In a tip of the general's cap to Superman II, Zod and fellow fiends Quex-Ul and Zaora escaped from the Phantom Zone for a murder spree until being executed by Superman with green kryptonite in the shocking Superman vol. Once writer/artist John Byrne rebooted Superman in the 1986 miniseries The Man of Steel, this version of Zod was retconned into the “Pocket Universe,” an alternate timeline shaped by the villainous Time Trapper (but actually created by DC to address continuity inconsistencies between the pre– and post–Man of Steel stories involving Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes).
GENERAL ZOD MAN OF STEEL FREE
He continued to appear in Superboy, Superman, and Supergirl tales until the mid-1980s, usually “seen” in his wraithlike state, conspiring with other Zone prisoners and occasionally breaking free of the ethereal realm to wreak havoc with his superpowers. Originally a Kryptonian army officer/scientist, the egomaniacal Zod, in his purple military uniform and cap, created a militia of Bizarro-like imperfect duplicates in his image and attempted to become the planet's dictator, earning him a one-way ticket to the Zone. General Zod did not originate in the movies, but instead in Adventure Comics #283 (1961), in writer Robert Bernstein and artist George Papp's Superboy story that introduced the Phantom Zone to the pages of DC Comics. Decades later, his General Zod remains one of cinema's definitive supervillain performances. “It's a joy to play a two-dimensional character for a change,” the actor beamed in a Superman II promotional interview, surveying Zod as “brutal, vicious, evil, and corrupt, without any redeeming qualities.” Stamp's tour de force was supported by merchandising including action figures of varying sizes from manufacturer Mego. Stamp's General Zod demanded that his subjects kneel and swear eternal allegiance, but even that offered no guarantee that this aspirant deity would not kill them. Arriving on Earth, which they first believe to be “Planet Houston” after an ill-fated (for the astronauts) encounter with a moon-walking NASA crew, these cold-hearted conquerors from Krypton-with the same powers as Superman-plow over cities and armies, and even humble the president of the United States before Superman, canoodling with Lois Lane at his arctic Fortress of Solitude during Zod's siege, returns to save the day.
In Superman II (1980), a vindictive Zod and his subordinates Ursa and Non are accidentally freed years later by a nuclear explosion in space.
GENERAL ZOD MAN OF STEEL MOVIE
“You will bow down before me, Jor-El! Both you and then one day, your heir!” swears powermad seditionist General Zod (Terence Stamp) in Superman: The Movie (1978) as he and his fellow black-leather-clad insurrectionists are sentenced by Kryptonian scientist Jor-El to an eternity in the otherworldly prison called the Phantom Zone.
0 kommentar(er)
