Phantom Zone

The Phantom Zone is a fictional alternate dimension featured in comic books published by DC Comics. It first appeared in Adventure Comics, Volume 1 #283 in April, 1961. The Phantom Zone is associated with the Superman line of comic titles and has also appeared in alternative media relating to the character including films, live-action television programs and animated projects.

Description
The Phantom Zone is an interdimensional null void that exists outside the boundaries of time and space. It cannot be accessed via conventional means of space travel and entrance to the zone can only be gained through very specific means. Physical matter does not exist in the phantom zone. Also the concept of the passage of time is absent in the zone. Life, if it exists at all in the zone, does so as entities of psychic energy only. The only indigenous life form born of the Phantom Zone is a creature called the Aethyr, who is actually the living embodiment of the zone itself.

History
Many years ago, a scientist from the planet Krypton named Jor-El discovered the existence of the Phantom Zone. He presented his findings to the Kryptonian Science Council, and offered it up as an alternative form of imprisonment in the Kryptonian penal system. At this point in time, Kryptonian criminals were placed into a state of suspended animation in stasis pods and remained there until their sentence was carried out. Jor-El believed that banishment to the Phantom Zone offered a more humane means of incarceration. He developed a projection device that could transport prisoners from Krypton into the zone whereupon they would become incorporeal beings. As they had no physical vocal chords with which to speak, communication between these "Phantom Zoners" could only be accomplished via telepathy.

The first criminal to be banished to the Phantom Zone was a scientist named Jax-Ur. Jax-Ur was sentenced for multiple counts of murder after he launched a nuclear missile that destroyed the Kryptonian moon of Wegthor, killing over five-hundred colonists.

Following Jax-Ur's banishment, other Kryptonians were sent into Phantom Zone to pay for their crimes. The most infamous among them was a military insurrectionist named Dru-Zod. Other criminals included Quex-Ul, Faora Hu-Ul, Nam-Ek, and Jer-Em the mad prophet.

When the people of Krypton learned that their planet was on the verge of destruction to geological instability, Jor-El petitioned the Kryptonian Science Council to use the Phantom Zone as a sanctuary for all of Krypton's doomed populace. Jor-El never got the approval to embark upon such a plan, as the Science Council was ensnared in their own bureacracy, and some did not believe Jor-El's "doomsayer" warnings about Krypton's future. Unfortunately, Jor-El's fears came to pass and the planet Krypton exploded. Everyone on the planet at the time, including Jor-El and his wife, Lara Lor-Van died. Before its destruction, Jor-El succeeded in building a rocket and launching his infant son Kal-El into space where he would eventually land on Earth and was destined to become the hero known as Superman.

Those who were already placed in exile in the Phantom Zone avoided the fate suffered by all other Kryptonians. In fact, they were not even aware that Krypton was gone. In time, those trapped in the zone came upon creative means of escaping, even making use of a 'back door' egress through Aethyr's realm. As Jax-Ur was the first Kryptonian to be sent to the Phantom Zone, he was also the first criminal to leave. Upon regaining corporeal form, Jax-Ur found himself in a solar system with a yellow sun, which gave him superhuman phsyical traits, as well as the ability to fly and to project beams of thermal energy from his eyes. Arriving on Earth, he found the son of Jor-El, Kal-El, living as a teenager in the town of Smallville using the Earth name Clark Kent. Jax-Ur plotted against this so-called "Superboy", but his plan was ultimately exposed and he was sent back to the Zone.

General Zod found a means of escaping as well and likewise led his Kryptonian followers to Earth in a plot to confound Superboy. He was defeated and sent back to the Zone. Years later, Zod and his followers would escape again and return to Earth to plague Kal-El, who was now an adult who went by the code-name Superman.

Superman film series
The Phantom Zone is a fictional location featured in comic books published by DC Comics. It appeared in the original Superman film series beginning with a brief appearance in Superman: The Movie, as well as Superman II. It also appeared in the DC Extended Universe in the 2013 feature film Man of Steel.

The Phantom Zone is an interdimensional pocket realm that exists outside of space and time. Little is known about its actual properties, but it is believed to be a two-dimensional realm. It is sometimes represented as a geometric barrier through which the occupants of the Zone can look through a veritable window into the real world.

In the original film series Jor-El had created the Phantom Zone and used it to exile Kryptonian criminals. Three such criminals, Zod, Ursa and Non were sentenced to the Phantom Zone for acts of seditious treason. They remained there for about three decades, never aging. A shock wave in space, generated when a hydrogen bomb exploded after Superman hurled it into space, caused the Phantom Zone barrier to shatter, releasing the criminals.

Pre-Crisis Earth-One

 * Aethyr
 * Dev-Em
 * Dru-Zod
 * Faora Hu-Ul
 * Jax-Ur
 * Jer-Em
 * Mon=El
 * Nam-Ek
 * Quex-Ul
 * Shyla Kor-Onn
 * Tor-An

Superman film series

 * Non
 * Ursa
 * Zod

DC Extended Universe

 * Faora-Ul
 * Jax-Ur
 * Lor-Em
 * Ro-Zar
 * Tor-An
 * Zod