King Jor-El was a refugee, along with his wife Lara Lor-Van, from the planet of Krypton, who came to Earth, following their planet's destruction
History
Jor-El was born on the planet Krypton and became one of it's greatest scientists. He married Lara Lor-Van and she became pregnant with their first child. However, before their son was born, Krypton began to destroy itself. With little choice, both he and Lara boarded a small rocket, which escaped their world before its demise. It crash landed on the planet of Earth, where Lara began going into labour. As Lara birthed their son, a group of soldiers rode out to attack the pair, but Jor-El killed them with his newly acquired heat vision under the effects of a yellow sun. He would then return to tend to Lara, who had successfully given birth to Kal-El.
Jor-El and Lara made a home in a secluded forest clearing, hoping to hide from the people of their new world. However, Jor-El determined that Mount Kristoff, a nearby volcano, would erupt and kill the people living in the city at its base. Not wishing to allow another catastrophe, Jor-El drew up plans to mitigate the eruption and allow the people to survive. He secretly handed them to Alexander Luthor, the royal advisor, who had a reputation as a man of wisdom and asked him to pass it on to the King. However, Luthor was in fact arrogant and superstitious, he refused to believed Jor-El's warnings and instead consulted astrological charts which did not predict disaster. When Jor-El realised what had happened, he went to the court to warn them personally.
The mountain indeed erupted and Jor-El and Lara saved the kingdom using their unearthly powers. Luthor was exiled as his arrogance had almost doomed the kingdom. Jor-El and Lara became King Thomas' closest advisors, but Jor-El and Queen Martha spent a single night together, a mistake that they both instantly regretted and confessed to. This almost broke up both couples, particularly when Martha became pregnant with Jor-El's child. However, when she gave birth to Bruce, Thomas, who could not father children, loved him as if he was his own son. Jor-El encouraged Thomas to pass Bruce off as his son, but honour demanded that Thomas reveal Bruce was a bastard, although he kept the fact that Jor-El was Bruce's father a secret from everyone, including Bruce. The two families became closer than ever, and raised Bruce alongside Kal-El and the El's daughter Zala.
After he had been exiled, Luthor had found a magic ring on the mountain, which had granted him great power but also left him disfigured and insane. While the Els and Waynes were travelling to Amazonia, where Zala was to be fostered in the court of Queen Hippolyta, Luthor attacked the Wayne's carriage. Thomas was killed instantly and Martha was fatally wounded, but Bruce survived thanks to his star-born blood. Jor-El chased after Luthor in a rage, but he was able to escape. As she was dying, Martha asked Jor-El and Lara to rule the kingdom until Bruce was ready to take the throne and the people were ready to accept him as king. With her final breath she asked them to look after Bruce.[1]
When Bruce and Kal-El came of age, Jor-El ordered Bruce to hunt and apprehend the people in the kingdom who possessed "Magic" which could harm the El's. Following the capture of a banshee, Jor-El took Bruce to the battlements of the castle, where he revealed to Bruce that he was his father and told him that he should be on the throne, as both he and Thomas had loved him as their son. Immediately after this, Jor-El was killed by a magic arrow to the eye fired from Hobb Forest.[2]
Powers and Abilities
Powers
- Kryptonian Physiology: Under the effects of a "yellow" sun, Jor-El possesses the same potential powers as an average Kryptonian. These include:
- Solar Energy Absorption: Under optimal conditions, this is the main source of Jor-El's super powers as they are contingent upon exposure to solar radiation from a yellow sun star system. His biological make up includes a number of organs which lack analogues in humans and whose functions are unknown. It is believed that between one or more of these and his bio-cellular matrix, "yellow" solar energy is stored for later use. This allows for the use of these powers to fade when yellow solar radiation is not available instead of immediate failure.
- Heat Vision: Jor-El can, as a conscious act, fire beams of intense heat at a target by looking at it. He can vary the heat and area affected.
- Super-Hearing: Jor-El's hearing is sensitive enough to hear any sound at any volume or pitch. With skill and concentration, he can block out ambient sounds to focus on a specific source or frequency.
- Enhanced Vision: Jor-El's vision processes the entire electromagnetic spectrum as well as allowing vast control over selective perception and focus.
This umbrella ability includes the following:- Electromagnetic Spectrum Vision: Jor-El can see well into most of the electromagnetic spectrum. He can see and identify radio and television signals as well as all other broadcast or transmitted frequencies. Using this ability, he can avoid detection by radar or satellite monitoring methods. This also allows him to see the aura generated by living thing.
- Telescopic Vision: This is the ability to see something at a great distance, without violating the laws of physics. Though limited, the exact extent of the ability is undetermined. In function, it is similar to the zoom lens on a camera.
- X-Ray Vision: This is the ability to see through any volume of matter except lead. Jor-Els can see things behind a solid, opaque object as if it were not there. He can focus this ability to "peel back" layers of an object, allowing hidden image or inner workings to be observed. The exact type of energy perceived—such as x-rays, cosmic rays, or some other energy invisible to normal humans—is unclear. This ability perceives an ambient energy source though, it does not involve the eye projecting a concentrated, possibly toxic, beam to be reflected back from objects.
- Microscopic Vision: This is the ability to see extremely small objects and images down to the atomic level.
- Infrared Vision: Jor-El can see with better acuity in darkness, and to a degree in total darkness.
- Flight: Jor-El is able to manipulate graviton particles to defy the forces of gravity and achieve flight. This ranges from hovering to moving in any posture, in any direction.
- Invulnerability: Due to the interaction of his dense molecular structure and supercharged bio-electric aura, Jor-El is nigh-invulnerable to extreme energy forces. In addition, his extends this protection against toxins and diseases.
- Superhuman Stamina: Jor-El is able to maintain continuous strenuous physical action for an indefinite period of time. This based on his body converting yellow solar radiation directly to energy but is limited by physiological and psychological needs to eat, drink, and sleep.
- Superhuman Strength: Jor-El's strength is augmented by yellow solar radiation interacting with the greater than human density, resilience and biological efficiency of his musculature. His strength is more an act of conscious will on energy fields than actual physical strength. It is this act of conscious will that enables him to perform physical feats that are beyond the mere application force, such as moving a mountain top without said rock crumbling under its own mass.
- Superhuman Speed: Jor-El is able to move at incredible speed by sheer force of will. This extends to his perceptions and allows for feats such as catching bullets in mid-flight as well as covering vast distances in little or no time.
This also confers: - Super-Breath: Jor-El is able to create hurricane force winds by exhaling air from his lungs. He can chill the air as it leaves his lungs to freeze targets. He can also reverse the process to pull large volumes of air or vapor into his lungs.
- Longevity: Jor-El can live longer than regular humans, remaining at his prime as long as he was under the exposure of the "yellow" sun.
Abilities
- Aviation: Jor-El piloted his rocket from Krypton to Earth.
- Science
- Statecraft
Weaknesses
- Kryptonian Physiology: Under the effects of a "yellow" sun, Jor-El possesses the same potential weaknesses as an average Kryptonian. These include:
Notes
- Jor-El was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, first appearing in Superman #53. However, the Dark Knights of Steel version of Jor-El first appeared in Dark Knights of Steel #1 by Tom Taylor and Yasmine Putri.
Related
- 6 Appearances of Jor-El (Dark Knights of Steel)
- 4 Images featuring Jor-El (Dark Knights of Steel)
- Quotations by or about Jor-El (Dark Knights of Steel)
- Character Gallery: Jor-El (Dark Knights of Steel)
Footnotes
  Superman Family member |