Shane really had no recollection of this guy.
Looking at the man's suit, which closely resembled Superman's, Shane could only probe him with a few indirect questions.
"You're Superman's friend? Then what did you do afterward to get locked up in here?"
Shane had assumed that anyone who appeared here would generally be a particularly troublesome supervillain or a war criminal from the days when Krypton still existed.
Instead, Mon-El's answer took him completely by surprise.
"I didn't do anything wrong. I was dying, so Kal put me here to keep me alive by using the Phantom Zone's ability to freeze time."
Shane raised an eyebrow, not readily buying it.
The man looked just like the Big Blue Boy Scout, with the same thick eyebrows, wide eyes, and righteous face.
But Shane still felt there were plenty of holes in his answer.
I'll question him a little more. If his story falls apart, I'll kill him.
"Exiling a friend to a place like this? Does that mean you can never die here?"
Shane lowered one hand and pointed at the red desert beneath them. "Even if you can't actually die, becoming one of those phantom creatures we just saw would probably be worse than death, wouldn't it?"
At that, Mon-El didn't look rattled as Shane had hoped. Instead, his expression filled with helplessness.
"Normally, that should have been the case..."
In theory, no matter should have existed in the Phantom Zone.
Whether it was the Phantom King, the first criminal thrown in here, or Mon-El, whom Superman had sent here with good intentions to freeze his condition.
They should all have become phantom creatures like that Blue Phantom from earlier, without consciousness or the ability to move.
But that wasn't what had happened.
The Phantom King seemed to have found