What are (or should be) the rules of the Phantom Zone?

[Robotman]

In Bendis’ Superman #3, the criminals imprisoned in the Phantom Zone are able to physically interact with each other to the point of being able to fight. In other iterations we’ve seen the Phantom Zone prisoners as actual phantoms and basically ghosts while in thie phantom dimension. Morrison brought back a Silver Age wrinkle of the beings imprisoned occasionally being able to break the physical plain and appear in “ghost form” to regular people.

I think the criminals losing their corporeal form in the dimension as an even greater punishment and something that should be kept when the Phantom Zone appears in Superman comics. It’s like solitary on a comics level. The helplessness of not being able to interact with the strange world they’ve been imprisoned in make the incarceration that much worse. A major reason why Superman doesn’t like using it. As the most empathetic being on the planet, he wouldn’t be in favor of this punishment.

How do you think the Phantom Zone should be portrayed?

[Vordan]

They’re incorporeal, don’t age, don’t need food, water, or sleep. It’s like being dumped into a prison cell in isolation except there’s no escape or release from the boredom and loneliness. That would be my rule for the place but like all things, the PZ will be subject to each incoming writer’s interpretation.

[Kuwagaton]

I was wondering if the recent comics were maybe changing the rules of the zone since Earth was in it with its own atmosphere. But they don't seem to be phantoms at all even in the outer limits. Just as well, I guess, since it's less cruel this way.

[adkal]

But they don't seem to be phantoms at all even in the outer limits. Just as well, I guess, since it's less cruel this way.

It was a bit like that in the Supergirl movie, wasn't it?

[Jim Kelly]

There'a a lot of potential in the Phantom Zone for true horror. But mostly it seems to be used just to get a villain from point A to point B--so Superman and Supergirl can fight them in the real world.

They should be wraiths in the Zone. They shouldn't talk or touch--because nothing is real--but they should communicate with their thoughts and use the power of their minds to move things. There was an old Lois Lane story where she was in the Phantom Zone and she could use her mind to type a message in the real world.

Being in the Phantom Zone should be hell. I liked how Steve Gerber and Gene Colan explored the PHANTOM ZONE (in that mini-series) and showed that its surreal landscape stretches to other regions that haven't been explored. There's the opportunity there for someone to do a new Phantom Zone series on the order of Dante's INFERNO from THE DIVINE COMEDY.

Also, I would have it that being put in the Zone is like being in the cloud. The original corporeal form is destroyed--to come back from the Zone into the real world, a new corporeal form has to be reconstituted. If that's not possible--because the bio-genetic information isn't available to reconstitute them--then the wraith may try to enter the body of a regular human host and take them over.

This is why the codex should be important to Zod, as it stores all the bio-genetic information of every Kryptonian. If it's destroyed or not available, neither he nor his army of fellow Phantom Zoners can return to the real world in their Kryptonian forms.

[adkal]

I'm a little partial to the idea that the Phantom Zone has zones/regions within itself, including areas where one can become physical again (but that, perhaps, that attracts 'zone-beasts' or something to you (like the zone in Superman vol 2 #43, I think)).

But, perhaps, ordinarily, when you first enter it, it's like the quietest place ever. Quieter than the quietest room on Earth - and that's the place that can break you. Perhaps Kal has adjusted the zone-gate so it opens in a more neutral ('safer') place (or draws the person to be released over to the 'safe' place).

But that quiet... I think that's essential for the zone, overall. The place where those who are lost remain, and where those who made it through never want to go back.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I like Morrison's idea that the Phantom Zone is literally Limbo, so the rules of the place are a constantly shifting and disorienting nightmare for its inhabitants.

[Myskin]

I am not THAT interested in establishing rules for the zone - even if I tend to be a bit more interested in the lovecraftian landscape (Gerber, Bendis) rather than the totally incorporeal version which appeared in Morrison's run (whose rules I really don't understand). But I would be more interested in exploring the reasons behind the purpose of the zone as a prison. I mean, to me it's a big contradiction: how can Kryptonians be considered so technologically and socially advanced and - at the same time - approve a punishment which is simply cruel, useless (as far as I remember the PZ criminals only became WORSE after entering it) and flawed (at least one criminal, Quex-Ul, is completely innocent)?

I have always thought that it could have been a great metaphor for our modern society - throwing problems away where we don't see them instead of resolving them, more or less the subtext in George Romero's zombie films - but as far as I know, nobody really used this opportunity so far.

[adkal]

I have always thought that it could have been a great metaphor for our modern society - throwing problems away where we don't see them instead of resolving them, more or less the subtext in George Romero's zombie films - but as far as I know, nobody really used this opportunity so far.

Bendis has kind of alluded to that through some of Rogol's comments, I think.

[Agent Z]

I am not THAT interested in establishing rules for the zone - even if I tend to be a bit more interested in the lovecraftian landscape (Gerber, Bendis) rather than the totally incorporeal version which appeared in Morrison's run (whose rules I really don't understand). But I would be more interested in exploring the reasons behind the purpose of the zone as a prison. I mean, to me it's a big contradiction: how can Kryptonians be considered so technologically and socially advanced and - at the same time - approve a punishment which is simply cruel, useless (as far as I remember the PZ criminals only became WORSE after entering it) and flawed (at least one criminal, Quex-Ul, is completely innocent)?

I have always thought that it could have been a great metaphor for our modern society - throwing problems away where we don't see them instead of resolving them, more or less the subtext in George Romero's zombie films - but as far as I know, nobody really used this opportunity so far.

Can you point to where Quex-Ul was shown as innocent?

[Myskin]

Can you point to where Quex-Ul was shown as innocent?

More news here
http://supermanica.superman.nu/index.php/Quex-Ul
And in his first appearance, Superman 157