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Superboy’s power problems have been fixed – in the worst way. Now the Titans have to fight an evil Conner but who was the original Black Zero?
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Titans United #4, on sale now from DC Comics.
Superboy has been facing some serious power problems for a while now. Before the launch of Infinite Frontier, his powers had become unreliable and it was revealed that they would one day disappear altogether. Finally, a solution has been found to this baked-in shelf life for the heroic clone of Superman and Lex Luthor. Unfortunately, it’s turned Conner Kent into one of his deadliest villains.
Starfire’s sister finally broke the troubled Titan in Titans United #4 (by Cavan Scott, José Luís, Jonas Trindade, Rex Lokus, and Carlos M. Mangual). After launching an all-out attack on Earth with her Tamaranean forces, she decided to finish the Titans in the cruelest way possible. Donna Troy was the first to see Superboy turned into a villain on the final page of this issue before readers get a tease of what Conner’s new villainous persona will be.
The costume gives it away before it’s confirmed that Superboy’s new evil alter-ego is, in fact, Black Zero. But who exactly is Black Zero? This version of the character is based on an evil version of Conner Kent from an alternate timeline but the history behind the name stretches far beyond Superboy.
The name first popped up in 1968’s Superman #205. In that story, Black Zero was an individual hired to ensure Krypton’s destruction and planned to do the same to Earth if it wasn’t for Superman. After that, the name was used not for an individual but for various organizations. In John Byrne and Mike Mignola’s 1988 World of Krypton series, it was the name of a terrorist group on Superman’s homeworld that sought to free the clones being exploited there. Black Zero was also later a name for an Elite Kryptonian military group. Then there was the “Black Zero II” which was a computer virus that Superman and the Legion of Superheroes put an end to.
The name has made its way into on-screen adaptations of Superman’s adventures as well. The Black Zero was the name of the prison ship in 2013’s Man of Steel which held General Zod and his renegade followers. It was used again as the name of Kryptonian terrorist groups in the shows Smallville and Krypton, with the group playing a big part in the latter.
So what does any of this have to do with the current Superboy crisis? The most common use for Black Zero was as a terrorist organization and the original Black Zero terrorist group, which sought to free Krypton’s clones. This is exactly where the evil version of Conner Kent got his name.
In an alternate timeline where Superman never returned from the dead after battling Doomsday, Conner Kent ended up very different. This Conner became Superman but a major mistake that led to the deaths of Supergirl, Brainiac, and 318 civilians turned the public against him and against clones in general. After the death of Guardian, Conner took it upon himself to free all clones, taking the name Black Zero for this reason. Once he had conquered his own Earth, he set out to free all the Conner Kents across reality.
Superboy fought this Black Zero, alongside a number of other duplicates, and eventually defeated the villain. Having seen what he could become, Conner saw his otherworldly duplicate as a reminder of the evil he was capable of. Since then, he’s tried his hardest to avoid becoming his own Black Zero but Blackfire has taken that choice out of his hands. Now his only hope to avoid his villainous fate lies with his Titans teammates.
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