Phantom Zone: Difference between revisions

[[File:DPGhostZone_1851DPGhostZone 1851.jpg|link=Danny Phantom (Animation)|rightframe| [[Danny Phantom|His]] parents built a very strange machine; it was [[Another Dimension|designed to view]] [[Phantom Zone|'''a world unseen]]'''.]]

Hurling a bad guy into an alternate dimension is a great way to provide a bloodless "death" for a [[Big Bad]], or just set up his return because you never know when he might pop back out of that alternate dimension to ruin your day. If animated shows for young kids ever require a villain to be [[Killed Off for Real]], they'll usually throw him in a [['''Phantom Zone]]''' and then lock the door behind him; he's not really dead, but he's also never coming back. Of course, this can also be the setup for [[Sealed Evil in Aa Can]] via a [[Tailor -Made Prison]].

The name comes from an alternate dimension in [[The DCU]], where Krypton sent its condemned criminals; they didn't die, but they were almost completely unable to influence the world outside.

{{examples|Examples:}}

* A fox spirit in [[Kanokon (Light Novel)|Kanokon]] uses these to provide privacy when she attempts to have sex with the show's protagonist. At one point the zone breaks down, returning them both to the middle of a crowded street in front of about fifty of their schoolmates.

* The [[There Can Be Only One|Alice Game]] in ''[[Rozen Maiden]]'' is fought in ''N-space'', while the series otherwise takes place in a single [[Building of Adventure]].

* The Kekkai Fields in ''[[X 1999|X/1999]]''. An interesting thing about this example is that if a "good" character wins a battle in a Kekkai, all the destruction is undone...but if the "evil" character wins, the destruction becomes reality.

* Similarly, the Barriers in ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'', which works by displacing magic users into a contained Phantom Zone, though damages to the environment are still retained and need to be fixed by [[The Federation]] afterwards. Useful in the first two seasons where the setting was the non-magical earth, so only the magical heroes would be trapped with the current threat. Nigh useless in the third season and beyond, where the setting is Mid-Childa [[Everyone Is a Super|where everyone is a magic-user]], including the [[Innocent Bystander|Innocent Bystanders]]s.

* Minor example in ''[[Digimon Tamers]]'': Rika's Renamon had the ability to talk to her in a pocket dimension where no time passed in the outside world. They could even enter it in a crowd of people, and when they got out again, nobody noticed.

* ''[[Gao Gai GarGaoGaiGar]]'''s Dividing Driver created a pocket dimension where the [[Humongous Mecha]] could fight the [[Monster of the Week]] without the property damage usually associated.

* Aversion: The dream world of ''[[Yumeria]]'' looks like a [[Phantom Zone]], but as Mone's appearance in the real world at the end of the first episode attests, there's a very real connection between the two.

* Closed Space in ''[[Suzumiya Haruhi]]'', where giant ethereal beings known as Celestials rampage about destroying everything. No damage is reflected in the real world, but the Celestials still need to be destroyed in order to destroy the Closed Space and prevent [[The End of the World Asas We Know It]].

* In one episode of the OVER arc in ''[[Bobobo-Bo BoboboboBo-bobo]]'', Bo-bobo, Don Patchi, and Tokoro Tennosuke [[Biological Mashup|combine]] into "Bobopatchnosuke" to defeat a trio of oddball ninjas. He does so by pulling them into an alternate dimension called "Majide Time" ("Maji de?" roughly translates as "seriously?" in Japanese), where he performs attacks that are even more bizarre than normal, growing more powerful as his thoroughly confused opponents repeatedly shout "Maji de?!"

* The Room of Spirit and Time (aka Hyperbolic Time Chamber in the [[FU NimationFUNimation]] dub) from ''[[Dragonball Z]]'' fits the trope.

** More applicable version would be the Dead Zone.

* ''[[ToA AruCertain Majutsu noMagical Index]]'' - One technique simply creates an area where people are somehow absent; another employs a "sides of a coin" metaphor that prevents people on one side (like magicians) from interfering with those on another (those who aren't involved).

