General Zod is one of the most iconic Superman villains of all time, so it isn’t surprising that he was chosen as the primary antagonist for Superman’s entry into the DC Extended Universe. While I actually prefer the original General Zod from the 1970s movies, Michael Shannon is an incredible actor who definitely did not drop the ball with the material he was given.
His story follows the standard Superman lore for the most part. Unlike the United States of America, the Kryptonians actually imprison their power-hungry and murderous lunatics. General Zod and his thugs are locked away in the Phantom Zone, which is in many ways a fate worse than death. However, they conveniently find a way to escape from that horrendous prison.
It always made very little sense to me how General Zod managed to find Superman in every universe, but they make it plausible in this version. Superman accidentally sends out a signal that Zod detects, leading them to Earth. His ultimate goal is to rebuild the Kryptonian race using the data that Jor-El sent with his son, Kal-El. This leads to a massive fight with the Man of Steel. It was a pretty epic battle, even though Superman clearly caused an incredible amount of property damage and loss of life compared to other superhero movies.
The strange thing about this version of Zod is that he almost seemed to want Superman to win at the end. He used his heat vision to threaten a family that apparently didn’t know how to move, forcing the Man of Steel to break his neck.
It wasn’t a smart move on Zod’s part at all. I found it kind of funny that a good chunk of fans were upset that Superman killed him. Both DC and Marvel rely heavily on multiverses, and it seemed perfectly reasonable that Superman had to do what he did in that specific context. This movie was clearly made with adults in mind rather than little kids.
I was surprised to see General Zod show up again in the 2023 movie The Flash, which served as the de facto end of the DCEU. Barry Allen knows exactly how dangerous Zod is, and it doesn’t take long for him to find Supergirl.
This leads Kara Zor-El to fight him once she discovers that, in her universe, Kal-El was captured by Zod as a baby and “the infant did not survive.” Sadly, this leads to her death despite everything the Flash tries to do to save her. I honestly can’t remember exactly what happens to Zod in the end because the entire multiverse basically implodes on itself.