Jax-Ur: the Kryptonian scientist who destroyed an inhabited moon

Who is Jax-Ur? The Phantom Zone's first convict

Jax-Ur is a criminal from Krypton, Superman's home planet, who first appeared in Adventure Comics #289, an issue cover-dated October 1961. In this first version, the one found in the pre-1986 comics, he is a scientist who worked with Jor-El, Superman's father, at Krypton's space center.

In those comics, his crime is destroying Wegthor, a moon of Krypton where some five hundred colonists lived. For this he is exiled to the Phantom Zone, a dimension discovered by Jor-El where convicts live like ghosts, able to see the world but unable to touch it. Jax-Ur is the very first criminal sent there, and his sentence never ends.

Other convicts later join him there. In those same pre-1986 comics, he often plots against Superman with some of them, especially General Zod and Faora. He himself boasts of being “the worst criminal in the Phantom Zone.”

Wegthor: the inhabited moon that Jax-Ur wiped out

In the pre-1986 comics, Krypton has an inhabited moon, Wegthor, home to a colony of about five hundred people. Jax-Ur is testing a nuclear missile meant to destroy a large meteor out in space. The shot goes wrong, and it is Wegthor that is blown to pieces along with all its inhabitants. For the deaths of those colonists, the scientist is banished to the Phantom Zone for all eternity.

In 1979, the miniseries World of Krypton, by Paul Kupperberg and Howard Chaykin, depicts the scene in detail. The missile strikes a ship piloted by Jor-El, veers off course and hits Wegthor instead of the meteor. The catastrophe is therefore an accident. The test itself, however, was anything but innocent: had it succeeded, Jax-Ur planned to build himself a nuclear arsenal and overthrow Krypton's government.

In those comics, the tragedy also changes the planet's politics. After the loss of Wegthor, Krypton scraps its space program and the Science Council bans space travel. Only afterward does General Zod launch his own uprising, which in turn lands him in the Phantom Zone.

1961: a fake Jonathan Kent faces Superboy

Jax-Ur's first appearance takes place in Smallville, back when Clark Kent is still Superboy. In Adventure Comics #289, Jonathan Kent suddenly seems to have superpowers. This “Super-Dad” behaves in an increasingly worrying way, until Superboy unmasks him: the real Jonathan Kent had been kidnapped, and Jax-Ur, who had escaped from the Phantom Zone, had taken his place. Superboy promptly sends him back to his prison.

The issue's cover is by Curt Swan, and George Papp draws the story. The writer's identity is debated: the story was long credited to Otto Binder, but the Grand Comics Database now attributes it to Robert Bernstein.

In the pages of the comics, the prison is still brand-new at this point. The Phantom Zone and General Zod had debuted six months earlier, in Adventure Comics #283 (cover-dated April 1961), written by Robert Bernstein and penciled by George Papp. So Zod was published before Jax-Ur, even though, in Krypton's chronology, he is sentenced after him.

Mon-El, Black Zero, Quex-Ul: a prisoner who can't stay put

In the 1960s comics, Jax-Ur's escapes are always short-lived. In Action Comics #288 (cover-dated May 1962), he uses Supergirl's tears to open a breach into our world, but Mon-El, also a prisoner of the Zone, gets out before him and pushes him back.

In Superman #205 (cover-dated April 1968), he even switches sides: Superman learns that a saboteur, Black Zero, may be responsible for Krypton's destruction, and Jax-Ur swears not to betray him if he is let out of the Zone. He keeps his word: he turns Black Zero to stone, then asks of his own accord to return to his prison.

The rest of the time, he conspires with his fellow inmates. Cover-dated 1982, the miniseries The Phantom Zone, written by Steve Gerber, brings Jax-Ur, Zod and Faora together in a mass breakout: the prisoners remotely manipulate Quex-Ul, a former inmate who has lost his memory, into building a projector and setting them free. Superman then ends up trapped in the Zone.

Even the dream Krypton of For the Man Who Has Everything, the story by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons published in 1985 in Superman Annual #11, bears his mark: protesters there demand the release of the Zone's prisoners, and Jax-Ur appears only as an image, as a martyr to their cause.

Erased in 1986, back with Last Son in 2007

After Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC relaunches Superman in 1986 with John Byrne's The Man of Steel and makes him the sole survivor of Krypton. Jax-Ur then disappears until 2007, like other Kryptonians from the old comics.

He returns in Last Son, the arc written by Geoff Johns and Richard Donner, director of the 1978 film Superman, and drawn by Adam Kubert. In Action Comics #846 (cover-dated February 2007), Superman faces Zod, Ursa and Non when Phantom Zone capsules crash on Earth. One of them releases Jax-Ur, presented as a scientist, who sends Superman into the Zone with a projector.

This continuity also rewrites his crime: here, Krypton's moon is destroyed during an attempt at interstellar travel by Jax-Ur, and a lunar colony of Kandor disappears with it. The incident brings Kandor to the attention of Brainiac, the collector of bottled cities.

In these post-2007 comics, he then becomes a sleeper agent for Zod: Action Comics #875 (cover-dated May 2009) lists him among the Kryptonians hiding under human identities. In 2010, he turns up as a xenobiologist at S.T.A.R. Labs, then as the vessel of Vohc the Breaker, a god who is the enemy of the Kryptonian duo Nightwing and Flamebird: he creates a clone of the god Rao, before the duo separates him from Vohc.

