By Robert Bernstein, Cary Bates, Steve Gerber, Geoff Johns, Richard Donner, George Papp, Curt Swan, Alex Saviuk, Rick Veitch, Rags Morales & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3849-0
Superman is comics’ champion crusader: the hero who effectively started a whole genre and, in the decades since his spectacular launch in June 1938, one who has survived every kind of menace imaginable. With this in mind it’s tempting and very rewarding to gather up whole swathes of his prodigious back-catalogue and re-present them in specifically-themed collections, such as this fun but far from comprehensive chronicling of his Kryptonian antithesis: a monstrous militaristic madman with the same abilities but far more sinister values and motivations.
For fans and comics creators alike continuity can be a harsh mistress. These days, when maintaining a faux-historical cloak of rational integrity for the made-up worlds we inhabit is paramount, the greatest casualty of the semi-regular sweeping changes, rationalisations and reboots is the terrific tales which suddenly “never happenedâ€.
The most painful example of this – for me at least – was the wholesale loss of the entire charm-drenched mythology that had evolved around Superman’s birthworld in the wonder years between 1948 and 1986.
We Silver Age readers buying Superman, Action Comics, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane, World’s Finest Comics and Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen (not forgetting Superboy and Adventure Comics)would delight every time some fascinating snippet of information leaked out. We spent our rainy days filling in the incredible blanks about the lost world through the delightful and thrilling tales from those halcyon publications.
Thankfully DC is not as slavishly wedded to continuity as its readership and understands that a good story is worth cherishing. This captivating compilation (gathering material from Adventure Comics #283, Action Comics #473, 548-549, DC Comics Presents #97 and Action Comics Annual #10; spanning 1961-2007) re-presents appearances both landmark and rare, current and notionally non-canonical featuring Kryptonian warlord and arch-nemesis General Dru-Zod, crafted by the many brilliant writers and artists who have contributed to the mythology of the Man of Tomorrow over the years.
Naturally this terrific tome begins with the first appearance – brief and incidental though it was – of the warrior who tried to conquer Krypton with an army of Bizarro-like clonal “inorganisms†in ‘The Phantom Superboy’ by Robert Bernstein & George Papp.
The lead feature in Adventure Comics #283 (April, 1961) described how a mysterious alien vault smashes to Earth and the Smallville Sensation finds sealed within three incredible super-weapons built by his long-dead dad Jor-El.
There’s a disintegrator gun, a monster-making de-evolutioniser and a strange projector that opens a window into an eerie, timelessly dolorous dimension of stultifying intangibility.
However as Superboy reads the history of the projector – used to incarcerate Krypton’s criminals such as Dr. Xadu and the traitorous General – a terrible accident traps him inside the Phantom Zone and only by the greatest exercise of his mighty intellect does he narrowly escape…
Although there were plenty more appearances of the Red Sun Rebel, we jump here to ‘The Great Phantom Peril’ from Action Comics #473 (July 1977, by Cary Bates, Curt Swan & Tex Blaisdell) for the concluding chapter in a three part tale introducing sadistic psycho-killer Faora Hu-Ul.
In this instalment the male-hating escapee engineers the freedom of all her ghostly companions, leaving the criminal Kryptonians to run riot on Earth. Thankfully the foresighted Superman had contrived to place all humanity in the Phantom Zone even as the prisoners explosively exited it…
Again no more than a bit-player, Zod was left to shout empty threats and wreck property until the ingenious Man of Steel turned the tables on his foes and banished them all back behind intangible bars once again…
He played a far more important role in the next epic. ‘Escape from the Phantom Zone!’ (Action Comics #548 October 1983) was the first part of a two-issue yarn by Bates, Alex Saviuk, Vince Colletta & Pablo Marcos: an engaging if improbable saga of cosmic vengeance as a race of primordial plunderers discovered the dead remains of Argo City and realised that there was at least one Kryptonian left in the cosmos…
Superman’s cousin Kara Zor-El had been born on a city-sized fragment of Krypton, hurled intact into space when the planet exploded. Eventually Argo turned to Kryptonite like the rest of the detonated world’s debris and her dying parents, observing Earth through their scopes, sent their daughter to safety as they perished.
On Earth, the teenager met the Man of Steel who created for her the identities of Linda Lee and Supergirl, concealing her from the world whilst she learned about her new home and how to use her astounding new abilities in secrecy and safety.
The alien marauders were Vrangs – savage slavers who had conquered Krypton in eons past – and brutally using the primitive populace to mine minerals too toxic for the aliens to handle. The planet’s greatest hero was Val-Lor who died instigating the rebellion which drove the Vrangs from Krypton and prompted the rise of the super-scientific civilisation.
