Tonight’s episode of Supergirl, titled “Fort Rozz,” sees the titular Girl of Steel staging a raid on Fort Rozz, a former Kryptonian military base which was converted to a prison in the Phantom Zone and eventually ended up crashed on Earth.
That same locale will play a prominent role on Krypton — a series set on Supergirl’s homeworld two centuries prior to the planet’s explosive end.
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Fort Rozz provided many of Supergirl‘s initial crop of villains — aliens who were outcasts even on their own worlds and who set out to make Earth less safe for everybody, facing off against the DEO and, when she came out, Supergirl.
In the comics, Fort Rozz first appeared as an ancient military compound in Krypton Chronicles in the early ’80s. The post-Crisis on Infinite Earths continuity reinvented ti as a prison which was eventually fashioned for General Zod’s Phantom Zone criminals.
That General Zod’s grandmother is a prominent military figure with an office in Fort Rozz is perhaps not surprising, then, as Krypton moves to find a version of the world’s mythology that embracesas many touchstones to modern Superman lore as possible while still retaining its own identity.
Back in December, showrunner Cam Welsh walked a handful of reporters through the Krypton sets, including Fort Rozz. ComicBook.com was there, and here is some of what we learned about what happened at this storied Kryptonian location 200 years before the birth of Kal-El and Kara Zor-El.
Sector 3
Sector 3 of Fort Rozz is the portion of the base we toured; it seems to be where the upper echelons of the military guild hang out, with Jayna Zod’s office there as well as a war room festooned with a half-dozen monitors and a holographic display of Kandor City.
Primarily, this seemed worth taking a photo of becuase it gives a sense for how the Kryptonian language is drawn on the show; it runs into the next letter like cursive, making it difficult at times for even those who can read Kryptonian/Kryptonese (“I’ve heard it both ways,” as Shawn from Psych would say) to distinguish at a glance.
This one is actually not too difficult, but when you get into the rankless district (another story, and soon, we promise), there are signs where left-to-right reading seems to besomewhat optional, with portions of a single word stacked on top of one another on signage and the like.
Here, the lettering reads simply “Sector 3.”
The reception area
The look and feel of Krypton is utilitarian, and there is an organic appearance to much of what appears onscreen.
The heat and electricity come from crystals, which should not be surprising given the history of the world in other media, but there is also the fact that light fixtures on Krypton look like eggs. You can see one on the reception desk here.
This photo is taken from within the “war room,” while the door on the other side of the reception area is the office of Jayna Zod, the grandmother of Superman’s notorious foe.
The metal “mesh” within the gaps on these doors, alongwith the corrugated-metal look of the walls, are both representative of something showrunners have said about using inexpensive and flexible metal to build most of the day-to-day items on Krypton.
Jayna Zod’s Desk
That thing about most of the metal on Krypton feeling organic, flexible, and featuring mesh? Throw all that out the window here.
Jayna Zod, one of the leaders of Kandor’s military guild, projects nothing but strength, including with this desk that looks like it’s made of iron.
(It does feature a glass top; you can see that and more from her office in a moment.)
The large logo on the desk is the seal of the House of Zod, so you will see it pop up on Jayna and her daughter Lyta, as well as a handful of other places where the Zods have staked their claim.
“They’re warriors and protectors of Krypton, so generation after generation after generation this is what they’ve done,” Welsh said. “Which sets up a great dynamic with Jayna and Lyta. It’s expected of Lyta — she was born to do that — but it may not necessarily be what she wants to do.”
Jayna Zod’s office
While still retaining the spartan look of the rest of Krypton‘s sets, Jayna Zod sets herself apart from most of the people we encountered in the set visit in the sense that her office clearly communicates individual personality.
It is sparsely furnished, but what items are there — including a mirror emblazoned with her house logo, the aforementioned desk, and this display of ancient warcraft — all speak to her character.
“We just felt like it was the kind of thing you would expect to see in here with Jayna,” Welsh said. “These are probably the kind of swords from back in the day that probably don’t get used anymore.”
Welsh compared the practice to being the kind of corporate or military officer who hangs antique weaponry like samurai swords on the wall, which in itself communicates something about Jayna’s character, since that sort of visual shorthand is often used to convey someone who likes to lord money and/or power over those stepping into his or her space for the first time.
That the ancient armor is decorated with the seal of the House of Zod reiterates that this is a family with a long history within Krypton’s military, although Welsh said that they had no immediate plans to answer whether that armor is ornamental or a historical piece.
The war room
Described as “the situation room at the Pentagon,” this is Fort Rozz’s nerve center, where military strategists come to protect the Kandorian city-state from outsiders, terrorists, and other threats.
Welsh said that when audiences see this set, it is usually lit with red — kind of the Zods’ color, it seems — but there are other options as well, from the more generic white light seen above to a greenish-blue light that illuminated the room at one point during our tour.
The monitors, backlit and built into the wall, depict different parts of Kandor City in detail, while a relief map of the city on a dais in the middle of the room provides a more general look.
Again, here, we see that flexible, meshy metal that makes up most of the furniture in the city.
Kandor City map/monitors
Here is a close-up view of one of the maps; like on Arrow and other shows that rely heavily on surveying a city, these backlit maps feature the “paths” to illuminate a number of different areas or scenarios while still being fairly laser-focused on a small part of the city.
You can also see the shield of the military guild in the top left, which resembles the Zod sigil somewhat but is not the same image.
Besides being a roadmap-style granular look at parts of the city, the monitor also has Kryptonian letters and numbers that can be illuminated to provide context and captions for what the viewer is seeing.
Kandor City holomap/model
Much of Krypton takes place within the Kandorian city-state, and it is that city which appears in this relief map/model, which will be digitally replaced in post-production with something more interactive.
“It’s like being in the situation room at the Pentagon,” Welsh explained. “The generals would all talk about ‘We’re going to take out Black Zero’ as they look at it here [on the display.] We’d shoot it all once, use our projection on it, then we’d take the model away and do it all again and do it all with VFX.”
So, in other words, don’t expect to actually see this model appearing onscreen during the show. But you’ll get to see something that is sufficiently believable as this model.
Welsh was able to point out to us on the map where we were in Fort Rozz, where major cultural and religious landmarks were, and more…!
BONUS: Genesis Chamber
This is not actually a part of Fort Rozz, but a prominent building in the city, as shown on the aforementioned holo-map.
A Genesis Chamber was a Kryptonian machine where scientists performed genetic engineering.
After Kryptonians stopped giving birth naturally (which, depending on what version of the mythology you read/see, was either a medical choice or a legal restriction), the Genesis Chambers contained the embryos of genetically engineered future children of Krypton.
In Man of Steel, they were stored in the Central Hub on their home planet and aboard Scout Ships. Audiences saw one in that movie, and according to Welsh, will see the interior of Krypton‘s version in the show’s pilot.
Krypton premieres March 21 on Syfy.
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