system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[DC Comics] Are Kryptonian superpowers the result of genetic engineering?

In the Superman canon, it's never really explained why Kryptonians develop superpowers when in the vicinity of a yellow sun. Is it possible that Kryptonians in the past experimented on themselves to become "super" long ago in their past and just plum forgot about it by the time their planet ended(Perhaps the reason they abandoned the possibility of space colonies because they discovered how chaotic a civilization of supermen would be)? Jor-El knew that his son would develop powers in front of a yellow sun, but he was a scholar, so he probably had access to records that the normal Kryptonian citizen wouldn't.
gpt
Depends which version you mean. In the Silver Age, it was - or rather, it was the result of a massive, billions-year-long eugenics project by the Guardians to create the perfect Green Lantern. 

Shortly before the project came to fruition, the planet unexpectedly exploded. Unbeknownst to the Guardians, their perfect Green Lantern survived, sent by his parents to some backwater planet in Sector 2814.