WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for this week’s episode of Krypton, “Hope,” which aired Wednesday on Syfy.


The revelation -- or is that merely confirmation? -- on Krypton that Superman foe General Zod is the son of Lyta-Zod undoubtedly raised a few eyebrows among fans because of her Romeo & Juliet-like forbidden romance with Seg-El, grandfather of the future Man of Steel. However, the Syfy drama swiftly brushed away suspicions with Zod's explanation that he never knew the identity of his father. Well, that changed in this week's episode, in the process adding another layer to a super-powered rivalry that's played out across comics, television and film.

Following the failure to kill Brainiac's sentry, which had taken control of the Voice of Rao, Kandor is thrown into chaos, and Lyta-Zod (Georgina Campbell) is pushed into a secret alliance with General Zod (Colin Salmon), who's convinced the killing machine Doomsday remains their best hope of saving Krypton from the Collector of Worlds.

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Zod's plan is desperate, but not without logic, if viewed from a certain perspective: Doomsday is an apex predator that will first focus on the most formidable opponent, i.e. Brainiac; then, before the creature can turn its attention to the Kryptonians, they'll find a way to return it to stasis. Sure, Zod glosses over a lot of the important stuff -- like, oh, how they'll return Doomsday to stasis -- but time is ticking.

Colin Salmon as Zod on Krypton

There's also the matter of how he'll unlock the vault containing Doomsday, which, as you may recall, requires the blood of both a Zod and an El. We'd previously speculated that Zod would eventually coax blood from Seg by any means necessary, but it turns out he doesn't need Seg at all. As Lyta and Zod arrive at the vault in the tunnels that run beneath the Outlands, they're met by Seg (Cameron Cuffe) and Jayna-Zod (Ann Ogbomo), who deduced their deception. Naturally, Seg refuses to donate any blood to the cause, but his defiance doesn't have the effect he likely expected.

"Lyta, you once asked if I knew who my father was," Zod says as he cuts open his hand over the vault's lock. "At the time, I didn't. But I do now." Dru-Zod is many things, but he's no dummy; seeing Lyta and Seg together, he realized his father wasn't some anonymous soldier. His blood does the trick, and opens the vault. However, it's empty, as Seg and Jayna arrived there first, and moved Doomsday with the help of the Cythonnites, who are unsurprisingly eager to relinquish the burden of safeguarding the unstoppable monster from Krypton's past.

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Doomsday quickly becomes an apocalyptic hot potato: With the creature now out of the vault and the equipment keeping him in hibernation beginning to fail, the Cythonnites decide Doomsday is no longer their problem, and should be shuttled to Kandor, where it can awake in time to defeat Brainiac or ... whatever. As long as the monster is out of their hair, they're fine with it. But as interesting as that development is to what remains of Krypton's 10-episode first season -- Seg & Co. now face two, if not three, immediate threats -- it pales in comparison to what it means to the larger mythology of Superman.

Krypton isn't DC comics canon, tied to the DC Extended Universe or even part of the Arrowverse, so some purists will undoubtedly shrug off the notion of General Zod as Superman's uncle (half-uncle?), but it's an undeniably fascinating development -- one also depicted in Superman: Earth One Vol. 3, where he was known as Zod-El. It completely changes the dynamic of their decades-old rivalry from megalomaniacal criminal vs. virtuous hero to something downright Shakespearean. They're locked in a bitter family feud that spans generations, planets and dimensions. Forget Romeo & Juliet, with this Krypton becomes Richard III, only with spaceships and unkillable monsters.


Airing Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Syfy, Krypton stars Cameron Cuffe as Seg-El, Shaun Sipos as Adam Strange, Georgina Campbell as Lyta-Zod, Elliot Cowan as Daron-Vex, Ann Ogbomo as Jayna-Zod, Rasmus Hardiker as Kem, Wallis Day as Nyssa-Vex, Aaron Pierre as Dev-Em, Ian McElhinney as Val-El and Blake Ritson as Brainiac.