Winner #2 - Thomas K!

Thanks to everyone who guessed about Superman's mother's name. We put the names of the folks who answered correctly into a hat and Thomas K's name was chosen. Congratulations Thomas!

Here is Thomas' answer:

Lara Lor-Van or Lora Lor-Van.
Lara was first referred to in the Superman newspaper comic strip in 1939, where her name was spelled as "Lora"; her name first appeared as being spelled "Lara" in a 1942 Superman novel. After the establishment of DC's multiverse system in the 1960s, it was retroactively shown that "Lora" was the name of Superman's mother in the Earth-Two universe, while "Lara" was Superman's mother in the Earth-One universe.


Yes, it seems that Thomas knows his Superman - he even provided all the links himself. We've sent him an email to get his address and the Superman padlock will be on its way shortly to him.

Please stay tuned...another super hero contest question coming up soon....

Man of Steel Padlock Contest

Hi everyone! I’m Ryan, Kryptonite’s recently-acquired graphic and packaging designer. Being a huge comic book geek, I am thrilled to be assigned the task of blogging about Superman. What can I say about the Man of Steel that hasn’t been said a thousand times in books, news articles, psychiatric journals (the interplay of the Superman/Clark Kent/Kal-El personalities is quite interesting), physics books, Biblical parallels…the cultural impact that Superman has brought to the world is mind-boggling.

Before radio, television and comic books, stories about our heroes were communicated through oral tradition. People like Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill were told to have incredible powers and perform awesome feats of strength. Naturally, the key to good storytelling is embellishment, and while many of these stories were either exaggerated or just flat-out untrue, you couldn’t help but look up to the courage and strength of these heroes. Superman is the closest thing we have to folklore in America today. He’s the ultimate hero…the strength of Paul Bunyan, the moral steadfastness of Atticus Finch…and despite being 100% alien, he has a unique "Americanity" (yup, I’m making up words now) that’s rivaled only by Captain America (rest in peace, Cap).

I could go on and on, but I’m going to restrain my inner-geek and wrap this up. If comic books could be boiled down to only ONE hero, I have no doubt that it would be Superman. He wasn’t the first superhero…we’ve been telling stories of super-powered people for thousands of years…but for the past 70 years, he’s been far and above the most loved and recognized. One day, many years from now, when WWIII has wiped out all electronics on Earth and we’re living by candlelight once again, I hope to tell my grandchildren the stories of a young child, sent from the doomed planet of Krypton to a small blue marble in the Milky Way galaxy.

And now, on to the trivia question. I was going to ask what Clark Kent’s middle name is, but there’s some dispute over whether it’s Joseph or Jerome (see, this is what happens when you ret-con stories, it screws everything up). Therefore, I decided to go with something a little less debatable. And don’t cheat by going to Wikipedia!

What is the full name of Superman birth mother?

Please email your answers to Donna -- donna(underscore)tocci(at)irco(dot)com

The correct answers will be placed into a hat and the randomly-chosen winner gets a cool Superman combination padlock, which is perfect for lockers...or telephone booths. ;)

Batman Question Winner Is....

....Mr. Al Whitehurst! Not only did he answer our Batman trivia question correctly, he was picked from our hat by our category manager, Alison.

Al knew that Batman's father's profession was indeed a doctor. He was also a philanthropist, but his profession was doctor.

Dwight is so excited about this new line of locks that he's decided to kick off the contest series with the whole kit and kaboodle....Al is going to get a full set of 5 Justice League padlocks! They are sitting here on my messy desk....Al please email me your shipping address and I'll get them right out to you. donna_tocci(at)irco(dot)com

Thanks to everyone who played....next up Superman...before the end of the week. We'll ask the trivia question and have you email them in to me (thanks for the tip Caroline!). The winner will get the Superman padlock.

And, at the end of the series, we'll be giving away another whole set of locks for answering the big question correctly. Stay tuned....



Stay tuned...

Strength in Numbers

Its a bird..no its a plane...
The Dark Knight...
Faster than a speeding bullet...
Princess of Amazonia...
Guardian of the Universe...

For the Comic Book fans out there you know who I'm referring to above - in order - Superman, Batman, Flash, WonderWoman and the Green Lantern - members of the Justice League of America one of the most popular DC comics titles. You may be asking, why am I talking about superheroes? Besides the fact that I grew up reading all titles DC and Marvel and was an avid collector...but I digress. What possibly do these characters have to do with Kryptonite? Well a whole lot...we are partnering with DC comics and launching a series of padlocks that incorporate the aforementioned members of the Justice League. The locks are available right now at select WalMart stores and will be in Home Depot in August and possibly other retailers. We are very excited about working with these characters and bringing them to our customers in real everyday products. To celebrate the launch of these products we are holding a contest here on the blog. We will profile each character and ask a question - the first 25 responsdants will be entered into a drawing where the grand prize will be a full set of the padlocks, plus the winners picture,if so interested, on our website. The fun begins this Thursday with the Gotham Crusader...stay tuned