Jor-El

"Your father was a clever man, though I see you share his poor judgment in choosing sides."
— Jax-Ur^[1]

Jor-El was one of the top scientists on the planet Krypton. He was also the husband of Lara-El and the biological father of Kal-El.

History[]

"I never let my ego get in the way of the facts!"
— Jor-El to Sul-Van^[2]

Young scientist Jor-El served the Science Council of Krypton loyally. At some point, he married Lara, the daughter of council member and fellow scientist Sul-Van, and they had a son named Kal-El.

Sul-Van once said Jor-El's primary flaw was his ego, that he was incapable of admitting he could be wrong. Sul-Van may have been correct, but Jor-El never let concern for his reputation stand in the way of doing what he believed necessary.

Among his notable achievements was preventing an attempted coup led by High General Jax-Ur, who had begun to seek power after Kryptonian armed forces were reduced in size. After learning about the coup, Jor-El gathered a small militia and captured one of the rebels. He then used the rebel's helmet to recalibrate its circuitry and send out a signal that eventually disabled the rest of Jax-Ur's army. During Jax-Ur's subsequent trial, Jor-El was absent, much to the former's outrage. Years later, during his first encounter with Superman, Jax-Ur noted that Jor-El was "a clever man", but Superman shared his father's poor judgment in choosing sides.

Jor-El warns the Council — Jor-El warns the Science Council of Krypton's impending destruction.

Some time after Jax-Ur was imprisoned, Jor-El embarked on a five-month expedition to the northern part of Krypton with his wife and son to gather subterranean readings to understand the cause of ongoing earthquakes that had started affecting the planet. His worst assumptions proved to be true when his examination of the gathered measurements pointed to the impending explosion of Krypton.

However, long before that, Jor-El had worked out a rescue plan in case of the worst. The plan included teleporting all of Krypton's populace into the Phantom Zone using a special projector, while sending one person to another planet so they could later release all the others to safety. That one person would have been equipped with a small spaceship that Jor-El had built, carrying a Phantom Zone projector. As Jor-El had planned, the new home for Kryptonians would have been the planet Earth.

Eventually, Jor-El's report, as well as his evacuation plan, was firmly rejected by the Council when Brainiac, Krypton's centralized AI, led them to believe that Jor-El was mistaken. That night, puzzled by Brainiac's apparent deception, Jor-El went to investigate himself and discovered that Brainiac had deliberately lied to buy himself time to escape the impending disaster. However, by then, it was too late, as Krypton was set to explode in a matter of hours. Jor-El could only implement part of his backup plan: to use his spaceship to save his son, Kal-El. Sul-Van, meanwhile, after reading Jor-El's report and finding it factual, decided to help Jor-El and Lara launch Kal-El's ship by distracting the police that Brainiac had sent after Jor-El. During the final preparations, Jor-El, seeing Lara's grief over losing Kal-El, offered to try and send her with him, but she refused, saying that her place was with Jor-El.

Before Kal-El's ship was sent to Earth, Jor-El and Lara recorded a short holographic message on a small device placed inside the ship. The message was meant to be seen as Kal-El grew up. In the message, Jor-El and Lara told their son that they loved him and urged him to always use his powers, which he would acquire from Earth's yellow sun, in a responsible way.

Much later, to honor his parents' memory, Superman carved two large statues of them in the Fortress of Solitude, both holding up a globe of Krypton.

Alternate reality[]

In Superman's fantasy world created by the Black Mercy, where he grew up on a Krypton that never exploded and his family was still alive, Jor-El's warnings about the planet's destruction proved to be wrong, and his reputation suffered a disastrous blow that took him years to recover from. In his later years, an elderly Jor-El lived by himself but was frequently visited by his son, daughter-in-law, and grandson.