So... who of Superman's villains, really DO belong in the Phantom Zone?

[Superlad93]

Well, I haven't reread the issue yet, but didn't Diana ended up closing the breach pretty much when she arrived? Of course, wether or not it was permanent is anyone's guess.

Nah from what I read there are likely others out there

[L.R Johansson]

Great to see such great discussion in this thread! ^^ Now, for my replies...

The ones - like those you list - too powerful to just arrest normally (even with comic book high tech prisons for super villains).

Agreed. Makes too much sense not to put Doomsday in there. He fits all of the criteria, and then some... I think the reason it's never been done before, is because most of the Doomsday -appearances before, was when the Zone was retconned away.

I don't think trapping a New God in another dimension would hold them for very long. They tend to have a greater understanding of the cosmology and nature of the universe, plus they have technology and allies that can cross into other universes.

And couldn't Cyborg Superman use his own technology to create a device to escape from the Zone with?

Or at least this is my pre-new52 understanding of these characters, the newer versions might be more limited and easier to contain.

Very valid argument about DarkSeid, his minions could probably come up with a Zone-projector, and let him out. I don't think he could get out of it on his own tho' - even a boom-tube making father-box would be incorporeal, and therefore unable to initiate the tube.

Cyborg Superman's technology would be useless, since it would be incorporeal as well. So I can't see how his tech would help him to get out of it then.

Good luck keeping Darkseid in the room long enough to even put him in the Zone.

It can be done. Depending on the incarnation, DarkSeid have been beaten any number of times, enough to actually potentially imprison him later on. I can actually see it happening during a JLA team-up against DarkSeid - the Flash goes and gets the projector, while the rest of the league manages to "knock Darkseid down" for a while. Even a minute or two of Darkseid down for the count, is more than enough when you're the fastest man alive.

Good luck confining Darkseid. Aside from sticking him in the Source Wall, I dont think there is a prison in the multiverse he couldn't escape. And you'd have to confine all of his minions and worshipers too. He's the very *idea* of evil.

I dont read Supergirl and am thus in the dark about the new Cyborg Superman's abilities, but I think the Zone would be a good prison for him. At least pre-52 I dont think he could travel between dimensions. Assuming he still cant, the Zone works as well as anything else.

Vyndx would certainly quality as "bad enough" for the Zone, but he's a fifth dimensional imp so that's not gonna work. I think H'el deserves the Zone, but Im not sure if he even exists anymore or if he wrote himself out of history. Imperiex....you know, I gotta say Imperiex doesnt deserve the Zone. It was just doing what it was meant to do. Much in the same way that Galactus isnt properly evil, Imperiex is a victim of design. And regardless, Im not sure if the Zone would hold it.

What about villains from other franchises? Seems to me the Joker is long overdue for a tenure in the Zone, as is Black Hand and Trigon.

The reason I think Vyndvx could be contained in the Zone, is because of Alan Moore's "Whatever happened to the man of tomorrow?". In it, the evil Mxy seems to fear being sent into the Zone, ergo why he desperately says his name backwards, to go back to the 5th dimension, but then ends up being ripped apart by the two dimension-displacing powers.

Why would he fear it, if he wouldn't be as helpless as a 3D/4D -being, there? I hypothesize this: The Zone has no dimension, hence why it has no substance. But this also means, that just like in Star Trek TNG, something WITHOUT dimensions, actually has INFINITE dimensions. Hence, it doesn't matter if you are 5th-dimensional if you're thrown into the Zone, the Zone still has a one-up on ya'. Makes sense imho, since the Phantom Zone -entity ( according to the eponymous bronze age mini-series, the Zone is actually a form of entity, wast and limitless) is so similar to the entity in TNG, it probably means it has similar properties - i.e, it has infinite dimensions.

Trigon's an excellent candidate for the Zone, actually! =) That'd be a neat story, if the Titans end their next meeting with him, with Superboy or Raven imprisoning him in the Zone.

Mongul's already in the zone. Doomsday has escaped it. Lobo could be contained here, but the rest; I think technology is such that they can't be put there in the first place.

Well that depends - does that technology actually work in the zone? Where it becomes incorporeal, and where the laws of nature are wastly different from where the tech originated. IMHO, it's not clear-cut that something like a Mother-box would work in the Zone.

And wasn't it revealed that Doomsday was released through a team-up between those ghost-baddies, the Central, and Xa-Du? It's not like that would actually work for Doomsday again, since he doesn't know anything about tech and extra-temporal physics whatsoever.

I'd say pretty much his A-list villains all belong in the PZ.

Whoa! You do realize, that this includes Lex Luthor as well, yeah? Possibly someone like Conduit as well. Not sure I agree that Lex is evil or powerful enough to actually justify sending him there.

That's actually one reason I don't like the idea of having a PZ projector in the Fortress. Some of these guys are really awful that they belong there, but then the writers have to find a way to get them out, and if it's possible to get in and out of the PZ then I feel like it's kind of defeating the purpose of the PZ. It would be like if during the relevant time period, Batman kept sending guys to Alcatraz, but then villains kept escaping.

I think it's still a valid plot-device in the mythology. A writer just has to learn that the projector must be used sparingly, and something that Supes hesitates to do. But the writers must ALSO be thought, that creating ,or USING a villain heinous enough to warrant a send-off into the Zone, is no laughing matter, if a villain does something heinous enough, then that villain is going for a looong retirement, years of not being used, until a break-out or what-have-you from the Zone, can be justified.

So the writers better make damn sure their story is good, and things have been thought through, before they do a story about a villain like Cyborg Superman.

Having the projector, and respecting the Zone, and respecting the consequences of, and TO, villains, would actually add a GREAT deal of gravitas to Superman's comics.

Well Superman needs a real good reason to sentence someone to eternal damn nation. Like Mongul was a horrible being who enslaved thousands on WARWORLD, and used the Black Mercy to hurt Superman like never before.

He can't just toss Captain Cold in there for robbing a bank.

Hardly anyone seems to suggest that. My basic idea is this tho' - are there some that he has ample reason to throw in there? Some foes of his, that are actually already damned, and belong in there? Obviously there is, since you seem to kinda' agree on Mongul.

Do you figure Superman has any other enemies that are evil enough, to warrant a stare down the projection-disc of the Projector?

[lancerman]

Is there a reason why most of those characters couldn't just be imprisoned on Oa? Like they held down Superboy Prime pretty well until Sinestro broke them out. No reason they can't do that with the other Kryptonians, or big guns like Doomsday.

Obviously Darkseid poses some problems.

[Adekis]

There was an issue of Adventures of Superman recently where Dru-Zod argues with Kal from the Zone that nobody should have to endure it, and so Kal more or less agrees and when he captures Mongul, he calls the GLC to take him to a prison on Oa instead.

I suppose what I'm saying is that I don't think anyone should go to the Zone unless there is literally no better way to contain them. It should be a last resort, just a step above killing on his "I definitely should not do this" list.

So, I guess I'd say leave the prisoners who are already there, then add Brainiac, Cyborg-Superman, Doomsday and probably the Joker(?). But that's it, considering that you couldn't contain Darkseid there anyway, probably.

[dupersuper]

Agreed. Makes too much sense not to put Doomsday in there. He fits all of the criteria, and then some... I think the reason it's never been done before, is because most of the Doomsday -appearances before, was when the Zone was retconned away.

The Phantom Zone had been around in post-Crisis since 1989 and Superman's had access to it since 1990 or so (except when the fortress was destroyed damaged and we had to wait until its robots/self repair systems repaired it or Supes rebuilt it).