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General Zod (Michael Shannon)
Zod - Michael Shannon
Debut Man of Steel
Portrayed by Michael Shannon
Statistics

General Zod was a Kryptonian general and an enemy of Superman.

Biography[]

Man of Steel[]

General Zod is introduced as a warrior loyal to Krypton, having been genetically engineered in a Genesis chamber and assigned his role in Kryptonian society like all other Kryptonians. Zod was raised in the Kryptonian Warrior Guild and rose to the rank of general. During his youth, he also befriends Krypton's leading scientist Jor-El, for having the same interest to keep Krypton safe and in order. When Krypton is near destruction due to excessive mining of the planetary core, Zod considers the council too weak to keep their race alive, so he forms the Sword of Rao and recruits his followers to launch an uprising. Jor-El refuses to join and escapes an arrest attempt by Zod's followers. When Zod arrives at Jor-El's home, he realizes that the latter had stolen the genetic codex and is about to ship it off with his son, Kal-El, the first naturally born Kryptonian child in centuries. Lara Lor-Van, Jor-El's wife, launches Kal to Earth as the male Kryptonians scuffle, after which Zod kills Jor-El in cold blood. In the aftermath, Zod and his followers are arrested and sentenced to exile in the Phantom Zone after being convicted of treason. Zod vows to find Kal-El before he and his troops are cryogenically frozen and shipped off into the Phantom Zone.

After Krypton inevitably explodes, the Phantom Zone portal opens, freeing Zod and his followers, who mourn the destruction of their home world. With the portal's Phantom Drive, they repurpose their prison ship, the Black Zero, and travel across the galaxy to planets colonized by the Kryptonians. Despite failing to find survivors, they retrieve Kryptonian technology including a World Engine used to terraform planets to the needs of Kryptonians. Around 2013, Zod's forces intercept a signal from Earth after an adult Kal-El, now known as Clark Kent, activates a Kryptonian scout ship found in the Arctic. Suspecting that Kal-El is on Earth, Zod broadcasts a global address that he surrender or risk war. Clark reluctantly agrees to his demands, with Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane joining him as a hostage. When Zod finally meets Clark, the latter collapses while adjusting to the Kryptonian atmospherics. In a dreamlike vision, Zod tells Clark about how they managed to escape the Phantom Zone and find him. Zod also tells him that he possess several terraforming devices and his intentions to terraform Earth in order to create a New Krypton but the human race would go extinct as a result. Clark refuses to join, and Zod reveals he killed Jor-El as he ties up Clark, who has his blood drawn by Zod's science officer Jax-Ur. He leaves the ship to recover the codex which he suspects that is hidden on Clark's pod, in the Kent's farm. He confronts Martha Kent but before he can harm her, Clark, having escaped, attacks him, breaking open his helmet and exposing him to Earth's atmospherics. As Zod experiences what Clark did as a child, he collapses and is rescued by his troops.

Back on the ship, Jax-Ur tells Zod that Jor-El infused the genetic codex to Clark's DNA after examining his blood, and also tells him that with the genetic information, Clark is not needed alive to create new Kryptonians. Zod deploys the World Engine from the ship and it lands in the Indian Ocean. When the ship enters Earth and arrives above Metropolis, it begins firing a beam through the planet towards the World Engine, beginning the terraforming which severely damages the city. Zod heads to the Arctic to take the scout ship which contains a Genesis chamber. Jor-El's hologram speaks with Zod and attempts to convince him to abort the mission, but the latter refuses, deleting the AI and taking the ship to Metropolis. Zod attempts to destroy a U.S. Air Force aircraft aiming to attack the Black Zero, but Clark, now calling himself "Superman" and having destroyed the World Engine, infiltrates the scout ship and crashes it. This allows the American plane to crash into the Black Zero with the activated Phantom Drive of Clark's pod, which creates a singularity that sucks Zod's troops back to the Phantom Zone. With the ship destroyed and Krypton's only hope of revival gone, the now insane Zod vows to destroy the Earth and its inhabitants out of revenge, gaining the ability to fly after honing his senses. The two Kryptonians engage in a lengthy battle across Metropolis, causing more destruction, with Clark eventually gaining the upper hand, but when Zod attacks a cornered family in a train station with his heat vision and refuses to back down, Clark reluctantly kills Zod—the only other remaining Kryptonian—by snapping his neck.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice[]

Eighteen months later, Metropolis has rebuilt itself after suffering catastrophic damage from the battle, with a park and monument built at the spot where the Black Zero landed. Zod's corpse is now in the hands of United States government, having been studied by several scientists on the Kryptonian scout ship now located in Metropolis and surrounded by a government facility. Lex Luthor attempts to persuade Senator June Finch to allow him to import Kryptonite discovered after Zod's terraforming attempt, so that it can be used as a deterrent against future Kryptonian and metahuman threats, but she declines, knowing it is a guise to assassinate Superman. However, Senator Barrows allows Lex to have access to study and analyze the body of Zod and the Kryptonian scout ship. Luthor eventually discovers that the exposure to kryptonite decays Kryptonian cells and significantly weakened Zod to mortal standards. Later, Luthor creates a Kryptonian deformity using the scout ship's Genesis chamber, Zod's corpse, and Luthor's blood as a "backup plan" to kill Superman, after failing to manipulate Batman into doing so. This formed an egg sack that the Kryptonian monster emerged from. Though the monster, which Luthor calls his "doomsday", is impervious to nuclear weapons and regenerates itself upon being harmed, Superman manages to kill it with a Kryptonite spear along with Batman and Wonder Woman's help, though it costs him his own life.

The Flash[]

An alternate timeline version of General Zod appears in the 2023 film The Flash, with Michael Shannon reprising his role. Zod travels with his crew to Earth, which they were never locked in the Phantom Zone. Arriving on the planet, they begin the attack and in an encounter with Kara Zor-El, who learns that Zod killed Kal-El when his pod strayed as a baby, and that the Growth Codex needed to convert the Earth on Krypton is inside her, after a confrontation, he kills her by taking her blood sample, before this timeline was restored erasing him from existence by The Flash.

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