History Main / PrisonDimension

** The Monsterlands in ''Comicbook/{{Shazam}}'' (2018) are a vast dungeon complex where the Magical Lands send their worst criminals. Most of them are the Earth-Prime counterparts of classic Captain Marvel villians, but somehow Superboy-Prime ended up there as well.

* The No Zone in ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'' is pretty much made up of a typical prison for villains who prove to be a threat to TheMultiverse. There are even alternate doppelgangers who enforce that and wonky gravity to prevent the prisoners from escape!

** Like its comic book counterpart, the Speed Force from ''Series/TheFlash2014'' is a PocketDimension that acts like a prison. Over the course of the show Savitar, Wally West, Jay Garrick and Barry Allen have took turns as prisoners within, and a speedster is actually ''needed'' to keep the energies of the Speed Force in check [[BarrierMaiden or else it will threaten]] TheMultiverse. The Speed Force can even send agents to capture anomalies (usually time-displaced speedsters) akin to a parole officer.

** Other planes aren't solely dedicated to imprisoning people, but have their own ways of sealing away problems. One layer of the Abyss is called the Wells of Darkness after the liquid-filled pits that imprison an assortment of godlings and demons, patrolled by undead that can kill with a gaze. The plane of Pandemonium consists of wind-blasted tunnels that grow narrower as one moves down through its layers, and it's rumored that various horrible creatures (or great treasures) have been sealed inside hidden vaults within the lowest layer's depths.

* ''VideoGame/ArcanumOfSteamworksAndMagickObscura'': An ancient Elven council used to dump the most powerful villains into dimension called the Void instead of [[KillHimAlready simply executing them]], since it is possible to return BackFromTheDead, but not from the Void. [[spoiler: As it turns out, the Void isn't entirely unescapable and its [[BigBad most dangerous banished]] is working to get out from there.]]

* The "trap books" in ''VideoGame/{{Myst}}'' work this way, designed to capture greedy interlopers. ''VideoGame/{{Riven}}'' explains that they are [[PortalBook Linking Books]] that seem to lead to another world, but have flaws in them that prevents the link from being completed, leaving the traveler trapped [[AndIMustScream in a featureless void]] with only the book's viewing panel to look out of, if they're so lucky that the book remains open. Anyone foolish enough to try the link after this would trade places with the trapped one. Later games {{retcon}}ned this so that the "trap books" were merely stable links to other worlds which contained no way back.

* In ''VideoGame/SonicForces'', Sonic and the Avatar/Custom character are sent to Null Space, a dimensional prison of nothingness made by villains Eggman and Infinite. The eventually break out thanks to SuperSpeed, [[{{Determinator}} Determination]] and ThePowerOfFriendship.

** [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-2317 SCP-2317]] is slowly revealed over multiple entries to be one of these for a massive humanoid creature imprisoned in a spherical cavern beneath its desert landscape. [[spoiler:Turns out that six of the seven chains binding it are broken and it's all but guaranteed to break out and destroy the world inside of a century. The Foundation can't even re-imprison it because they'd need the bones of a similar entity to fashion new chains and they have no idea how to find one much less kill it.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'' uses the Negative Zone Prison idea from the comic book Civil War arc, but instead casts it as the prison that Hank Pym, Tony Stark, and Reed Richards create after a massive prison break freed all the supervillians from the four old Super-prisons. Each inmate gets a 8x8 Cell and a personal Ultron Robot Warden. Many of the Avengers consider the idea morally questionable but don't have good answers when asked for a better idea.

* ''Literature/TheElderEmpire'': The world of Asylum is an entire universe dedicated to imprisoning six Class-1 Fiends, nigh-incomprehensible and unkillable entities from the Void. The problem is that an Iteration needs living human souls in order to remain healthy and, importantly for Asylum, safe from the Void. So there are millions of innocent people trapped in this world who have been constantly used as playthings for evil gods for millennia. WordOfGod is that the Abidan (who trapped the Fiends) assumed they'd kill off humanity in a few centuries and let the world fall into the Void, which would be an annoyance for the Fiends but ultimately not a huge problem. Instead, they proved patient enough to keep the humans alive so that they could scheme and hopefully escape fully.

* The Website/SCPFoundation has a few of these.

* ''TabletopGame/TheStrange'' has Homebound, a recursion where prisoners translate into armless, legless and eyeless versions of them selves and are wheeled into high-security cells, under both magical and technological wards, without the ability to interact with other prisoners.

* ''VideoGame/ArcanumOfSteamworksAndMagickObscura'': An ancient Elven council used to dump the most powerful villains into dimension called the Void instead of [[KillHimAlready simply executing them]], since it is possible to return BackFromTheDead, but not from the Void. [[spoiler: As it turns out, the Void isn't entirely unescapable and its [[BugBad most dangerous banished]] is working to get out from there.]]

* ''VideoGame/ArcanumOfSteamworksAndMagickObscura'': An ancient Evlen council used to dump the most powerful villains into dimension called the Void instead of [[KillHimAlready simply executing them]], since it is possible to return BackFromTheDead, but not from the Void. [[spoiler: The plot point is that one of the banished is going to return anyway...]]

Has shades of PocketDimension and TailorMadePrison. See also PhantomZone and SealedEvilInACan. If this dimension is an afterlife, it's most likely some variant of {{Hell}}.

Has shades of PocketDimension and TailorMadePrison. See also PhantomZone and SealedEvilInACan.

