Unbagging Superman Presents The Phantom Zone
Superman Presents the Phantom Zone
Creators
| Writer | Steve Gerber |
| Cover Artist | Gene Colan |
| Penciller | Gene Colan |
| Inker | Tony DeZuniga |
| Colorist | Carl Gafford |
| Letterer | Milt Snapinn |
| Editor | Joe Orlando, Dick Giordano |
There is much about the Zone that Jor-El did not know when he discovered it, least of all that he had discovered Hell itself.
I’ve been meaning to do an Unbagging on this mini-series for a while and recently felt compelled to finally do so thanks to an ongoing story – at the time of this writing – in current issues of Action Comics that clearly draws some inspiration from this Bronze Age classic.
However, I was contemplating holding off a bit, given that my last three Unbagging posts have been about comics from DC that prominently feature Superman, and I really ought to be mixing things up a bit more.
Then again, it is my site and I can do what I want, and I really want to write about this mini-series as the current Action storyline does not compare favorably and given that I’m trying to focus on being positive here it would do me well to channel my irritation with that story into singing the praises of this story.
Because I really have to say something and I’d prefer to say something nice.
That said, I’ve never done an Unbagging for a mini-series before, so I’m not entirely sure how to approach it. I’ve opted to break it up into sections for each issue. Is that the best way? I don’t know; I guess we’ll find out together as we start with…
#1 The Haunting of Charlie Kweskill
Release: Jan 1982
Cover: Jan 1982
We start with a Daily Planet employee named Charlie Kweskill who’s falling asleep on the job. Charlie just can’t seem to keep his eyes open to the extent that he even falls asleep – and falls and cuts his head – while getting yelled at by Perry White.
Once his head is bandaged up, Perry sends him home to get some rest, but despite how tired he is, rest is the last thing Charlie wants, as his dreams are the source of his distress.
Charlie keeps dreaming of another world, a world that no longer exists, dreaming about it as he if were there, which is impossible, as the world he’s dreaming about is Krypton, the doomed home world of Superman, and Charlie had certainly never been there.
Or had he?
His dreams center around crime and punishment and a brilliant scientist’s new discovery. The scientist is Jor-El, Superman’s father, and the discovery is the Phantom Zone, a different dimension in which material beings lose their material existence, becoming disembodied phantoms, able to perceive the physical world but unable to interact with it.
The decision is made to use the Phantom Zone to incarcerate Krypton’s criminals. It’s viewed as the perfect prison, as its inhabitants will have no physical needs and will have nothing to do with their time but think.
Charlie watches as the Zone is filled with the worst of the worst, such as Jax-Ur, whose illegal rocket experiment destroyed Krypton’s populated moon Wegthor, killing its entire population.
Faora Hu-Ul, a man-hating mistress of the deadliest Kryptonian martial art Horo-Kanu, who ran a concentration camp where she imprisoned, tortured, and murdered 23 men.
Kru-El, Jor-El’s black sheep cousin, who developed powerful, forbidden weapons.
General Zod, who attempted to overthrow the Science Council and seize control of Krypton.
And finally, Charlie observes the sentencing of the last person to be sent to the Zone before its use was discontinued, a man named Quex-Ul who was found guilty of causing the extinction of the rondor, having killed the animals to procure their horns, which had healing properties.
What’s most notable about Quex-Ul – to Charlie and the reader – is how much Charlie Kweskill and Quex-Ul resemble each other.
In addition to strange dreams, Charlie finds himself waking up in strange places, such as a highly-secured laboratory where he’s somehow managed to overpower the security guards.
Meanwhile, Clark (Superman) Kent is talking to Perry White about the rash of break-ins – such as the one we find Charlie engaged in – and Perry’s casual mention of Charlie’s recent behavior prompts Clark to check in on Charlie (as Superman).
Superman finds nothing amiss at Charlie’s place, mostly because he wasn’t suspicious enough and didn’t notice the lead-lined closet.
The reason Charlie has been dreaming about Krypton is that he is Quex-Ul.
