General Zod

History

In Krypton's final days, General 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 and his mentor Non, Zod (accompanied by his lieutenant, 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 joined with Non in his quest to warn Krypton's civilian populace of their penultimate fate. Zod and Non grew close, but soon after, the Kryptonian council members apprehended Non and performed a lobotomy on him, turning him into little more than a mindless savage. Zod was incensed. He abandoned all loyalty to the council and swore revenge against them for what they did to Non. 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, Non 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 three terrorists for treason. The remaining council members placed Jor-El in charge of sentencing the three 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, Ursa and Non into an interdimensional 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.

Zod and Ursa discovered a fragment of an old Kryptonian prison known as Fort Rozz floating inside the Phantom Zone. The prison was transported into the zone due to a projector accident, and for reasons unknown, was able to maintain a corporeal shape. Inside the prison, time passed normally and residents were able to revert back into solid matter so long as they stayed inside the building. 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 final 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 the other displaced Kryptonians the power 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. From there, his followers and he enslaved the city, and began terraforming 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.

Powers & Abilities

Kryptonian Physiology

Zod's cellular structure is more dense, resilient and biologically more effective than human tissue. Strangely enough, he does not seem to possess superhuman strength levels despite his enhanced cellular ability without constant exposure to yellow solar energy. Without such charging, his strength seems on par for a human of his height and weight who engages in regular physical activity. Solar Energy Absorption: Zod, like all Kryptonians, obtains his superhuman powers and abilities by absorbing the radiation emitted from Earth's yellow sun, and then converts its energy to his abilities, as he body acts a solar battery for such energy, effectively making him a god among men.

Superhuman Strength

Dru-Zod, also known as General Zod, is an extremely powerful alien hailing from planet Krypton. With his strength, Zod can easily overpower and kill humans and most galactic beings, and as such, he can bend and break through reinforced steel, crush wood panels, and can lift extremely heavy objects and uproot and even decimate full-sized buildings and other structures with his might.

Invulnerability

Zod is resistant to all forms of physical and mental types of harm, and as such, humans can't hurt him, bullets bounce off him, rockets, bombs and lasers can't even leave a mark on him, high-voltage energy emissions (beams) can't penetrate through him, and is immune to all earthly diseases and viruses, and he can only be harmed by other high-tier cosmic beings like Superman, and magic can harm him, and fragments from his home world called Kryptonite can cause him great pain and prolonged exposure to it can kill him.

Superhuman Stamina

Zod can maintain continuous movement and can exercise for unlimited periods of time without ever getting weary or tired in the process. With that said, Zod can take part in superpowerd battle sequences probably for months on end.

Flight

Zod possesses the ability to defy the forces of gravity and fly at speeds in excess to the speed of sound. The mechanism by which he flies is unknown, but some suggestions include the use of a field of energy which allows unconscious manipulation of gravity or diffraction/reflection of gravity due to unidentified Kryptonian organs affected by a yellow sun. Alternately, this power could be explained as a psionic manipulation of a personal anti-gravitational aura, which is also caused by his Kryptonian cells and exposure to a yellow sun.

Superhuman Speed

Zod can exercise and or move at incredible speeds that greatly exceeds the sound barrier, and has the potential to move at speeds greater than the speed of light.

Enhanced Senses

The acuity of Zod's five senses are many times greater than that of the standard Earth human.

Telescopic Vision

Zod can, using the muscles in his eyes, see objects and people from vast distances away, more specifically, from at least twenty yards away, without damaging or straining his eyes.

X-Ray Vision

Zod can mentally break down the polymers in objects and even organisms, allowing him to see right through the object or person, and as such, he can see through anything besides lead.

Microscopic Vision

Zod can, by using the the tight, firm muscles composed in his eyes, see residues, small marks, bacterias and structures of viruses, and even cells that are inside interior complexion bodies, without causing any damage to his eyes.

Electro-magnetic Spectrum Vision

Zod can perceive various patterns within the electromagnetic spectrum. He can see and identify radio/television waves as well as any and all broadcast/transmitted frequencies, allowing him to avoid detection through radar or satellite monitoring methods.

Infrared Vision

In combination with his other extraordinary vision-based powers, Zod can also see into the infrared spectrum.

Heat Vision

Through a conscious act of will, Zod has the ability to fire beams of intense thermal energy at a target simply by looking at it. Visually, the power is typically depicted as two beams of red light firing from his eyes.

Superhuman Hearing

Zod possesses the ability to hear any sound at any volume or pitch. The only Earth creature who can detect sounds at the frequency he can is a blue whale (0.01-200,000 Hz). He has enough control to block out ambient sounds in order to focus on a specific source/frequency. He can identify a person by their heartbeat, or pick out a single voice in an entire city.

Super-Breath

Zod possesses the ability to create hurricane force winds by blowing, and to chill his breath in order to freeze a target (this latter ability has also been called "freeze breath" and "arctic breath"). Zod can also inhale large volumes of air, an ability used when dealing with and disposing things like clouds of poison gas.

Weakness

Magic

Zod is vulnerable to magical and psionic effects. Although he is no more detrimentally affected by such effects than a normal human would be, this is a significantly exploitable weakness in comparison to his incredible physical resilience.

Kryptonite

Since the destruction of Krypton, its remains (rendered radioactive by the explosion) have been spreading throughout the universe as kryptonite, a crystalline substance whose specific radiation is lethal to Kryptonians native to this reality. Historically, Kryptonite exists in variant forms which can affect Zod in a number of different ways.

Lead

Solar Energy

Zod will eventually weaken without replenishing his energy reserves with normal (yellow) sun radiation. He is not replenished by red sunlight, and its radiation can be used to weaken him.

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