DC Histories: General Zod

Here at DC Histories, we try to make sense of the continuity that perplexes, befuddles, and intimidates. We discuss what worked and what didn’t. This week, we’re talking about General Zod, the Kryptonian madman from the Phantom Zone who has been hounding Superman for decades.

The first time General Zod was mentioned, he was one of a whole list of villains who had been sent into the Phantom Zone. Used by the Kryptonians to house their worst criminals, the Zone had been discovered by Jor-El, Superman’s father. Jor-El also created the Phantom Zone Projector, the only known device that could send someone from our world into the Phantom Zone and bring them out again. After realizing that it was too dangerous a weapon to be left on Krypton, the leaders of Krypton sent the Projector deep into space along with a variety of weapons. Eventually, everything crashed onto Earth and a young Superboy stumbled across them. A Thought Helmet included with the weapons told Superboy of the Phantom Zone Projector’s history and of the men and women it had sent into the Zone. Zod was among them.

Using an army of Bizarro duplicates, Zod had attempted to take over Krypton. However, the government wasn’t as docile as it seemed and the battle went against the attempted dictator. He joined others in the Zone like the rogue rocket scientist Jax-Ur, a serial killer of men named Faora, and an evil chemist named Dr. Xadu. All deserved their time in the Zone for their various crimes.

The Zone was a mighty prison but it was not a perfect one. While inside the Zone, the criminals learned they could manipulate the real world with a limited form of telepathy. Working together, they could even control someone outside the Zone with limited success. By this and other means, the Phantom Zone criminals, including Zod, managed to escape a handful of times over the years. Every time they did so, they found themselves on Earth, living under a yellow sun just like Superman. This granted them all the powers that Superman possessed. One of them alone could give Superman a run for his money but together, they seemed unstoppable.

Still, Superman always found a way to send the criminals back into the Zone at the end of every confrontation. Zod was really no more interesting of a character than any of the other Phantom Zone criminals and he even took a back seat in many stories to Jax-Ur and Faora.

That all changed in 1980. Though other members of the Phantom Zone may have had more personality in the comics, Zod was selected to appear as a minor character in 1978’s Superman: The Movie and a major one in 1980’s Superman II. His co-conspirators in these movies, the silent Non and the feisty Ursa, were created just for these stories. The challenge that this trio posed to the Man of Steel leapt these three to the forefront of Superman’s foes. In particular, Terence Stamp’s portrayal of General Zod as a calculating figure used to giving orders caused the name Zod to be cemented in the public consciousness. Stamp’s memorable line reading of “Kneel before Zod” certainly helped.

The next time Zod appeared in the comics, he was thrust into the leadership role among the Phantom Zone criminals. This time, it was Zod and not Jax-Ur or one of the other villains who spoke for the group when they again escaped the confines of the Zone. The issue’s title also named this group the Zod Squad, a phrase that hadn’t before been uttered nor do I hope it ever gets mentioned again.

When the Crisis on Infinite Earths hit a few years later, the Superman mythos was shifted. Now, Superman was truly the last son of Krypton. No other Kryptonian survived their planet’s destruction. Gone were Supergirl, Krypto, the Bottle City of Kandor, and all of the other Silver Age Kryptonians. Also gone were the Phantom Zone criminals. Zod and his ilk suddenly no longer existed.

John Byrne, the main writer and artist of the post-Crisis Superman’s stories, still found a way to work versions of these old characters into the new continuity. First, he introduced the Matrix Supergirl, an alien who was inspired by Superman but who wasn’t Kryptonian. She was from a pocket dimension tangentially tied to the mainstream DCU. Matrix came to Earth to get Superman’s help in a battle against some powerful foes. Superman agreed and when he arrived in her home dimension, he found a landscape of destruction. In the middle of this mess was an alternate version of the Silver Age Zod alongside versions of a few other Phantom Zone criminals. Seeing the evil they’d unleashed, Superman exposed the three killers to that dimension’s version of Kryptonite, which killed them.

This was the first time that Superman ever chose to kill his opponents and it would go on to haunt him for over a decade of continuity.