* The Red Night in ''~[[11eyes~]]''. While the space of the battles is confined to inside the city, the place gets severely wrecked up and, thankfully, none of the property damage that occurs within transfers back to the real world.

* In ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'', Evangeline is able to create one of these with her magic, transporting herself and the victim to her special resort. Naturally, [[Year Inside, Hour Outside|only seconds actually pass while this is happening]].

** Later, {{spoiler|we meet two of [[The Psycho Rangers|Fate's minions]], Koyomi, who has some power over time and Tamaki, who has some power over space, by combining their abilities can create one of these which they can trap enemies in. Its' [[Achilles' Heel]] was physical contact with the user, so it didn't last ([[Defeat Byby Modesty|one can't become distracted when using magic]])}}.

* Gluttony's stomach in the ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (Mangamanga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' manga and ''Brotherhood'' anime is literally an unending bloodsoaked void with no exit in which Ed, Ling, and Envy get trapped.

* We may as well put the trope namer in here. The Phantom Zone from the ''[[Superman]]'' comics, the harsh dimension to which Kryptonian criminals are banished. [[Sealed Evil in Aa Can|Sometimes they don't stay]].

** [[Grant Morrison]]'s ''[[JLA]]'' introduces the Ghost Zone, where the League battle Prometheus and later the White Martians. Morrison heavily implies that the Ghost Zone (or as the Martians call it, the Still Zone) is also the Phantom Zone ... and probably also the Stasis Zone that was at the time standing in for the Phantom Zone in [[Legion of Super -Heroes|M'Onel's]] origin and the Buffer Zone that [[Intangible Man|Bgzltians phase into]]. A more recent story adds [[Time Master|Epoch]]'s "timeless void" and [[DC One Million]]'s "tesseract space" to the list.

* The [[Grant Morrison]] ''Marvel Boy'' series had the "pocket battlefield", a small cube that essentially does to physical space what the "incoming games" did to Mainframe on ''[[Re BootReBoot]]''; impose a virtual yet tangible interactive environment on the local reality, but the twist being that said environment gives anyone in it ''except'' the designated user a major case of the heebie-jeebies, giving him an advantage over his foes.

* In ''[[Superman (Filmfilm)|Superman]]'', General Zod, Ursa and Non are imprisoned in the Phantom Zone by Jor-El. In ''[[Superman II]]'', the Phantom Zone is shattered when Jor-El's son Kal-El (a.k.a. Superman) sends a terrorist hydrogen bomb into space to explode harmlessly, and the three Kryptonian super-criminals are freed to wreak havoc upon Earth.

* The ''[[Supergirl (film)|Supergirl]]'' movie has the title character thrown into the Phantom Zone by her nemesis Selena using the power of the Omegahedron, which strips her of her powers in the process. Zaltar, who came to the Phantom Zone as a self-imposed exile for losing the Omegahedron in the first place, pulls a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] to allow her to escape and regain her powers.

* The Dreamlands in [[HP Lovecraft|H.P. Lovecraft]]'s stories are a subversion of this -- humansthis—humans are ''still'' rather insignificant, but they are insignificant in a mythical if dark fantasy land that people in the Waking World are unaware exists.

* ''[[Ultraman Nexus]]''. Ultraman creates a so-called "Metafield" that surrounds him and the [[Monster of the Week]], creating a pocket dimension with a weird-colored sky and a rocky, craggy ground. In an interesting twist, the evil counterparts of Ultraman, [[Sarcasm Mode|subtly]] named Faust and Mephisto, can transform this Metafield into the "Dark Field," a pocket dimension with a darker sky (natch!) that weakens Ultraman slightly. Also, when the battles do threaten a real-world city, it becomes a major plot point.

