# Attempting to Cross Breed H. Sapiens and H. Kryptoniens **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 23, 2014, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attempting-to-cross-breed-h-sapiens-and-h-kryptoniens/696278 "2014-08-23T05:33:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attempting-to-cross-breed-h-sapiens-and-h-kryptoniens/696278/21 "2014-08-24T19:44:30Z")
Well, you’ve defined them as belonging to the same genus “H.” which we can presume to mean “Homo” in both cases. So that increases the probability that they’d be capable of producing offspring, though likely sterile. Mammalian biology being what it is, you’d probably have the best luck crossing a Kryptonian female with a Sapien male. This may make initial conception more difficult due to the egg being made of “tougher stuff” than the sperm. The logistics of Homo gestation though require that the baby be unable to punch a hole through the uterus, or to burn holes in the Mother’s internal organs as soon as its eyes fully develop. In general, inter-species hybrids are less likely, and almost always infertile, so the breeding process would be fraught with severe emotional consequences and might best be overseen by a fertility specialist. This way the egg could be placed in a kryptonite petri dish during insemination, and kryptonite surgical instruments used to encourage implantation. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attempting-to-cross-breed-h-sapiens-and-h-kryptoniens/696278/22 "2014-08-24T19:47:08Z")
> [@MLS](#): > > In the first Christopher Reeve Superman movie, he told Lois “I never lie.” He was lying when he said that. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attempting-to-cross-breed-h-sapiens-and-h-kryptoniens/696278/23 "2014-08-24T19:54:59Z")
> [@MLS](#): > > In the first Christopher Reeve Superman movie, he told Lois “I never lie.” He’s hardly the first man to say that to a woman. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attempting-to-cross-breed-h-sapiens-and-h-kryptoniens/696278/24 "2014-08-24T19:58:16Z")
> [@MLS](#): > > In the first Christopher Reeve Superman movie, he told Lois “I never lie.” > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > He was lying when he said that. - head explodes. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attempting-to-cross-breed-h-sapiens-and-h-kryptoniens/696278/25 "2014-08-24T21:28:30Z")
Frank Miller’s take was that a human - Kryptonian coupling, at a minimum, would have to proceed via artificial insemination (“Terans are too fragile.”) In his Dark Knight series, Supe and Wonder Woman have a child, but then she is a goddess. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attempting-to-cross-breed-h-sapiens-and-h-kryptoniens/696278/26 "2014-08-25T00:47:11Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Wasn’t that Laurel Kent, mentioned above in post #5? Who turns out to be a Manhunter. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attempting-to-cross-breed-h-sapiens-and-h-kryptoniens/696278/27 "2014-08-25T01:01:47Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Wasn’t that Laurel Kent, mentioned above in post #5? Yep. She was calling herself Elan, at the time (since, they were trying to keep Superboy from learning too much about his personal future, she used an anagram of ‘Lane’ as an alias), and her being a Kent was a big reveal at the end, so she had to deflect his interest subtly. (Then, she became a Manhunter, about the same time as ‘no, Humans and Kryptonians can’t interbreed’ was introduced, though I don’t know if there’s a cause and effect, there.) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attempting-to-cross-breed-h-sapiens-and-h-kryptoniens/696278/28 "2014-08-25T02:38:01Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > I could swear…SWEAR…I’ve seen a scene where Superman tells Lois that it’s never going to happen with him emphasizing that he’s an ALIEN. He even implied that their parts don’t match up. Then he flies off and she crumples in a crying heap. > > It would be some alternate universe stuff written by Millar or someone like that. Marvel’s in-house Superman knockoff – Hyperion, aka “Mark Milton” – had that exact exchange with his Lois-Lane-equivalent. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attempting-to-cross-breed-h-sapiens-and-h-kryptoniens/696278/29 "2014-08-25T02:54:16Z")
> [@astro](#): > > IIRC there was one “What if” series with Zod or a similar military Kryptonian coming to Earth sans Kal-El being around and he was killing Earth women by having sex with them. Considering that Kryptonians are probably faster than a speeding bullet in other respects, I can understand how that could be fatal. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attempting-to-cross-breed-h-sapiens-and-h-kryptoniens/696278/30 "2014-08-25T03:42:27Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Considering that Kryptonians are probably faster than a speeding bullet in other respects, I can understand how that could be fatal. I can hear it now: “It was good for me; was it good for you?” 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attempting-to-cross-breed-h-sapiens-and-h-kryptoniens/696278/31 "2014-08-25T04:01:55Z")
> [@astro](#): > > IIRC there was one “What if” series with Zod or a similar military Kryptonian coming to Earth sans Kal-El being around and he was killing Earth women by having sex with them. That wasn’t an Elseworld, that was the Superman comics, proper, during Joe Kelly’s run\*. The Kryptonian in question was Preus, a racist cop from the faux-Kandor which existed for a while post-Crisis, who had hooked up with some white supremacists. (An infamous line from the arc is ‘they come in different colors?’) It actually manages to be worse than it sounds. - Kind of hard to believe that the same guy who wrote What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice and the American Way also wrote that story. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attempting-to-cross-breed-h-sapiens-and-h-kryptoniens/696278/32 "2014-08-25T20:24:00Z")