The irony of using the Phantom Zone as a prison is that because they were in the Zone the worst people on Krypton weren’t actually on Krypton when it exploded, thus surviving its destruction as bodiless phantoms, where they did indeed have plenty of time to think, but all that most of them thought about was escaping the Zone and getting revenge on Superman, the heir of their jailer.
In his Fortress of Solitude, Superman had a Phantom Zone viewer, through which he could observe the Zone and communicate with its inhabitants, as well as a Phantom Zone Projector, which would allow him to transport people to and from the Zone.
Most criminals in the Zone were sentenced for specific durations, and as the last representative of Kryptonian justice, Superman would release them as their sentences ended.
Quex-Ul was one such prisoner who was released (and far too late at that, as it turns out he had been framed). Unfortunately, after being released he was exposed to Gold Kryptonite, a variety of Kryptonite that permanently robs Kryptonians of their super powers. Quex-Ul also lost his memory of his life in the process, and so Superman set him up with the identity of Charlie Kweskill and a new life as a regular man on Earth.
In the Zone, all communication happens telepathically, and in the past the criminals there learned that if they pool their resources they can influence the mind of someone in the real world, provided the person is in a weakened mental state.
Let by General Zod, several of them have been exerting such an influence on Charlie, causing him to steal parts to build…something.
At the end of the issue, when Superman swings by to check on Charlie one more time, we discover what that something is: a Phantom Zone Projector.
The crudely-constructed device is unstable, and as Charlie activates it before Superman can stop him, it explodes, releasing Zod and his compatriots while simultaneously imprisoning Superman and Charlie in the Zone.
I should note that we met some other inhabitants of the Zone beyond those I mentioned, some of whom were not part of Zod’s inner circle but who were freed nonetheless.
There was also another who was completely apart from all of the others and did not escape – for his own good – the only non-Kryptonian, non-criminal in the Zone, the Daxamite youth named Lar-Gand, though more commonly known as Mon-El.
On Earth, Daxamites have powers identical to Kryptonians. Years earlier when an amnesiac Lar-Gand’s spaceship landed on Earth and a boy with super powers and vague memories of Krypton and a man named Jor-El, was found by Jor-El’s son, then known as Superboy, the two teens reached what they thought was the only logical conclusion: they were long-lost brothers.
Because he arrived on a Monday, and was thought to be an El, Superboy dubbed the nameless boy “Mon-El,” and the two “brothers” became partners in crimefighting.
Unfortunately, they soon learned that while their powers were the same they had different weaknesses. While Superboy is vulnerable to Kryptonite, a relatively exotic element, Mon-El was vulnerable to the much more common lead.
Soon, the boy was dying from lead poisoning, the shock of which restored his memory of being a boy from Daxam who had happened to land on Krypton just as it was exploding and was warned away by Jor-El..
To save him, Superboy sent Mon-El to the Phantom Zone until a cure for his condition could be found. (Which took 1,000 years.)
Superboy lost his brother twice; first upon learning that he wasn’t his brother at all, and again when he had to send him away.
I’ve always found everything about Mon-El’s story to be profoundly sad, both for Superboy – who goes from finding out he has a brother to finding out that no he doesn’t to having to send the person he still loves like a brother away, possibly forever – and for Mon-El, who has to spend 1,000 years as a disembodied spirit whose only company are some of the worst people around and who want nothing to do with him.
In any case, that’s where our first issue ends: with Superman (and Charlie) trapped in the Phantom Zone and some of the deadliest, most powerful people in the universe walking free on an unsuspecting Earth.
#2 Earth Under Siege
Release: Feb 1982
Cover: Feb 1982
This one was actually the first issue that I read back when it came out. I’d totally missed the first one – I got it sometime later in a mystery pack – but missing an issue, or even most issues wasn’t really a dealbreaker back then and was pretty much par for the course when it came to buying comics as a kid.