After 2011: Lara's fiancé on the side of the coup plotters

The 2011 relaunch, the New 52, keeps Jax-Ur among the Phantom Zone's prisoners: in Action Comics (vol. 2) #13, dated December 2012, he is one of the convicts who attack Superman, now trapped in the Zone himself. In this continuity, the first exile is no longer him, but a scientist named Xa-Du.

In 2013, the backup story “The World of Krypton,” published in Action Comics (vol. 2) #20 to #23, changes his portrayal. Here, Jax-Ur is a soldier, engaged to Lara, Superman's future mother. When Colonel Ekar launches a coup against the Science Council, Jax-Ur takes the colonel's side against Lara, who breaks off the engagement at once. The coup fails: Zod kills Ekar, and Jax-Ur is imprisoned along with the insurgents.

He returns yet again in Batman/Superman: World's Finest #18 and #19, written by Mark Waid and dated October and November 2023, a story set in the early days of the alliance between Batman and Superman. Jax-Ur exploits a weakness in the Zone's barriers, manipulates the Riddler and sends Batman into the Zone in his place: the two heroes must then learn to work together.

Jax-Ur as a rebel general in Superman: The Animated Series

On television, Jax-Ur changes jobs. In Superman: The Animated Series, launched in 1996 in the United States, he is a general whose coup against the Council of Krypton was foiled by Jor-El. He was sentenced to the Phantom Zone for life, and Mala, his second-in-command, to a shorter term. Ron Perlman voices him in the original English version.

He appears in the two-part episode “Blasts from the Past” (season 2, episodes 1 and 2), which aired on September 8 and 9, 1997, in the United States. Superman, voiced by Tim Daly, frees Mala, convinced she has served her sentence. Gaining powers under our yellow sun, she in turn frees Jax-Ur. The duo sends Superman into the Zone, from which Lois Lane and Professor Hamilton bring him back, before Superman, with their help, sends the two Kryptonians back to their prison.

The pair returns in “Absolute Power” (season 3, episode 6), which aired on January 16, 1999, in the United States: having escaped through a rift, Jax-Ur and Mala rule a distant planet and build a fleet there to attack Earth, before being sucked into a black hole. In this episode, Mala is voiced by Sarah Douglas, the Ursa of the Christopher Reeve films. This animated Jax-Ur also borrows a great deal from the comics' General Zod, another coup-plotting soldier.

Man of Steel: General Zod's science officer

On the big screen, Jax-Ur appears in Man of Steel, Zack Snyder's film released on June 14, 2013, in the United States and on June 19, 2013, in France. He is played by Mackenzie Gray, opposite Henry Cavill's Superman. He is one of the loyalists of General Zod, portrayed by Michael Shannon: sentenced to the Phantom Zone on Krypton, they are freed when the planet is destroyed.

In the film, Jax-Ur is Zod's science officer. He is the one who discovers that Jor-El hid the Codex of Krypton in his son's cells. He serves alongside Faora, the general's lieutenant, and shares the fate of the whole troop: at the end of the film, Zod's soldiers are sent back to the Phantom Zone.

The film also borrows other convicts' names from the comics to make up Zod's team: Car-Vex, Dev-Em, Nadira, Nam-Ek and Tor-An accompany Jax-Ur and Faora in the Phantom Zone.

Young Justice, Krypton, Smallville: Jax-Ur's other faces

The animated series Young Justice brings him into its fourth season, subtitled Phantoms and released on HBO Max: he appears starting with the episode “Encounter Upon the Razor's Edge!” (episode 19), which aired on April 21, 2022, in the United States, voiced by Andrew Kishino, as a mere follower of the House of Zod.

The Krypton series, which aired on Syfy from 2018 to 2019, makes Jax-Ur a woman, played by Hannah Waddingham. Born Sela-Sonn, this former member of the Science Guild leads the terrorist group Black Zero; she first appears in “Savage Night” (season 1, episode 8), which aired on May 9, 2018, in the United States. In season 2, she leads the resistance against Zod alongside Val-El, then is pushed out of it for executing, live on air, a clone of Lyta-Zod, the general's mother, whom she mistook for the original. Wegthor is indeed destroyed in the show, in “Blood Moon” (season 2, episode 9, August 7, 2019), but without her involvement.

Finally, watch out for a nearly identical name. In Smallville, the episode “Persona” (season 7, episode 10), which aired on January 31, 2008, in the United States, introduces Dax-Ur, a Kryptonian scientist living on Earth, played by Marc McClure, the Jimmy Olsen of the Christopher Reeve films. Dax-Ur helps Clark instead of fighting him: despite his name, he has neither Jax-Ur's past nor his crime.

Conclusion

Unlike Zod, Jax-Ur has never been the main villain of a film, but he spans more than sixty years of Superman stories: a criminal scientist in 1961, an ally of convenience against Black Zero, a sleeper agent for Zod, Lara's jilted fiancé, a coup-plotting general on television, Zod's scientist on the big screen, and finally the leader of Black Zero in Krypton.

Other convicts from the Zone have made it to the big screen: Zod and Faora in Man of Steel, Ursa and Non in Superman II. They all come from Krypton, the planet whose prison was the Phantom Zone.