Phantoms is a storyline in Action Comics (Volume 1) between 2024-2025. Issues were published weekly rather than monthly for the duration of the storyline. It introduced the Prime Earth incarnation of Lar Gand/Mon-El.
Synopsis
The story takes place in the fifty-two days between Absolute Power and the Battle of the Watchtower.
Superman became aware of trouble in the Phantom Zone when a monster made up of three Phantom Zoners horribly fused together broke free and attacked Metropolis. He stopped the creature, and then travelled into the Zone to discover what was happening. In the Zone he reunited with his childhood friend Lar Gand, aka Mon-El, who told him that the Zone had been altered by a mad god named Aethyr; making the inmates corporeal and able to be harmed.
Superman attempted to confront Aethyr, who threw him into a vortex in time and space which deposited him on Krypton shortly before the planet's destruction. After meeting his birth parents Jor-El and Lara, he was able to return to the present but found the Zone on the verge of collapse as Aethyr drew the power of Earth's sun to create landmasses inside the Zone. Superman successfully destroyed the device Aethyr was using, saving Earth and the Zone, but the prisoners inside took the opportunity to escape.
An army of Phantom Zoners attacked Earth, but the Superman Family and reconstituted Justice League Unlimited were eventually able to defeat and imprison them. Unfortunately, the worst of the Zoners were not on Earth, and had instead struck out into the wider universe to spread their mayhem to dozens of alien worlds. The Super-Family were able to recapture some of them, but many more were unaccounted for.
To draw out the remaining Zoners, Superman had the Martian Manhunter pose as Xa-Du the Phantom King and the remaining Zoners flocked to him. J'onn lead the Zoners to attack the Super-Family, who deliberately threw the battle and allowed themselves to be captured. The Zoners placed the Super-Family on a platform in space which Martian Manhunter told them would, when activated, transform the Super-Family's bones into Green Kryptonite and horribly kill them; but was in fact a giant Phantom Zone Projector that would banish the Zoners.
Suddenly, the real Xa-Du broke through a dimensional rift and attacked them. The Super-Family broke their bonds and activated the platform, sending all the prisoners back into the Zone. The Zone had stabilised from Aethyr's meddling, making them once again ghosts. However, Superman and Supergirl convinced the Kandorian Science Council to allow for parole from the Zone, so anyone who was able to prove they had be reformed would be released into the Bottled City of Kandor. Mon-El was named the "warden" of the Phantom Zone by the Kandorians and given the responsibility to judge who was worthy of release.
Issues
- Action Comics #1070
- Action Comics #1071
- Action Comics #1072
- Action Comics #1073
- Action Comics #1074
- Action Comics #1075
- Action Comics #1076
- Action Comics #1077
- Action Comics #1078
- Action Comics #1079
- Action Comics #1080
- Action Comics #1081
Notes
Links and References
  This event or storyline is specifically related to Superman, or to members of the Superman Family. This template will automatically categorize articles that include it into the Superman Storylines category. |