Ursa: Zod’s second, from the Phantom Zone to Superman II

Ursa: who is General Zod’s second

Three Kryptonians walk out of the dimensional prison where Krypton locked away its convicts in Superman II: Zod commands, Non strikes, Ursa carries it out. The sources call her in turn the general’s “lieutenant”, “second” and “companion”, without ever giving her a numbered rank. So “Zod’s second” is accurate; “the general” would be an invention.

The name fits in a single word. No complete Kryptonian surname is established in the sources consulted: nothing that ties her to a House the way Superman’s real name ties Kal-El to his.

A rarity at DC: Ursa was born on screen, in the 1978 film Superman, played by Sarah Douglas. It took until January 2007 for her to enter comics continuity; in the meantime, it was the warrior Faora Hu-Ul who held her place on the page.

The trial on Krypton: Jor-El sentences Ursa to the Phantom Zone

It all begins with a courtroom scene, in the opening of the 1978 film. Zod, Ursa and Non stand trial after an attempted coup against the planet’s governing body, and are sentenced to the Phantom Zone. It is Superman’s father who hands down the sentence: Ursa is the enemy of a son her jailer has not yet sent to Earth.

Sarah Douglas is credited as “Ursa” in the titles and her screen time is limited to that opening. Nothing, on the other hand, establishes that the name is spoken during the trial.

The Phantom Zone existed before her: Zod and the prison appear together in Adventure Comics #283, dated April 1961, a story by Robert Bernstein and George Papp. Ursa is not in it — she would arrive seventeen years later, and through the cinema. That is the whole gap between a Kryptonian rivalry more than sixty years old and a character grafted on afterwards.

Superman II: the escape, the Moon and the march on Metropolis

The second film rests on an irony the prisoners never grasp: it is Superman who frees them. A nuclear bomb he has sent off into space explodes, and the shock wave shatters the Phantom Zone. Release dates vary by territory — Australia on 4 December 1980, the United Kingdom on 9 April 1981, the United States and Canada on 19 June 1981.

Under the light of a yellow sun, the escapees acquire Superman’s complete power set. Ursa kills an astronaut during the lunar sequence — “Andy” on screen, “Robbie” in the original script — then the trio devastates East Houston, a fictional small town in Idaho, before marching on the city of the Man of Steel and then on his Arctic base.

One detail recurs in both cuts: Ursa collects and wears the insignia of the soldiers and police officers she guns down. Clark, for his part, gives up his powers in the crystal chamber out of love for Lois, before he has even learned that the trio exists: he discovers their seizure of power on television, already mortal again.

Does Ursa die in Superman II? Three cuts, three endings

The question has no single answer, because the same scene exists in three versions. In the theatrical cut, Ursa is hurled into a crevasse in the Fortress: her death is implied, never shown.

ABC’s television cut adds a sequence shot by Richard Donner, in which the Arctic police arrest her alive along with Zod and Non. And the re-edit released on 28 November 2006 chooses a third outcome: Superman turns back time, rebuilds the Fortress and puts all three back in the Phantom Zone.

Moving from one version to the next changes the character. In Donner’s, Ursa is frankly cruel; in the theatrical cut she is softened and Jor-El’s speech rewritten to suggest feelings towards Zod. None of the three endings makes it possible to state that she dies in the second instalment of the saga.

Sarah Douglas: the actress behind Ursa

Sarah Douglas was born on 12 December 1952 in Stratford-upon-Avon. In an interview published on 28 December 2020 for the film’s fortieth anniversary, she describes an almost blind casting won while shooting The People That Time Forgot, and the fact that she knew nothing of the conflict between the two directors.

Around her, Terence Stamp played General Zod — the actor died on 17 August 2025, aged 87 — and Jack O’Halloran played Non. Behind the scenes, Richard Donner had shot roughly 75 % of the film before being replaced by Richard Lester in March 1979, which explains the competing cuts.

Two Kryptonian nods round out her career: she voices Mala in the 1990-era animated series, on 16 January 1999, then plays Jindah Kol Rozz in the “Fort Rozz” episode of the series carried by Melissa Benoist, in 2018.

Ursa in the comics: an entrance in 2007, and nothing before

The attested first appearance carries a precise reference: Action Comics #845, cover dated January 2007, chapter “Last Son, Part Two”, confirmed by two independent sources. The “Last Son” arc is written by Geoff Johns and Richard Donner — the director of the first film — and drawn by Adam Kubert; it runs from #844 to #846, continues in #851 and in the Annual #11, through to July 2008.

Before that, nothing. Ursa’s place on the page was held by Faora Hu-Ul, created in Action Comics #471, dated May 1977, by Cary Bates and Curt Swan: twenty-three victims in a secret camp, three hundred years in the Phantom Zone. The sources present Ursa as inspired by Faora, not as her adaptation.

One false lead still lingers: in JSA Classified #3, dated November 2005, an escapee from the Phantom Zone tells DC’s other Kryptonian heroine that she is Ursa. It is an illusion of the Psycho-Pirate, disproved within the arc itself.

