Professor Vakox

A renegade Kryptonian scientist who was banished into the Phantom Zone prior to the death of Krypton as punishment for having contaminated Great Krypton Lake with a vial of his “life force” formula, thereby spawning the creation in the lake of a hideous multi-headed lizard-like monster. “If lever get out of the Phantom Zone,” vows Professor Vakox in January 1962, “I’d create terrible monsters who would destroy whole cities!”

Indeed, Professor Vakox and his fellow prisoners seem on the verge of escaping from the Phantom Zone during this period after “the electrical ions of the Aurora Borealis have opened a small hole in the Phantom Zone which is steadily widening,” threatening to release the exiled “super-villains” into the earthly dimension as soon as it becomes “big enough for the Phantom Zone criminals to squeeze through!” Alerted to the threat, however, by their friend Mon-El, Superman, Supergirl, and Krypto the Super Dog use the combined power of their X-ray vision to burn up the Aurora Borealis, thereby sealing up the opening through which Professor Vakox and his cohorts had hoped to make their escape (Act No. 284: “The Babe of Steel!”).