* The Wiki/SCPFoundation has a few of these.

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[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* The No Zone in ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'' is pretty much made up of a typical prison for villains who prove to be a threat to TheMultiverse. There are even alternate doppelgangers who enforce that and wonky gravity to prevent the prisoners from escape!

[[folder:Film]]

* The Isle of the Lost in ''Film/{{Descendants}}'' is a prison dimension for all of the villains in the Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon. The moral dilemmas in such a plan begin with the fact that Mal and the other descendants are also living in exile even though they aren't guilty of their parents' crimes.

* The HiddenObjectGame ''Surface: The Pantheon'' is mostly set in a Prison Dimension: a hollow-world-style holding area in which a slave-trading race of SufficientlyAdvancedAliens leave abducted humans, other aliens, and animals to fend for themselves until they're put up for sale.
* In ''VideoGame/SonicForces'', Sonic and the Avatar/Custom character are sent to Null Space, a dimensional prison of nothingness made by villains Eggman and Infinite. The eventually break out thanks to SuperSpeed, [[{{Determinator}} Determination]] and ThePowerOfFriendship.

* The HiddenObjectGame ''Surface: The Pantheon'' is mostly set in a PrisonDimension: a hollow-world-style holding area in which a slave-trading race of SufficientlyAdvancedAliens leave abducted humans, other aliens, and animals to fend for themselves until they're put up for sale.

* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' has its own twist on the Phantom Zone, in which it is typically only the very worst criminals (such as General Zod) who are reduced to phantoms. Most retain their physical form.
* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': Purgatory mainly functions as the afterlife for all the monster souls in the universe. However, the Grim Reaper later reveals that it was originally built by God as a prison to prevent the primordial Leviathans, God's first beasts, from eating the rest of creation.

* ''Franchise/{{Ben 10}}'' has the Null Void, which was originally a penal colony created by the Galvan to house their own prisoners, but soon the rest of the universe, including [[SpacePolice the Plumbers]], found out and used it as well.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'' uses the Negative Zone Prison idea from the comic book Civil War arc, but instead casts it as the prison that Hank Pym, Tony Stark, and Reed Richards create after a massive prison break freed all the supervillians from the four old Super-prisons. Each inmate gets a 8x8 Cell and a personal Ultron Robot Warden. Many of the Avengers consider the idea morally questionable but don't have good answers when asked for a better idea.

[[folder: Anime and Manga]]

[[folder: Comic Books]]

[[folder: Film]]

[[folder: Literature]]

[[folder: Live Action TV]]

[[folder:Mythology]]

[[folder: TabletopGames]]

[[folder: Video Games]]

* In ''VideoGame/SonicForces'', Sonic and the Avatar/Custom character are sent to Null Space, a dimensional prison of nothingness made by villains Eggman and Infinite. The eventually break out thanks to SuperSpeed, [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Determinator Determination]] and ThePowerOfFriendship.

* In ''Myth/ClassicalMythology'', The classic example would have to be Tartarus, in which it was a deep abyss where it had torment and suffering for the gods.

[[quoteright:350:[[Series/{{Smallville}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kara_zone_glass_9.png]]]]

[[quoteright:350:[[Series/{{Smallville}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kara_zone_glass.png]]]]

* ''VideoGame/InjusticeGodsAmongUs'': If the player completes arcade mode, [[spoiler:a cutscene will show [[FallenHero Regime Superman]] [[DraggedOffToHell being sucked into the]] PhantomZone's portal at the Fortress of Solitude. As he desperately tries to escape, he sees memories of the events leading to his FaceHeelTurn before being pulled in by a demon. Superman is then seen [[FateWorseThanDeath trapped inside a crystal]], [[AndIMustScream screaming in anguish]] as he is sent further into the Zone]].

** The Speed Force from ''Franchise/TheFlash'' can be used as a prison. Its most notable prisoners include Superboy-Prime during the events of ''ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis'', and more tragically, ''ComicBook/WallyWest'' during the entirety of the ''ComicBook/New52''.

* The Containment Unity in ''WesternAnimation/TheRealGhostbusters'' eventually evolves into this. It has become a huge endless DarkWorld inhabited by all the ghosts and spirits that the ghostbusters ever captured.

* Marvel's ''ComicBook/CivilWar'' event revealed that Iron Man's pro-registration faction had a prison built in the Negative Zone to house those who refused to go along with the [[SuperRegistrationAct Superhuman Registration Act]]. When Franchise/SpiderMan discovered this, he promptly [[DefectorFromDecadence defects to Captain America's side]]. Predictably to any readers familiar with [[ComicBook/FantasticFour the history of the Negative Zone]], in post-Civil War stories this choice of location backfires badly when the xenophobic Negative Zone natives discover the prison.
** Oh, it gets better. If the threat of Blastaar or Annihilus showing up isn't bad enough, simply being in the Negative Zone has mind-altering effects on those who stay too long. Super-powered beings all stuck in one facility in a place that ''starts slowly driving them mad from the time they enter?'' [[SarcasmMode What could possibly go wrong]]?

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'' uses the Negative Zone Prison idea from the comic book Civil War arc but instead casts it as the prison that Hank Pym, Tony Stark, and Reed Richards create after an unknown force breaks all the supervillians out of the old Super-prisons. Each inmate gets a 8x8 Cell and a personal Ultron Robot Warden. Many of the Avengers consider the idea morally questionable but don't have good answers when asked for a better idea.