Zor-El (Smallville)

Zor-El is a villain appearing in two episodes of Season Seven of the television series Smallville. He was portrayed by Christopher Heyerdahl who also portrayed John Druitt in Sanctuary and Alastair in Supernatural.

History
Zor-El was a Kryptonian scientist, the younger brother of Jor-El, the father of Kara, and the uncle of Kal-El/Clark Kent. His relationship with his older brother was strained; Kara once stated to Clark that Zor-El and Jor-El never talked a lot. When questioned about Zor-El by Clark, the artificial intelligence version of Jor-El explained that Zor-El was untrustworthy. Later, Jor-El stated that Zor-El's experiments were motivated by greed and power-lust.

In the episode "Lara," a flashback set in 1986 shows Zor-El following Kara to Earth, where he finds her on the Kent Farm with Jor-El's wife Lara-El. After ordering Kara outside the Kents's farmhouse, Zor-El professes his love for Lara, only to learn that she's pregnant with Jor-El's child. It's then revealed that Zor-El attempted to assasinate Jor-El so he could have Lara all to himself, and also that he had taken Lara's DNA and put it in a blue crystal. Despite Lara's protests, Zor-El tried to kiss Lara but caught Kara eavesdropping on the whole scene. Angered, Zor-El used a Kryptonian crystal to erase Kara's memories of the incident.

Later, when Krypton was about to explode, Zor-El placed his daughter in a red Kryptonian spaceship along with the blue crystal that he told Kara contained instructions for her to follow once she arrived on Earth and found her cousin Kal-El. After launching Kara away from Krypton, Zor-El died with the rest of his race.

Several years later, Clark heard his Kryptonian birth mother's pleas for help coming from the blue crystal, which teleported him to the Fortress of Solitude. There, he placed the crystal into the Fortress's console, creating clones of Lara and Zor-El and bringing the Fortress under Zor-El's control. Zor-El came to the Kent Farm and spoke with Kara, claiming he had repented of his evil ways. Later, he went to LuthorCorp and attacked Lionel Luthor, Jor-El's oracle, to coerce him to tell Clark to follow him. When Lionel refused, Zor-El was about to kill him until Clark arrived and punched Zor-El out the window; however, Zor-El flew off.

Sometime after that, Zor-El confronted Clark and tried to persuade him to join him in re-creating Krypton on Earth. When Clark refused and attempted to attack him, Zor-El blocked him and threw him against a car, revealing that Clark had been stripped of his powers after putting on Jor-El's victory ring (which contained blue kryptonite capable of temporarily stripping a Kryptonian of his powers) which he made sure Lara had on her person after being resurrected by the blue crystal. When Clark refused to join him a second time, Zor-El spared Clark's life for Lara's sake, then went to Queen Tower, where he incapacitated Lana Lang and kidnapped Lara.

Zor-El brought Lara to the Fortress, where Kara was waiting. He then revealed his plan to use the Fortress to bring about a solar eclipse to wipe out humanity so he and Lara could re-populate Earth and turn it into a new Krypton. Later, Zor-El returned after trying to find Clark and was attacked by Kara using a Kryptonian dagger. He began to strangle Kara and knocked Lara backward when she attempted to stop him. Fortunately, Clark arrived with a chunk of green kryptonite which he used to weaken Zor-El and cause him to release Kara. When Clark removed the blue crystal from the Fortress's console and stalled over smashing it, Zor-El managed to get the green kryptonite away from himself and prepared to impale Kara on a cluster of crystals, but was stopped when Clark destroyed the crystal, killing both Zor-El and Lara, and eliminating the victory ring.