There was a fantastic scene about this in “Hancock” which is strangely absent from youtube. Crying shame, that. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attempting-to-cross-breed-h-sapiens-and-h-kryptoniens/696278/33 "2014-08-25T20:52:28Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Marvel’s in-house Superman knockoff – Hyperion, aka “Mark Milton” – had that exact exchange with his Lois-Lane-equivalent. TY…I knew I’d read it somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attempting-to-cross-breed-h-sapiens-and-h-kryptoniens/696278/34 "2014-08-25T21:02:10Z")
Post “One Year Later” and pre “New 52,” it was pretty clear that Kal’s invulnerability could be turned off psychosomatically. To me that implies that he can turn it off subconsciously, which I assume is what was happening whenever he and the missus were getting it on. ETA: And as for the actual reproduction, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit of all the human-looking aliens in the DC universe came from a common ancestor. Kal LOOKS human, and humans can have powers not unlike his; why shouldn’t they be genetically compatible. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2014, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attempting-to-cross-breed-h-sapiens-and-h-kryptoniens/696278/35 "2014-08-26T05:59:40Z")
I think Superman has a family in the bottle city of Kandor. When in Kandor he can live a regular unpowered Kryptonian life. That’s his reason for keeping the city bottled up. But he has to keep the family secret because there’s a faction of radical Kandorans who want nothing more than to escape the bottle. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2014, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attempting-to-cross-breed-h-sapiens-and-h-kryptoniens/696278/36 "2014-08-26T14:41:31Z")
Personally, I like the take on it from the PS 238 comic books (a series about the children of superheroes at school, featuring pastiches of most of the famous superheroes): (spoilers about the nature of Argosians) [spoiler]Argosians (the equivalent in this story of Kryptonians) are humans, just like us. From time to time, every world will go through a Heroic Age, when a few individuals have powers far beyond normal. After a while, someone from that age is chosen to decide whether their race will continue having powers or not. All previous times in Earth’s history, the decision has been against, and the powers gradually faded away, and their consequences became mere legend. One of the more common suites of powers is “FISS”, or “Flight, invulnerability, strength, and speed”: At least 85 individuals on Earth are known to have this set of powers. Well, on Argos, they decided to keep their powers much earlier than we Earthlings did, and also decided that any set of powers other than FISS was aberrant and must be culled. The FISS individuals ended up as the ruling nobles of Argos, and the one we call Atlas (the Superman analogue of this world) was the crown prince. All that business about Atlas being the last son of a dying world was made up by government agents, in an effort to ensure he wouldn’t have any loyalty towards his homeworld. And Argonite isn’t actually debris from an exploding planet, but a failsafe measure developed and synthesized by the government in case Atlas should turn against them. And it turns out that it works on _all_ FISS metahumans, not just Argosians.[/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2014, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attempting-to-cross-breed-h-sapiens-and-h-kryptoniens/696278/37 "2014-08-26T15:15:38Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > The logistics of Homo gestation though require that the baby be unable to punch a hole through the uterus, or to burn holes in the Mother’s internal organs as soon as its eyes fully develop. You could also postulate that since Superman is charged by yellow sun radiation, his offspring would probably not gait the powers to punch through a uterus until after he or she is born. Is it still canon that Superman didn’t develop powers until after he started getting older? Maybe in utero would work after all. ---
**Author:** ![Osiris\_the\_1st](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9de0a6/32.png) [@Osiris\_the\_1st](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Osiris_the_1st)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2014, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attempting-to-cross-breed-h-sapiens-and-h-kryptoniens/696278/38 "2014-08-26T15:47:34Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > I’m going to assume that Kryptonians are an offshoot of Terrestial humans and are still sufficiently similar gene-wise to be able to reproduce. (Hell, if early _Homo sapiens_ was able to interbreed with Neanderthals and possibly other protohumans, why not with Kryptonians? :dubious: ) But, other than their resemblance to humans, there is no reason to assume this and many reasons to think otherwise; among them the fact that the Kryptonians eveolved on a completely different planet. Futher just because two species look alike does not mean that they are genetically closely related. Even though Kryptonians supeficially look like humans that doesn’t mean that their internal anatomy, physiology, or genetics work the same way. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2014, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attempting-to-cross-breed-h-sapiens-and-h-kryptoniens/696278/39 "2014-08-26T19:37:24Z")
Supes was interested once in a woman who was of a very human looking avian race. He gave it up because they weren’t compatible. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2014, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attempting-to-cross-breed-h-sapiens-and-h-kryptoniens/696278/40 "2014-08-27T05:57:37Z")
> [@Osiris\_the\_1st](#): > > But, other than their resemblance to humans, there is no reason to assume this and many reasons to think otherwise; among them the fact that the Kryptonians eveolved on a completely different planet. Futher just because two species look alike does not mean that they are genetically closely related. Even though Kryptonians supeficially look like humans that doesn’t mean that their internal anatomy, physiology, or genetics work the same way. You may think otherwise if you please. In the real world, it matters not one whit. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attempting-to-cross-breed-h-sapiens-and-h-kryptoniens/696278.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attempting-to-cross-breed-h-sapiens-and-h-kryptoniens/696278.md?page=3)