Terence Stamp was in danger of disappearing in the late 1970s when he landed the role of General Zod in Richard Donner's "Superman." The Kryptonian menace, who gets condemned to an eternity of misery in The Phantom Zone, exploded with a nationalistic, genocidal, Hitler-esque intensity. He believes in the racial superiority of Kryptonians, and pleads with Jor-El (Marlon Brando) to commit to the preservation of their endangered race. Jor-El is a principled man who wants nothing to do with Zod's eugenicist conquest. Zod, however, assures Jor-El that should he ever break free of the Forbidden Zone, he will enslave his Kryptonian bête noire's offspring.

This was my introduction to Terence Stamp, and it drew blood. Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor was a cartoonish villain who felt eminently conquera

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