Starkville’s House of El Podcast

I expect we are going to get a nice battle between Zod and Clark in the finale tomorrow, so William and I thought it would be nice to spotlight a few memorable battles between the foes over the years. These stories take place in the comics, I think it would be somewhat insulting to rehash the fight between the two from Superman II. I’m pretty sure everyone who visits this site has seen that movie and that representation of Zod is pretty clear.  With that being said lets get into the minutia of multiple universes, artificial life forms, and MURDER!

The moment I want to focus on is the storyline where Superman travels to the Pocket Universe to help that Earth defeat Zod. This may sound confusing and it kind of is, but let me set the stage for us before we get into that story.

The Pocket Universe is a singularly created universe that was developed by the Time Trapper as part of his scheme to control the Legion of Super-Heroes after the Earth-One Superboy was wiped from existence due to the effects of the Crisis on Infinite Earths and replaced with the current Superman who was never costumed Superboy. This change threatened to destroy the 30th century Legion of Super-Heroes’ existence and all who populated it as it was the superhero efforts of the Earth-One Superboy who inspired the Legion in the first place, creating that reality. Unable to directly access the “Dawn of Time” and change the time stream back as it was before the Crisis, the Time Trapper used his massive control over the resulting time stream to create a small universe that reflected the Pre-Crisis Earth-One reality of Earth and Krypton to a very close level. With that Earth created and Superboy developed almost exactly as in the Earth-One reality, the Time Trapper routed the Legion’s time travel machines so they would always be shunted into the Pocket Universe Earth’s history rather than their own Earth which was now reformated.

Unlike the Earth-One universe this pocket dimension only had two populated planets, Earth and Krypton. The Time Trapper deemed only these two necessary to recreate the now missing Earth-One and its Superboy. This would explain why no other powered heroes who were dependent on extraterrestrial influence developed on this particular Earth as in other parallel realities.

Superman visited the Pocket Universe in Action Comics #591, where he noted that Superboy’s Smallville was “an idealized version of a typical small town.” Superman’s role in the battle against the Time Trapper was limited and he returned to his Earth at the urging of the Legionnaires, who told him, “You belong to the 20th Century, Superman. There is still too much for you to do there to make our time possible!”

Superman was to return to the Pocket Universe’s Earth one more time in a three part story arc called “The Supergirl Saga” that ran in Superman#21, Adventures of Superman #444 and, Superman #22. The arc was John Byrne’s final, and most controversial, story during his Superman run.

In the pocket universe Lex Luthor used one of Superboy’s devices in his underground lab to find where Superboy disappeared to, he accidentally accessed the Phantom Zone where he found Zod, who called himself Von-El who along with his wife Mara and his associate Ston-Ar who trapped in that place following the destruction of Krypton. Zod helped Luthor reassemble the Phantom Zone projector stored in Superboy’s lab in order to free the three of them, who then proceeded to destroy the projector as well as the lab, with Mara and Ston-Ar revealing themselves to be Zaora and Quex-Ul. From that point on, Zod, Zaora, and Quex-Ul terrorized Earth, making themselves its rulers and killing anyone that got in their way. However, Lex Luthor assembled himself a fighting force which included a Supergirl of his own creation that managed to hold their own against three escaped Phantom Zone criminals. Zod decided that the Earth beings were no longer fit subjects to rule over, and so with Zaora and Quex-Ul he killed all of them except for those inside Luthor’s Smallville citadel by destabilizing the Earth’s core, causing the atmosphere to be instantly destroyed.

After Lex Luthor had sent Supergirl to the New Earth reality to contact Superman and then transported both heroes to the Pocket Universe, Zod, Zaora, and Quex-Ul engaged them and the rest of Luthor’s resistance team in battle, destroying the Smallville citadel, killing all the resistance team members, and turning Supergirl into a melted puddle of protoplasm. At the end of the issue, Superman vows, “Five billion humans, uncounted billions upon billions of life-forms have perished horribly because of these so-called Kryptonians. It’s time Zod and his murdering crew were made to pay in full for their actions!”  Superman traveled to Superboy’s underground lab and, finding the Gold Kryptonite sample there, used it to depower Zod, Zaora, and Quex-Ul, capturing them inside the lab now turned into a prison.

Searching, Superman finds the dying body of Lex Luthor — the last human alive on the planet. Lex apologizes for the deception with Supergirl, “Lana was one of the first killed. I used her … molecular matrix … to create … pattern for protomatter … artificial life form” and that Supergirl “never knew she wasn’t real.”

Superman asks Lex why he hadn’t used the gold kryptonite if he knew it was there. With appropriate Luthor hubris, Lex admits, “call it … ego, Superman. It was my fault Zod and the others escaped from the Phantom Zone. I … wanted it to be by my hand that they were defeated. This world … has paid … a terrible price for my folly … Superman. You must … make sure … it never … happens … again”.

Though Zod taunted Superman by saying he will find a way to restore his powers and then come to the New Earth to destroy its Earth, he and the other two Phantom Zone criminals were subjected to fatal exposure to Green Kryptonite radiation as their sentence.

Superman admits he does not know how to rebuild the Phantom Zone projector. “Nevertheless, I am forced to find a way to stop the three of you once and for all! You have ruthlessly murdered all the people of this planet — five billion humans! That is a crime without equal! The Nazi holocaust pales by comparison.”

Removing the container of green kryptonite from its storage he continues, “What I must now do is harder than anything I have ever done before. But as the last representative of law and justice on this world, it falls to me to act as judge, jury … and executioner.

He exposes the villains to the deadly kryptonite rays. For long moments he stands while they beg and plead for him to stop. Zod’s claim that the others duped him leads Quex-Ul to crush the life from him so that he dies by Quex-Ul’s hand. Zaora offers to be Superman’s slave and show him pleasures undreamed, but she too weakens and dies. Superman stands resolute at his task until all signs of life are extinguished — only a tear escaping from Superman’s eye shows his sorrow.

Burying the three bodies, he prepares to leave when he notices Supergirl’s protoplasmic form moving in the rubble. Picking her up, he returns to his own Earth (exactly how he returns is not explained — presumably by the same device used by Supergirl to transport him). He leaves Supergirl to the care of his parents and Lana.

He tells them, “I have to … be alone for a while. I need to think.” He doesn’t tell them of his actions in the Pocket Universe but adds, “it’s something I have to resolve myself.” The issue ends with him thinking that, to the people of Earth, “I am still Superman, still the untarnished champion of humanity. When I know that from now on, things can never truly be the same again”.

The storyline that followed this puts superman on a mission to find a nice quiet corner of the universe to live out his years. As we all know this didn’t last forever and Superman eventually came back to Earth. Tht story arc is called “Exile”

Hope you enjoyed my lengthy explination of the Pocket Universe and the Zod that was created for that universe. This is one of the most controversial stories in Superman’s history and well worth learning about it.  Even our beloved Man of Steel isn’t perfect and that’s why I like this story so much.

Leave some comments below and tell me if you were aware of this storyline!

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 13th, 2010 at 5:09 pm and is filed under Character History. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.