** The Americanized version, ''[[Kamen Rider Dragon Knight]],'' has this element, but the mirror dimension is a [[Parallel Universe]] named Ventara that was once populated until the [[Big Bad]] came to town, and the monsters (except for the ones the Riders are contracted to) all belong to him. There's also a Phantom Zone in the true Superman-form: for [[Never Say "Die"]] purposes, defeated Riders don't die, but are sucked into the "advent void," never to return.

*** {{spoiler|It's not just [[Never Say "Die"]], as it becomes a plot point that getting sent there is ''not'' permanent}}

* The [[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place|Warp]] of ''[[Warhammer 4000040,000]]''. Although the Warp is [[Death World|far more dangerous]] than most such examples; sending a foe there ''is'' generally a death sentence (or a [[Fate Worse Than Death]] sentence).

* The Void from ''[[Final Fantasy V (Video Game)|Final Fantasy V]]'', especially when you factor in Gilgamesh (yes, [[The Epic of Gilgamesh (Literature)|that one.]]) He's been able to join in and have fun in all sorts of [[Final Fantasy|dimensions.]] The best part? ''It's all canon.''

* The Noise Plane and Imaginary Plane in ''[[The World Ends With You (Video Game)|The World Ends With You]]''.

* Eternity Space in ''[[Star Ocean the Second Story (Video Game)|Star Ocean the Second Story]]'' more or less works this way, though it's technically already not involved in the story any more by the time the game begins.

* The entire plot of ''[[Super Smash Bros.|Subspace Emissary]]'' revolves around the titular subspace.

* Your final battle against Lavos in [[Chrono Trigger (Video Game)|Chrono Trigger]] happens in one of these, with backgrounds from various eras overlayed with a lightshow.

* The ''Distortion World'' in ''[[Pokémon]]''. You can ''[[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|fight]]'' a giant, ultra powerful, legendary Pokemon, [[Olympus Mons|capture]] it, and make it [[Kid With the Remote Control|fight]]. Nothing else really, except run around.

** Subverted in the anime equivalent,the ''Reverse World''. Whatever you destroy in this world, affects the "real world" [[EndoftheThe End of the World Asas We Know It|greatly]].

* The Bydo home dimension in [[R Type|R-Type]] is a [[Phantom Zone]] of sorts, and, what with being inhabited by the Embodiment of Evil (the Bydo), is a very scary place. Often, the final levels of the games would take place in that dimension, which could get downright ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QYdOZ-b0Zw disturbing]''.

* The Null Void in ''[[Ben 10 (Animation)|Ben 10]]''. Unusual in that things were let ''out'' before the viewer was let in on it.

* The Ghost Zone of ''[[Danny Phantom (Animation)|Danny Phantom]]''.

* A slightly ironic use in ''[[Justice League (Animationanimation)|Justice League]]'', where [[Batman]] becomes disgruntled with [[Superman]] after he sends Doomsday into the literal Phantom Zone. The plot really isn't trying to cover up the fact Batman's anger is treating it as giving someone an actual death sentence.

** Before that it was shown in ''[[Superman: theThe Animated Series (Animation)|Superman the Animated Series]]'' as an prison for criminals too dangerous to be kept on Krypton... and after Krypton was gone, their sentences all became permanent. Superman lets one Kryptonian out because she's (supposedly) served her sentence and when he refuses her advances she lets her old boss out so they can conquer Earth.

* The Phantom Zone makes an appearance in an episode of the ''[[Legion of Super -Heroes (AnimationTV series)|Legion of Super Heroes]]'' where a much younger Superman releases a Kryptonian boy born/created by some of his old enemies to, naturally, kill Superman. He should really stop messing with the Phantom Zone projector.

* ''[[Home Movies (Animation)|Home Movies]]'' - in Brendon's sci-fi epic "Starboy and the Captain of Outer Space''", the Triumvirate of Evil are hurled into space in a Phantom Zone parallelogram (owing to a low-budget, actually a Polaroid picture)

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