Anyway, after escaping the Zone the first order of business for Zod and crew is to make sure that no one can learn that they’re free and send them back. They burst out of Charlie’s apartment to do that, leaving behind some of their fellow Zone criminals who aren’t part of the plan.
That consists of Nam-Ek, a former scientist whose experiments with Rondor horns made him into an immortal human-rondor hybrid, Jer-Em, a mad priest who was responsible for the destruction of Argo City, Supergirl’s home, which had survived Krypton’s destruction, and Az-Rel and Nadira Va-Dim two young Kryptonian nihilists who already had super powers even on Krypton.
They don’t get along well and soon start to argue, but Az-Rel and Nardira end the argument quickly and decisively by turning their mutant powers on Nam-Ek. Nadira can telekinetically disrupt nervous systems, causing people to convulse, and Az-Rel is pyrotic, able to cause things to burn with his mind. Their combined assault sends a burning Nam-Ek through the roof, fleeing in mindless agony.
With that, the two head out to explore the world and are greeted by the SWAT team that showed up in response to the explosion in Charlie’s apartment. They just keep walking even as the cops open fire and are killed by their own bullets ricocheting off the two Kryptonians.
Zod and crew, meanwhile, have headed to the Fortress of Solitude to destroy the Phantom Zone Projector and Communicator. He and Faora stay behind as the others head off into space, but Faora soon takes off on her own after Zod gets too familiar.
The three in space first deal with the Justice League satellite, hurling it – and the members on board – out of the solar system.
On their way back they take out all of Earth’s military satellites.
The sudden loss of all of their satellites doesn’t go over well with the nations of the world and it doesn’t take long before the missiles start to fly.
Fortunately, though Superman and several members of the League are out of commission, Earth does have some defenders.
Supergirl gets an assist from Wonder Woman and the two of them manage to save humanity from itself as Supergirl’s cousin and a confused Charlie Kweskill/Quex-Ul watch helplessly from the Zone.
Fortunately, the two of them are not there alone, as Mon-El stayed behind, and he informs Superman that despite the destruction of the Phantom Zone Projector there may be away for him and Charlie to escape.
On Earth, Green Lantern returns to chaos after a mission in space and finds that someone has broken into his house and stolen his lantern. He gives chase, but with his charge waning, and because he’s Hal Jordan, he’s no match for the three Kryptonians who make off with the source of his power.
On her way back to Washington, Wonder Woman spots Nam-Ek streaking through the sky and decides to investigate the screaming fireball that whizzes paster her.
When she finds him, his already deformed body is in even worse shape after having been on fire, but Wonder Woman greets him with kindness. As he quickly regenerates thanks to the rondor part of him, he lashes out in anger, unable to trust kindness after centuries of being shunned for his appearance.
Wonder Woman manages to lasso him, compelling him to obey her and to tell her who he is and what’s going on.
Supergirl, wondering why her cousin didn’t show up to help stop Armageddon, swings by Gotham to enlist Batman’s help in finding him, asking him to head to Metropolis while she flies to the Fortress.
And in Metropolis, while the big story is obviously the near-miss with World War III, Perry White sends Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane to investigate the ongoing situation at Charlie’s apartment.
At the Fortress, Supergirl finds Zod and demands answers, but is unprepared for the vicious assault of Kru-El and Jax-Ur.
It’s a brutal sequence that ends with Supergirl beaten within an inch of her life, her face shoved into the floor by the heel of Zod’s boot.
In the Zone, Mon-El leads Superman and Charlie to the furthest edge of the Phantom Zone to an energy barrier through which some have passed but none have dared go further to the levels beyond the next, even though it’s believed that it is the path to freedom.
Lacking any other options, Superman and Charlie dive in.
#3 The Terror Beyond Twilight
Release: Mar 1982
Cover: Mar 1982
This one caused me some anxiety because with the way things stood last issue with what I remember being a cliffhanger – it actually isn’t one, but somehow in my memory it seems like it was; indeed, I thought that was how the issue ended – I thought they might really kill Supergirl.
