General Zod (full name Dru-Zod) is a fictional character, a supervillain who appears in comic books published by DC Comics, and is one of Superman's more prominent enemies. The character, who first appeared in Adventure Comics #283 (April 1961), was created by Robert Bernstein and initially designed by George Papp. Zod is a warlord from Superman's home planet of Krypton. As a Kryptonian, he exhibits the same powers and abilities as Superman, and is viewed as one of his greatest enemies.
In the motion pictures Superman (1978) and Superman II (1980), Zod is portrayed by British actor Terence Stamp; the character is the principal villain in the latter film. Total Film ranked Stamp's version of Zod as #32 on their "Top 50 Greatest Villains Of All Time" list in 2007. Pop-culture website IGN.com ranked General Zod as #30 on their list of the "Top 100 Comic Book Villains", asserting that "Stamp is Zod" (emphasis in original). The character was played by Michael Shannon in Zack Snyder's 2013 film Man of Steel.
Powers and Abilities
Like all Kryptonians under a yellow sun, General Zod possesses vast strength, speed, and endurance; super hearing; x-ray vision; telescopic, microscopic, and heat vision; super-breath and freeze-breath; invulnerability; healing and flight. In the movie Superman II he also displayed telekinetic powers, being able to levitate a police officer's gun into his hand. Zod possesses a detailed knowledge of military tactics, giving him an advantage over Superman's somewhat amateurish combat prowess. Zod was trained in fighting arts before receiving his abilities, while Superman is prone to battling his foes with the aid of his own (in most stories, anyway). Despite his tactical superiority in a confrontation with Superman, Zod's main weakness is shown to be his arrogance. Not only does he underestimate Superman's other allies, but he also lacks the ability to acknowledge his own mistakes. When Zod originally escaped the Phantom Zone in the post-Crisis continuity, he proclaimed that he could have saved Krypton if his plan to kill the Council had succeeded; Superman's rational argument was that nobody on Krypton would have followed Zod, also drawing attention to Zod's inability to explain exactly what he would have done to avert Krypton's destruction, with Zod's only response being to reiterate his belief in his own success rather than provide any kind of counter to Superman's claims. In addition, his powers are often inferior to those of Superman, due to the latter being exposed to the yellow sun over the course of his entire life, while Zod typically only gets exposed for a short period of time before being defeated and returned to the Phantom Zone, giving Superman an edge over Zod's superior fighting skill.
