Faora is the name of several female super-villains in DC Comics Superman titles. All of them have some connection to Superman's home planet of Krypton.^[1]

Pre-Crisis

The first Faora, Faora Hu-Ul, was introduced in Action Comics #471.^[2] She was a beautiful Kryptonian woman whose unexplained hatred for men led her to torture and kill 23 men at a secret concentration camp in her home. For this, she was imprisoned in the Phantom Zone to complete a sentence of 300 Kryptonian years, the second longest term after Jax-Ur.^{[3] [4]} Ironically this allowed her to survive her homeworld's destruction, along with the other Phantom Zone prisoners, albeit in an invisible ghostlike form. While imprisoned in the Phantom Zone, she was often depicted plotting against Superman with General Zod and Jax-Ur. Her hatred of men was not limited to Kryptonians, as demonstrated by her pointless murder of a young Frenchman who was attracted by her beauty.^[5]

Faora was an expert at the Kryptonian martial art of Horo-Kanu, which utilized the pressure points on the Kryptonian body. This made her an extremely dangerous foe for Superman to face in hand-to-hand combat -- he was forced to flee from their first encounter.^[6] During one of her first appearances^[7], Faora could manifest some sort of "mental lightning" to physically attack other Kryptonians, but did not exhibit this additional power during later appearances.

Post-Crisis

Pocket Universe

Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths, another Faora (renamed Zaora) appeared in the Pocket Universe created by the Time Trapper, along with General Zod and Quex-Ul.^[1] The three tricked the Pocket Universe's Lex Luthor into releasing them from the Phantom Zone. After the Pocket Earth's population continued to resist their conquest of it, the three villains destroyed the atmosphere, killing almost all life. Superman defeated them by permanently stripping the three of their super powers with gold kryptonite. He then killed them with green kryptonite in punishment for their crimes, and to protect the real Earth, after they threatened to somehow regain their powers and destroy it as well.^[8]

Phantom Zone entity

In the Eradicator mini-series, the Eradicator was pressured into embracing his programming by another construct of Kem-L's. This artifact, which was trapped in the Phantom Zone, claimed to be called Faora, after Kem-L's grandmother, and to be the ultimate repository of Kryptonian mythology. However it is unclear how much of this is true.

The Eradicator rejected Faora, "downloading" all the aspects of Kem-L's programming that contradicted Dr. David Conner's morality into the Faora program. Unknown to him, this gave it a new, monstrous form and the ability to leave the Zone, and it targeted Conner's family. The Eradicator destroyed it, but not before it killed Conner's wife.

Pokolistanian

Another Faora was introduced as one of the aides of General Zod of the fictional nation of Pokolistan. This character, who debuted in Action Comics #779 (July 2001), was an orphan metahuman who had been raised . Faora has the ability to disrupt molecular bonds. She was the creator of the mutagenic virus which was the linchpin of Zod's plan. Her whereabouts following the General's defeat are unknown.^[1]

Other media

Films

In the movies Superman and Superman II, the female Kryptonian named Ursa is based on Faora.^[9] Her crimes are her hatred of all men, young and old. She fights Superman alongside General Zod and Non.

Legion of Super-Heroes

The pre-Crisis version of Faora can be seen as a cameo in the Legion of Super-Heroes episode "Phantoms" as one of the many Phantom Zone villains attacking the Legion members when they were temporarily trapped there.

Smallville

Faora also makes an appearance in "Bloodline", episode 8 of season 8, of Smallville. Described as the wife of Zod, Faora is one of the many Phantoms in the Phantom Zone. When Clark and Lois enter the Phantom Zone together, Faora takes the opportunity to escape in Lois's body, going on a rampage in Metropolis while in search of her son Davis Bloome/Doomsday who came to earth on the spaceship carrying Kal-El. .^[10]

Notes

tl:Faora