They don’t – oh yeah, spoilers – but to my 9-year-old mind it seemed like a real possibility for a moment. Of course, when she didn’t die, I immediately pretended like I hadn’t been worried, as if I were some world-weary, jaded sophisticate who knew that they obviously would never really kill Supergirl.
I mean, that could never happen! Not in a million years!
Right?
…right?
*Cough*
Superman and Charlie find themselves in a maelstrom, tossed about by raging currents, and finding, to their surprise, that they can make contact with each other as Superman reaches for Charlie’s hand to pull him free from a whirlpool.
Then the storm ends, and the two find themselves fully solid once more and atop a mountain. Unfortunately, it’s a mountain in a place with a red sun, so Superman is powerless.
Fortunately, it’s a place where Superman has been before, he knows that in time the sun will turn yellow, restoring his powers, and further, the sun is actually a portal to another dimension.
So it’s just a matter of waiting until Superman can fly the two of them out of there.
On Earth, Zod and crew dump Supergirl’s unconscious body into a disintegration pit full of radioactive fuel that can even destroy a full-powered Kryptonian, and leave to attend to whatever their plan is.
This is a part I remember being more of a cliffhanger: Supergirl falling into the pit. But it’s not; she wakes up almost instantly and manages to grab hold of the wall and climb out.
…I really don’t know why I remember this as being so much more of a nailbiter.
At Charlie’s apartment, Jer-Em is ranting and raving at the police and assembled gawkers through the hole in the wall. Batman shows up, tries to reason with Jer-Em, nearly gets his arm broken for his trouble, and is tossed out onto the street.
Jer-Em starts using his heat vision to blow up cop cars to get everyone to leave him alone, which only leads to more problems.
Batman realizes that Jer-Em is obviously Kryptonian and quickly starts to piece together where he came from and what that means for where Superman is.
Superman, however, isn’t exactly where Batman imagines. He and Charlie are actually being attacked by monstrous birds trying to feed the two powerless Kryptonians to their young.
However, he sun turns yellow in the nick of time and Superman and Charlie are soon on their way out through the sun/portal.
For some reason, things don’t work the way they did the last time Superman was here, and he and Charlie find that the sun has a face and they’re flying into its open mouth, which leads them to a cave.
After Superman busts them out of that they have a weird encounter with some sun-faced babes.
After the one talking to Charlie removes her sun mask and reveals a rondor head, Charlie’s memory starts to return, while of the other babes’ heads explode.
The rondor head gives way to a Phantom Zone Projector and Charlie and Superman soon find themselves at some pearly gates, where a grim reaper slashes Superman open.
He’s saved by a guy with a melted face who turns out to be a Kryptonian wizard named Thul-Kar – his skull-faced guard’s weapon was able to cut Superman because it’s magic – and though Superman had no idea that there had ever been wizards on the science-obsessed Krypton, he listens to Thul-Kar’s tale, learning that he had willingly entered the Phantom Zone via magic to escape Krypton’s destruction.
Thul-Kar explains that the Zone is really just the outer edges of the mind of a godlike being called Aethyr, the oversoul, and that this is as far as Superman and Charlie can go, as trying to go further is how Thul-Kar ended up wtih a melted face.
Superman ignores that, as he needs to get back to Earth to save it, and convinces Thul-Kar to guide him to the portal to the next and final level.
Superman and Quex-Ul – Charlie almost fully remembers who he is now – dive into the portal and fly through a crystalline shell only to be struck by some weapon created by Aethyr and disappear.
On Earth, Supergirl has recovered and finds that Zod and his compatriots have absconded with much of Superman’s scientific equipment and ransacked the place. It’s clear to her that they don’t want anyone to see into the Phantom Zone, but she’s not sure what they’re up to beyond wanton destruction.
We, however, get to learn, as we see them in space constructing a giant Phantom Zone Projector – powered by Green Lantern’s power battery – that’s pointed at the Earth.
#4 The Phantom Planet
Release: Apr 1982
Cover: Apr 1982
Things aren’t looking good on Earth.