That leaves Action Comics Annual #10, dated April 2007: there Ursa belongs to the Kryptonian guard and sides with Non and Jor-El on the announced end of the planet, hence the rebellion against the Council. It is the comics version that moves closer to the film, and not the other way round.

Mother of Lor-Zod: the enemy sent against her own son

The most singular point about the character is a family one. In the Phantom Zone, Ursa and Zod conceived a child born immune to the prison’s effects. It is this boy’s arrival on Earth, in Action Comics #845, that frees the three inmates; Superman takes him in and names him Christopher Kent.

Lor-Zod, Christopher Kent and Chris Kent all designate a single person, who appeared in Action Comics #844, dated December 2006 — nothing to do with Conner Kent, the cloned Superboy or with the son of Clark and Lois. Few of Superman’s adversaries have seen their child live under the Kent roof, alongside the Daily Planet journalist.

The conflict then turns around. During the great Kryptonian crossover of 2008-2010, Ursa hunts her own son for revenge: Chris Kent and Thara Ak-Var are operating on Earth by then under the identities of Nightwing and Flamebird. She attacks with a kryptonite knife and leaves Thara gravely wounded; a single source places the scene in Action Comics #876. The run ends at #889, in 2010, and Ursa’s final fate is not established by the sources consulted.

Ursa’s powers: the Kryptonian kit, and nothing more

Ursa’s spec sheet is that of any Kryptonian under a yellow sun: outsized strength, speed, flight, skin that almost nothing can breach, X-ray vision, heat vision and freezing breath. No source credits her with a power of her own, nor with any superiority over Zod or over Superman.

The weaknesses are the same: kryptonite and the red sun, the latter being what puts the trio out of action at the Fortress. The kryptonite knife is a material means — a weapon, not a power.

The dramatic engine is therefore not power, it is the absence of any limit. The sources describe her as man-hating to the point of murder, Zod and her fellow inmates excepted, and ready to go after children. What sets her apart in the ranking of the Man of Steel’s adversaries is methodical cruelty, not strength: Non is the colossus, Zod the head, Ursa the hand. And since the hero refuses to kill, he needs something other than a final blow.

Ursa, Faora and Faora-Ul: three names people confuse

This is the most frequent error on the subject, and it turns on a single letter. Faora Hu-Ul is the comics original, published in May 1977; Ursa is born in the cinema in 1978 and draws on her. The two are distinct: Ursa “is” not Faora, and Faora is not “the comics version of Ursa”.

The Kryptonian woman who serves as Zod’s second in Man of Steel (2013) goes by yet another name: Faora-Ul, played by Antje Traue, who takes the role up again in The Flash (2023). Ursa appears in no film of that saga, no more at the side of the Zod played by Michael Shannon than in the sequel.

Two other comparisons fall flat. Sarah Douglas voices Mala in 1999: that is a casting nod, not a shared identity. And there are two different Emerald Empresses — Sarya, the comics original since Adventure Comics #352 in 1967 and seen again in a comic from 2024, and Ursa, who inherits the title in a cartoon from 2022 —, a title attached to the Legion of Super-Heroes and borne by two unrelated characters.

Animation, games and recent leads around Ursa

One point deserves to be said plainly: among all the series drawn from this universe, not one has ever given Ursa a role in live action. In animation, by contrast, she is credited with a silent inmate cameo in the “Phantoms” episode of Legion of Super Heroes, aired on 4 November 2006 — a credit attested only by fan wikis —, and she returns in Young Justice: Phantoms, episode “Over and Out” of 2 June 2022: voiced by Vanessa Marshall, she is freed by Lor-Zod and then chosen by the Eye of Ekron as the new Emerald Empress. In the “#DCSuperHeroBoys” special of DC Super Hero Girls, Tara Strong lends her voice opposite the Zod of Liam O’Brien. Two credits remain unverified: an Ursa in an episode of the 1988 series, and a voice in one of the hero’s video games.

On the recent comics side, Kneel Before Zod ran for eight issues by Joe Casey and Dan McDaid, from 2 January to 7 August 2024. In #4, Ursa is killed by Khund pirates while she is pregnant, and Zod lays her on a Kryptonian funeral pyre. What comes next is contradicted: one source describes a resurrection followed by the murder of Zod, while the review of the final issue shows the general very much alive.

On the DCU side, finally, nothing is confirmed for Ursa. In April 2026, casting rumours for an unidentified female role in the sequel announced for 9 July 2027 put the names of Maxima and Ursa into circulation; James Gunn denied several actresses’ names before the role went, on 14 April 2026, to Adria Arjona, presented by the press as Maxima — never as Ursa. The film’s announced threat is the Kryptonian intelligence of Brainiac, and Ursa does not appear in the 2025 feature film.

Conclusion

Ursa is a rare case: a cinema character the comics ended up adopting, and whose power sheet is exactly Superman’s. What makes her interesting is not her strength, but her position — sentenced by the hero’s father, freed by the hero himself, then mother of a child that same hero raised.

If you want to pull on the thread, two doors open: the prison that held her for decades and the rivalry with the general who gives her her orders. For the cinema version, the actor who played Zod at her side is worth the detour.