Krypton--The Place to Be

Just finished reading the new Superman Silver Age collection--Tales from the Phantom Zone. It got me to thinking that a lot was happening on Superman's home planet Krypton before it blew up and it was all happening to Superman's parents Jor-El and Lara. Before the fatal explosion, several Earth people visited the doomed world--Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, two doctors (both healed an ailing baby Kal-El), even the grown up Kal-El himself--and they all dropped in on Mr. and Mrs. El. In one version, Kal-El is a phantom because he hasn't been born yet. In other, he's just as flesh and blood as any Kryptonian and falls in love with a glamorous movie star. In addition, the Els were visited by the youthful Mon-El of the planet Daxam who later crashed on earth and caught amnesia, then thought he was Superboy's older brother. He recovered his memory but was sent into the Phantom Zone for 1,000 years so he wouldn't die of lead poisoning. In the 30th century, Brianiac 5 developed a serum to cure Mon who then joined the Legion of Super-Heroes. But I digress.

Jor-El was a jack of all trades evidently. Not only was he a leading scientist, but also an undercover agent for the KBI (Krpyton Bureau of Investigation) and chief executioner (before he invented the Phantom Zone projector--a more humane way of dealing with criminals). This leaves a question, if Jor was such a respected member of society, why didn't his fellow citizens believe him when he said the planet was about to explode? Some day I will have research this and develop a time line of all the events that occured on Krypton before the big bang. I know there is a sci-fi novel on this topic. Perhaps I'll check it out for consistancy with the mythos of the comics.