Dru-Zod

General **Dru-Zod** is a former Kryptonian military general and an enemy to Superman. Exiled to the Phantom Zone by his people for treason, he survived the destruction of Krypton and swore revenge against the son of Jor-El.

## Biography

### Fighting for Survival

In Krypton's final days, General **Dru-Zod** served as the appointed leader of military defense for the Kryptonian Science Council. Upon learning of the scientific experiments being conducted by Jor-El, Zod alongside his fellow officer Ursa, led a raid on Jor-El's laboratory and placed both men under arrest for charges of heresy. The Kryptonian Science Council believed that Jor-El's theories regarding the planet's imminent destruction was causing uncivil panic.

Soon after the arrest, Zod learned that Jor-El was actually correct and that the Science Council had lied to him. Ursa and he defected from the council and chose to follow in Non and Astra's footsteps of warning Krypton's civilian populace of their penultimate fate. Zod and Ursa grew closer, but soon after, the Kryptonian council members apprehended some of Zod's most trusted advisers and performed a lobotomy on them, turning them into little more than brainless brutes. Zod was incensed. He abandoned all loyalty to the council and swore revenge against them for what they did to his followers.

Zod tried to enlist the aid of Jor-El in a bid to wrest control from the Science Council, but Jor-El refused, citing that violence was hardly the solution. Zod felt that violence was the only answer at this juncture. Zod and Ursa invaded the Science Council chambers and murdered five council members before they were stopped. Jor-El used the last bit of influence he had with the council to convince them not to execute the two for treason. The remaining council members placed Jor-El in charge of sentencing the two Kryptonians, and he opted for what he believed to be the most humane solution - exile. Zod felt that Jor-El was a coward for not joining him, and he vowed to avenge himself against the House of El, including Jor-El's heir, Kal-El. Using a special projector, Jor-El transported Zod and Ursa into an multidimensional null reality known as the Phantom Zone. During the years they spent trapped in the Phantom Zone, Krypton exploded, leaving only one presumed survivor - Kal-El.

### Plotting the Retaliation

Zod and Ursa as it turns out were placed in the same prison that Astra and her followers were sentenced to, Fort Rozz. Fort Rozz was a prison sent into the phantom zone to house the criminals sent into the multidimensional null reality. Inside the prison, time passed normally and residents were able to maintain their solid matter so long as they stayed inside the facility. Because of this, Zod and Ursa were able to mate and produce a son, Lor-Zod. They raised him inside of Fort Rozz where the child was able to age normally. Zod however, was extremely abusive to the boy and saw him as little more than a tool by which to engineer their escape from the Phantom Zone.

Years passed, and Zod was able to build small space vessels that could maintain physical form and escape from the Phantom Zone. Lor-Zod was the key to their success, and functioned as a physical tether between the material world and their otherwise ghostly wraith-forms. Zod knew that the surviving son of his jailer, Jor-El, was living on Earth and Zod wanted to finish off the family line. Further, he decided that Earth was an ideal world ripe for conquering and the establishment of a "new" Krypton. When the time was right, Lor-Zod was launched from the Phantom Zone and sent towards Earth. Upon landing, his ship activated a beacon, which allowed Zod and his loyalists to free themselves and follow him to Earth.

After reuniting with his son, General Zod led a massive attack against the city of Metropolis and managed to exile Jor-El's son Superman into the Phantom Zone, where Non and his followers were waiting to exact vengeance on the House of El. From there, his followers and he enslaved the city, and began terra-forming it with Sunstone structures, similar in design to the buildings of long-dead Krypton. Lor-Zod, having spent some time on Earth with Kal-El, inherited some of Superman's moral fiber and ultimately betrayed his father, attacking him with blasts of heat vision. Superman escaped from the Phantom Zone and made an unlikely alliance with Lex Luthor and defeated Zod and his compatriots. In the end Zod's followers were sent back through the portal with the exception of Zod himself and Ursa who managed to evade the portal.

With only two of them remaining, Zod and Ursa chose to kill Superman and thus at last exact vengeance on the House of El. The three then battled each other with Superman leaning on the brink of defeat, and he would have been defeated if it had not been for Lor-Zod who stepped in and provided the Man of Steel with the reinforced power that he needed to conquer Zod and his wife. Not wanting to kill the two because of both honor and their son, Superman arranged for them to be moved to a off-site facility controlled by the DEO where two Kryptonite powered prison cells where Zod and Ursa were to spend the rest of their days. In order to avoid the possibility of any Kryptonians finding Zod, the Daily Planet printed worldwide that because of Kryptonite weaponry Zod and Ursa had died, thus maintaining the illusion and keeping Lor's parents alive.