Michael Shannon’s General Zod first made his DC villain debut in 2013's Man of Steel. Now that Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) has had to travel back to the time when his Young Barry meets Superman, General Zod returns in The Flash. The question is, why did Zod return?
WARNING: This article contains MAJOR SPOILERS for The Flash, so READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Why Did General Zod Return in The Flash?
Apart from Barry traveling back in time, General Zod’s appearance was played as part of the many cameos appearing in the Scarlet Speedster’s solo film.
Present Barry, specifically, got sent back to the Young Barry’s timeline (the one where he was still 18 years old) where Present Barry realized it was September 29th, the day he got his powers.
Of course, he also realized that if he failed to deliver Young Barry to where he should first get his powers, it spells doom for the future of the Flash’s powers. Kaput.
On that same timeline though, as Young Barry is still learning how to handle and control his newfound powers, General Zod returned.
With Young Barry’s timeline not exactly involving the original Justice League in Zack Snyder’s 2021 film, they got Sasha Calle’s Kara / Supergirl to be the hero facing Zod.
So that’s how General Zod returned. He was in search of Kara’s blood, in hopes of bringing back their destroyed planet, Krypton. It was only through the blood of Kara or Kal-El, her cousin, Superman that Krypton could potentially get revived.
READ MORE: How Is Superman Related To Supergirl? Origins Explained
How Did General Zod Return?
Barry traveled back in time, technically bringing back General Zod back to life in his attempt of destroying Earth and humans just to extract the essence he would require in bringing back the planet of Kypton in spite of this foolish endeavor.
On the brink of climax by having a fight with Supergirl, General Zod admitted he had already killed Kal-El as an infant before he even became Superman.
The timeline was basically without one of the greatest heroes that symbolizes hope for the reality version to survive.
No matter how much the Flashes tried bringing back Supergirl to life, every time they traveled back, they would always end up witnessing Supergirl killed by General Zod one way or another. A timeline in which all but hope existed in seeing a happy ending.
And if it wasn’t Supergirl getting killed, it would be Michael Keaton’s Batman.
ALSO READ: Who is The 'Dark Flash'?
Will General Zod Return in the New DCU?
The ending of The Flash did hold a promising future for a potential sequel, especially given there’s a new Batman in town.
However, on the off chance we get a storyline continuum in a different DC film, the possibilities are endless in thinking about how General Zod could possibly return in the new DCU.
Michael Shannon himself recently opened up about how he felt about reprising his General Zod role in The Flash (via Collider):
“Yeah. I’m not gonna lie, it wasn’t quite satisfying for me, as an actor. These multiverse movies are like somebody playing with action figures. It’s like, ‘Here’s this person. Here’s that person. And they’re fighting!’ It’s not quite the in-depth character study situation that I honestly felt Man of Steel war. Whether people think that’s crazy or not, I don’t even care. I really felt like Man of Steel was actually a pretty sophisticated story. I feel like The Flash is, too, but it’s not Zod’s story. I’m basically there to present a challenge.”
Considering Shannon’s dissatisfaction with his character’s appearance, it is possible we’ll get to see him in another Superman film, perhaps? You know, Superman: Legacy?
But that remains to be seen, especially since James Gunn did say he plans on recasting everybody for the new DCU slate to work.
Then again, with the multiverse officially canon in the DCU, anything could happen. Not to mention, the fact that General Zod didn’t die in Young Barry’s timeline predicts many future complications in holding out the truth about the multiverse.
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