All Kryptonians developed an inbred hatred of the Vrangs, and when Phantom Zone prisoners Jax-Ur, Professor Va-Kox, Faora and General Dru-Zod observed their ancestral oppressors from the stark and silent realm of nullity that had been their drearily, unchanging, timeless jail since before Krypton perished, they swore to destroy them.
If their holy mission also allowed the Kryptonian outcasts to kill the hated son of the discoverer of the eerie dimension of stultifying intangibility, then so much the better…
Using the psycho-active properties of Jewel Kryptonite – a post-cataclysm isotope of the very element poisonous to Vrangs – a quartet of Zoners break-out and head to Earth for vengeance… but upon whom?
Soon after, Clark Kent, still blithely unaware of his peril, investigates a citizens’ defence group that has sprung up in Metropolis in response to a city-wide rash of petty crimes.
In ‘Superman Meets the Zod Squad’ (Action Comics #549) as Zod, Faora, Tyb-Ol and Murkk infiltrate human society and bide their time, the Man of Steel and Lois Lane are most concerned with how the White Wildcats can afford to police neighbourhoods with jet-packs and martial arts skills unknown on Earth…
Uncovering militarist maniac Zod behind the scheme, Superman is astounded when the Kryptonians surrender, offering a truce until their ancient mutual enemies are defeated.
…And that’s when the Vrangs teleport the Man of Steel into their ship, exultant that they now possess the mightiest slave in existence.
Moreover, there are four more potentially priceless victims hurtling up to attack them, utterly unaware in their blind rage and hatred that the Vrangs have a weapon even Kryptonians cannot survive…
This clever, compulsive thriller of cross, double- and even triple-cross is a fabulously intoxicating, tension-drenched treat blending human foibles with notions of honour, and shows that even the most reprehensible villains may understand the value of sacrifice and the principle of something worth dying for…
In 1986 DC celebrated its fiftieth year with the groundbreaking, Earth-shattering Crisis on Infinite Earths by radically overhauling its convoluted multiversal continuity and starting afresh. All the Superman titles were cancelled or suspended pending this back-to-basics reboot courtesy of John Byrne, allowing the opportunity for a number of very special farewells to the old mythology.
One of the most intriguing and challenging came in the last issue of team-up title DC Comics Presents:specifically#97 (September 1986) wherein ‘Phantom Zone: the Final Chapter’ by Steve Gerber, Rick Veitch & Bob Smith offered a creepy adieu to a number of Superman’s greatest foes and concepts…
Tracing Jor-El’s discovery of the Phantom Zone through to the impending end of the multiverse, this tale revealed that the dread region of nullity was in fact sentient and always regarded the creatures deposited within as intruders.
Now as cosmic chaos ensued Aethyr, served by Kryptonian mage Thul-Kar, caused the destruction of the Bizarro World and the deification and corruption of Fifth Dimensional pest Mr. Mxyzptlk as well as the subsequent crashing of green-glowing Argo City on Metropolis.
As a result Zod and his fellow immaterial inmates were freed to wreak havoc upon Earth until the now-crystalline pocket dimension merged with and absorbed the felons before implausibly abandoning Superman to face his uncertain future as the very Last Son of Krypton…
This compilation concludes with a thoroughly modern reinterpretation of General Zod
by Geoff Johns, Richard Donner, Rags Morales & Mark Farmer from Action Comics Annual #10 in 2007.
Blending elements of the 1978 filmic Superman franchise (and starring Zod, Ursa and Non as seen in Superman: the Movie and Superman II) ‘The Criminals of Krypton’ reveals that Krypton was no paradise in its final days and how the Science Council silenced Jor-El’s mentor Non by operating on his brain to keep word of the impending planetary explosion quiet.
Although pacifistic Jor-El chose to argue his position from within the strictures of the Council, his impatient converts Zod and Ursa tried to seize control of the government to save the unwary citizens, forcing the head of the House of El to exile (or perhaps save?) them from the cataclysm to come…
Superman has proven to be all things to all fans over his decades of existence, and with the character again undergoing another radical overhaul, these timeless tales of charm and joy and wholesome wit (accompanied by the classic covers by Papp, Swan, Neal Adams, Gil Kane, Veitch & Smith) are more necessary than ever: not just as a reminder of great tales of the past but as an all-ages primer of the wonders still to come…
© 1961, 1977, 1983, 1986, 2007, 2013 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.