted faithfully, Gunn would be introducing one of the most hilarious and confusing concepts in Superman’s history.
Red Kryptonite has some diverse effects on Superman
Red Kryptonite is used by Supergirl in Woman of Tomorrow to give herself a power boost. However, the effects of this substance have been varied and harmful to Kryptonians. The most famous of these effects is that it gives Kryptonians an attitude. Depicted in Superman III, CW’s Supergirl and multiple times in the comics, Kryptonians tend to become more aggressive with their exposure to Red Kryptonite.
However, there are other effects that the substance has on Kryptonians, and they might as well be the effect of the Reality Stone that the substance resembles so much. Among the effects it has on Kryptonians are being turned into a dwarf, giving them an ant head, causing them to have excessive hair growth, growing extra limbs, ageing rapidly and being turned into a dragon. And these just scratch the surface of the various ways Red Kryptonite has been used in Superman stories.
However weird Red Kryptonite is, there are weirder versions of the substance
While Green Kryptonite is the most famous of the substances that affect Superman and other Kryptonians, there is a whole spectrum of Kryptonites that have varied effects on anyone with Kryptonian DNA.
Apart from Green and Red, other colours have different effects on Superman: Gold Kryptonite takes away his powers permanently, Pink Kryptonite makes him gay (don’t ask), Blue Kryptonite works as a cure for the effects of Red Kryptonite (but also functions like Green Kryptonite for Bizarro), Silver Kryptonite makes him delusional and paranoid and Black Kryptonite splits him into a purely good version and a purely evil version. Other than the ones mentioned, White Kryptonite affects plant life only and anti-Kryptonite is to humans what the Green kind is to Superman. X-Kryptonite has the same effects as Green Kryptonite, but can give any normal life form the powers of a Kryptonian.
Apart from all these, there is Periwinkle Kryptonite. It causes Kryptonians to lose their inhibitions, essentially making it so that they seem to be hitting the bottle a little too hard.
