Superman #3 Explains How Earth Ended Up in the Phantom Zone

SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Superman #3 by Brian Michael Bendis, Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Alex Sinclair and Josh Reed, on sale now.

The entire Earth was suddenly and mysteriously transported inside the Phantom Zone at the conclusion of Brian Michael Bendis and Ivan Reis' Superman #1. Last issue, Superman, the Justice League and his other allies tried to stem the damage caused by the Earth's incursion, but eventually began falling victim to the effects of the Phantom Zone's alien environment. As the Zone's hostile settings continue to ravage the planet in Superman #3, the Man of Steel at last makes a key discovery, learning not only what caused this calamity, but who was responsible for it.

So, who's to blame? The ever-meddling scientists of S.T.A.R. Labs, of course.

This becomes apparent when a secret S.T.A.R. Labs' base in Colorado is breached by none other than one of Superman's own foes, Livewire. Her appearance is motivated by her discovery of the location and the hope that its brain trust can augment her powers. At the same time, Superman has tracked the source of Earth's predicament to the same location and comes to the same hasty conclusion as S.T.A.R. Labs' scientists: Livewire is somehow the cause of the unfolding disaster.

Superman quickly realizes, though, that the cataclysm wasn't caused by Livewire, and that her appearance was merely an unfortunately timed coincidence. One of the scientists cites an experiment -- one that he claims the facility has undertaken before -- that accidentally went bad and created the ongoing catastrophe. Superman believes him, but that knowledge does nothing to help alleviate the extra-dimensional threat.

That's not the worst of it, though -- Superman himself recently cast his dangerous new foe Rogol Zaar into the Phantom Zone to safeguard the planet, but now Earth has been put back into Zaar's proximity. And Rogol Zaar's time in the Phantom Zone has allowed him to become an even greater threat. Taking advantage of the planet's situation, the issue concludes with Zaar launching an attack, backed up with an army of Kryptonian villains.

If S.T.A.R. Labs' claim that they had performed these kinds of experiments before is true, then what might have created such a catastrophically different outcome this time? It might simply be something as mundane as a laboratory accident, as Superman believes, that caused such disastrous results. But a more compelling explanation might be that some kind of external influence resulted in wildly unexpected consequences.

Was Rogol Zaar himself, perhaps, a sort of X-factor? Did his presence on Earth, and subsequent banishment to the Phantom Zone, somehow cause the two to be drawn together again?

Dark Nights: Metal showed that the Phantom Zone was a gateway to the Dark Multiverse. Might the Dark Multiverse again be attempting to draw the planet towards it, plotting a course through the Phantom Zone?

Or might the aftermath of Metal, and the breaking of the Source Wall and the resulting release of the Totality, as shown in Justice League, be responsible for breaking down other dimensional barriers? Could this have been the push that didn't exist previously when S.T.A.R. Labs was studying the Phantom Zone?

The potential causes are many, but Superman and his colleagues have more immediate concerns -- like saving a poisoned world and liberating it from its hostile new space as a super-powered armada approaches, led by one of Superman's most dangerous foes.

CBR

Superman: How Did Earth End Up Inside the Phantom Zone?