Template:Comics-in-universe Kryptonians are a fictional extraterrestrial race of the DC Comics universe who hail from the planet Krypton. The most well-known Kryptonian is Superman. "Kryptonian" may also be used as an adjective to refer to anything created by or associated with the planet itself or the culture that existed on it.

Kryptonians appear to resemble humans, but their biology is much more complex. Much is still unknown about it, but the cellular function of Kryptonians allows for solar energy to be absorbed at extremely high levels when exposed to a yellow star like Earth's Sun, giving them vast superhuman powers (such as flight, strength, x-ray vision, super speed, invulnerability, heat vision and superhearing) when on planets such as Earth.

On their native planet, Kryptonians were not known to possess any superpowers as Krypton revolved around a red star. However, when on planets like Earth which orbit a yellow star, Kryptonians utilize solar energy on the cellular level to achieve abilities unattainable by ordinary human beings. Among other abilities, super-powered Kryptonians possess the following at the peak of their power: super strength, super speed, invulnerability, heat vision, flight, super hearing, x-ray vision, telescopic vision, micro-vision, super breath, and ice breath.

Super-powered Kryptonians are vulnerable to Kryptonite.

Kryptonians are a highly technologically advanced people. In most portrayals, their technology is presented as being based on self-grown crystals which can cover the vast majority of their planet's surface. Vast amounts of data and information can be stored on relatively small crystals. The Fortress of Solitude is often portrayed a recreation of Krypton's surface, also serving as a storehouse for all the knowledge obtained by the Kryptonian race.

Each Kryptonian family, or what is called a "House," is often shown as being represented by a crest or symbol, often worn by the head of the house. The House of El, for example, is represented by an "S"-like shape. Coincidently, Superman wears this same symbol on his costume that serves for dual meanings: his Kryptonian heritage and the "S" for Superman.

For most of Superman's published history, Kryptonian writing was represented by random, alien-looking squiggles. In the 1970s, E. Nelson Bridwell attempted to rationalize these squiggles into a 118-letter alphabet, referring to the language as 'Kryptonese.'

In 2000, DC Comics introduced a transliteration alphabet for the written language, dropping the 'Kryptonese' moniker in favor of the more commonly assumed 'Kryptonian.' All such writing appearing in the comic books is actually just English written using this transliteration alphabet to replace the Latin alphabet with a one-to-one correspondence, in a similar fashion to Interlac in Legion of Super-Heroes.

On the television series Smallville, the written Kryptonian language is depicted as having a logographic component, with some symbols representing whole words or even names, though the transliteration alphabet is used as well.

With the ongoing development of the current version of the Kryptonian language, 'Kryptonian' has come to refer to the actual Kryptonian language while 'Kryptonese' refers to Kryptonian transliterated into the Latin alphabet or English transliterated into the Kryptonian alphabet.

The modern Kryptonian alphabet comprises 33 characters (24 consonants and 9 vowels). It is a highly synthetic language with some agglutination. The primary word order is verb-subject-object.

When Krypton was destroyed in an explosion, it was thought that the entire Kryptonian race was destroyed. This was untrue as the scientist Jor-El managed to send his newborn son, Kal-El, off-planet to Earth right before Krypton's demise. Kal-El grew up on Earth as Clark Kent, and eventually discovered his Kryptonian origins. Superman's cousin Kara Zor-El (Supergirl) also survived Krypton's destruction.

In the Silver and Modern Age comics, the Kryptonian city Kandor, was also spared from destruction as it was shrunken by Brainiac. Some Silver Age stories also featured a spacefaring Kryptonian named Dev-Em.

Also, the inhabitants of the planet Daxam are descendants of Kryptonians who long ago ventured into space and settled on another planet.

The Kryptonians imprisoned in the Phantom Zone, such as General Zod and Ursa, also survived Krypton's destruction. They would subsequently have a child, who would later be adopted as Christopher Kent.

In Superman, teenage Clark discovers who he is in the Fortress of Solitude, where a hologram of Jor-El tells him, "You are the only survivor of the planet Krypton." This remark appears to prove untrue as prisoners of the Phantom Zone, such as General Zod, also survive the destruction of Krypton. It should be noted, however, that Zod and his lieutenants only survived because they were at that time incarcerated within the Phantom Zone and were not in fact on Krypton at the time of its destruction.

• Krypton glossary
• Non (DC comics)
• Ursa (villain)

• Superman Thru The Ages: Kryptonian Languages
• Modern Kryptonian
• Alan Kistler's Profile On: SUPERMAN - Comic book historian Alan Kistler gives a detailed analysis of Superman over the decades, as well as the different interpretations of the planet Krypton and how Kryptonians acted.