We get to see a bit more of what’s happening with some of the other escapees, most notably Az-Rel and Nadira, who are having just as hard a time fitting in on Earth as they did on Krypton.
Things go south quickly and soon they’re turning their powers on everyone in the club, ultimately killing everyone and burning the whole place down.
Batman meets with Perry White to try to figure out what Charlie’s connection to Krypton is and Perry suddenly remembers that Charlie himself is the connection. Charlie had integrated so well and been so unassuming and non-descript that Perry had mostly forgotten who Charlie really was.
Batman reaches out to the other members of the League, which includes Wonder Woman, who, thanks to Nam-Ek, has a lot of the answers Batman is looking for, and Green Lantern, who is powerless but has borrowed a jet from his day job.
Supergirl also talks to Perry and figures out that Batman has probably called the Justice League to meet in New York and heads there.
Then we check in with Faora, in a scene that has…stuck with me for a long time.
I will neither confirm nor deny whether it awakened anything in me, I will only say that it…stuck with me.
The rumbling of the ground is the result of part of the planet being sent into the Phantom Zone by the giant Projector pointed at it. As the Earth turns into the ray, eventually the entire planet and everyone on it will be banished to the Zone in Zod’s ultimate revenge on the son of his jailer, though he, like Jor-El considers it a kind of mercy.
Superman and Quex-Ul are facing off against Aethyr itself, as the creature toys with them for its own amusement.
I won’t spoil what remains of the story, but I will say that Superman does, of course, find his way back to the material world, good does eventually conquer evil, albeit at a very high cost, and in some cases, evil conquers evil.
Years later, Gerber would revisit the Phantom Zone and Aethyr in the final issue of DC Comics Presents, wrapping up some leftover stories as the new continuity in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths began to take shape and a new version of Superman and his mythos – one that did not include the Phantom Zone – became the established history.
The Zone, like so many other things, has returned and become a part of established continuity – to the extent that such a thing as “continuity” exists in the current DC Universe – and as noted, it and Aethyr have been part of a current story.
And also as noted, this story is better.
I’ve told you a lot of what happens in it, but I’ve left out a lot, too, and one of the things I haven’t commented on is just how dark it is, though that shouldn’t really be necessary given what I’ve shown you.
Mass murder! World War III! Existential crises! Questions about the morality – or lack thereof – of imprisonment!
A hot, wet, naked woman crushing a man to death!
These are all heavy topics for any comic, let alone a code-approved Superman comic.
Throughout this story we see Superman pushed to his limits, see his values put to the ultimate test, and while we see him triumph, we see, too, just how much that victory costs and see him get pushed closer to the edge than any of us would care to think about.
It’s dark but there is a light that shines through it, shining brighter in contrast with the darkness.
I’d never encountered anything like it as a kid, and as an adult I can tell you that it holds up and serves as an example of the kind of mind-bending and subversive work that made the late Steve Gerber the icon that he is.
Over 40 years later it still feels modern.
As a kid, I was never a fan of Gene Colan’s style. Even now, I think it’s only suited to certain kinds of stories, and I’m not certain that this is one of them. I will say that the inks from DeZuniga made it more palatable to me that it might have been otherwise, and even with the benefit of the appreciation I’ve developed for Colan’s style over the years I still think it helps a lot.
Still, given that in many ways this is as much a horror story as it is a superhero story, I can see Colan as an understandable choice.
That a comic like this exists at all is kind of amazing, and that it was able to accomplish what it did while remaining within the bounds defined by the Comics Code Authority is nothing short of miraculous
I’m trying not to be too negative about the current story – it’s not terrible, and I can understand why others would enjoy it more than I do – but if you’re going to read just one story about Superman trying to escape the Phantom Zone, read this one.
If you’re going to read two stories about Superman trying to escape the Phantom Zone…read this one twice.
Born and raised in the sparsely populated Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Jon Maki developed an enduring love for comics at an early age.