With the only Zod in all of the various dimensions dead, that could have been the end of it. In fact, that was the end of it for 13 years. However, in 2001, Superman traveled to an alternate reality version of Krypton. Looking very much like the Krypton of the Silver Age, this planet was visited by Superman and Lois during the course of an adventure. While Superman was on the planet, he ran into a young version of his parents and the wanna-be fascist leader Zod. Superman and Jor-El beat Zod back and defeated his plans.

Now, two alternate universe versions of Zod were dead. But that didn’t keep Zod down.

During the run up to the Our Worlds At War event which ran through many of the DCU’s titles in 2001, Superman stumbled across a figure dressed in red armor. Hailing from Russia, the figure appeared to have a personal vendetta against the Man of Steel. Also, he called himself Zod. This brought back some bad memories for Superman.

Two years after this Zod’s first appearance, Superman finally found the secret behind Zod’s origins. This version of Zod was the son of Russian astronauts. In a plot line straight out of the show Smallville, Zod’s parents had been killed when a swarm of Kryptonite passed by their spaceship. The radiation from the Kryptonite changed their chemical structures, killing them but not before they gave birth to Zod. Due to his parents’ mutation, Zod found that yellow sunlight hurt him while red sunlight powered him to the physical heights of Superman. Also, he took the name “Zod” after he was visited by an evil spirit who may or may not have been the spirit of one of those alternate dimension versions of Zod.

In any case, this Zod was definitely not Kryptonian and certainly not the same character introduced in 1961. This version of Zod died battling against the Man of Steel soon after his origins were told and no one mentioned him again.

So, that was three versions of Zod down. But, that wasn’t the last one. Just two years later, Brian Azzarello and Jim Lee brought yet another version of Zod to the table in their “For Tomorrow” storyline. This Zod wore spiky black armor and could have been from Krypton just like Superman. But plot lines began in this tale were never followed through on and there appeared to be a tacit agreement among the DC offices to not mention this particular version of Zod ever again.

Finally, the full-on Kryptonian Zod who had been sent into the Phantom Zone finally returned in a 2007 story written by Geoff Johns and Richard Donner. Just like his Silver Age counterpart, Zod had been placed in the Phantom Zone for crimes against Krypton. As he had been ever since Superman II, he was portrayed as being the leader of the criminals, not just another person sent into the Zone.

Zod seemed a bit surprised that Superman had heard of him, but since there had been four other versions running of him running around the DCU since the Crisis, Zod should have been surprised if the entire world hadn’t heard about him.

At the end of Zod’s first time outside of the Phantom Zone since Krypton’s destruction, he and his allies were sent right back where they came from.

The Phantom Zone criminals were let out again when the bottle city of Kandor was brought back to full size. In a story mirroring another Silver Age tale, Superman stumbled across a Kryptonian city named Kandor that the alien Brainiac had shrunk down before the planet’s destruction. Superman helped enlarge Kandor, which eventually created a whole new planet for itself which circled our galaxy’s sun in a pattern which kept it continually far away from Earth. Still, the Kandorians had reason to fear Earthlings. In a bid to feel safe, it was decided to free Zod and his followers from the Phantom Zone in order for them to protect their new planet. Superman, not trusting Zod, agreed to live on New Krypton in order to keep an eye on his opponent.

At the story’s end, Zod was once again returned to the Phantom Zone. He remained there until Flashpoint wiped away all previous continuity.

In the New 52, Zod has made his presence known to a limited extent. In a flashback to before Krypton’s destruction, Zod and many other criminals were seen in the Phantom Zone. There it seemed that Zod may have the technology to escape the Zone if he tried hard enough.

Zod is getting his own one-shot in September. However, before that, he’ll be appearing this week in the brand new Man of Steel film. This will be the third time an actor has played a live-action Zod after Superman II and Smallville, in which Zod was a major character in the series’ ninth season. Will this new Zod on film be tied to the Phantom Zone like his predecessors? Will this new Zod in the comics have plans to make over Earth in Krypton’s image? These answers will come in time. For now, all we can do is wait and speculate.

 

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Jeff Reid would probably kneel before Zod, if so commanded. He doesn’t pretend to be a hero though he occasionally plays one on Twitter.