Clark Kent, aka Superman, is one of the greatest superheroes of all time, renowned for his unwavering sense of kindness and empathy towards others. The Big Blue Boy Scout is revered for doing everything from stopping meteors to helping cats out of trees. However, over his 80+ years of publication history, there have been times when even the infallible Man of Tomorrow has crossed the line and committed some truly heinous actions. And these are not stories where he’s brainwashed or evil versions of him depicted in other universes. Instead, these are times that occur in the main DC continuity where Superman has acted like a selfish jerk of his own volition. From abusing his loved ones to hurting innocent people, these are the times when Superman did not live up to his own pillars of truth and justice.
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Many stories, particularly during the Silver Age of Comics, present DC’s most selfless hero as a nasty and despicable individual who doesn’t care if he hurts other people.
1) Paralyzed and Impersonates a College Football Player
Even as early as Superman #1 in 1939, the Man of Steel revealed a heartless, immoral side to his character. In the comic, Superman overhears a college football coach instructing his players to injure their opponents’ players intentionally. To stop their plan, Superman drugs, paralyzes, and kidnaps one of the players from the opposing team, Tommy Burke. With Tommy held prisoner in his own apartment, Superman impersonates the player and easily overpowers the crooked football team on the field. However, it turns out that gangsters bet on the crooked team and decide to kidnap the real Tommy, so he won’t play in any more games. Instead of saving Tommy right away, Superman lets Tommy stay a prisoner of the mob for an entire day so that he can win another game while impersonating him. Only after winning a second game does Superman bother to save the man whose life he put in terrible danger.
2) Lets Aliens Abduct His Friend’s Son
Typically, Superman is willing to move Heaven and Earth if it means saving a child. However, in DC Comics Presents #13, Superman allows the son of his childhood friend, Pete Ross, become a slave soldier for an evil alien race. The situation arose when Superman was battling the alien conquerors known as Nyrvnians, destroying their entire armada. However, the Legion of Superheroes arrive from the future to tell Superman to stop his attack on the Nyrvnians because, while the Nyrvnians are evil now, in the future they become good and save the Earth. To preserve the timeline, Superman must let the Nyrvnians enact the plan that they were destined to complete: capture Pete’s son, Jon, so that they can turn him into a child soldier. With the knowledge that his son would be forced to live a life of endless warfare and servitude, Pete started to go insane. Readers were quick to express their outrage over this creative decision, and the writers quickly backtracked by having Superman save Jon just a few issues later.
3) Pretended to Commit Suicide in Front of Lois
Despite their reputation as DC’s healthiest couple, Superman and Lois Lane shared a very toxic relationship for many years during the Golden and Silver Ages of comics. A product of sexism in the writer’s room, Lois was portrayed for years as a ditz and the subject of Superman’s abuse for “comedy.” One of the most infamous examples of how the Man of Steel treated Lois horribly occurs in the very first issue of Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane. In the story, Lois impersonates a woman in high society to get a scoop. To teach her a lesson for using “dirty tactics” to get a story, Superman hatches a cruel plan. As Clark Kent, he goes up to the still-disguised Lois and proposes to her. To keep her cover, Lois rejects him. Later, Lois sees Clark hurtling to the ground after jumping from the top of the Daily Planet, having seemingly tried to kill himself over her rejection. Superman then arrives and tells Lois that he “saved” Clark from the fall, leaving Lois relieved but with permanent mental scars and trauma.
4) Adopted and Abused Jimmy Olsen
The Silver Age had no shortage of bizarre and outlandish stories. In Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #30, the Daily Planet reporter is sad because he’s an orphan and has no father. Hoping to make Jimmy feel better, Superman decides to adopt Jimmy as his son, even though Jimmy is an adult man. Not long after, the Man of Steel starts abusing Jimmy. He snaps at him for the smallest mistakes, bans him from ever seeing the Fortress of Solitude again, and forces Jimmy to do his dishes for him. On Father’s Day, when Jimmy gives Superman a coat as a present, the hero scoffs and promptly incinerates it with his heat vision. Things get so bad that Jimmy takes legal action to stop the adoption process. Superman then explains that he has been mistreating Jimmy because his future-predicting computer stated that the Man of Steel would kill his son. To make sure he didn’t hurt Jimmy, Superman deliberately abused his friend so that Jimmy would not want to be his son anymore. But, this begs the question: why didn’t Superman tell Jimmy that in the first place and halt the adoption process himself?
5) Forced Supergirl to Live in an Orphanage
Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl, is one of the last Kryptonians in existence and Superman’s own flesh and blood. Despite this familial relationship, in the early days of Supergirl’s existence as a character, Superman treated her terribly. When Supergirl first arrived on Earth, she wanted to move in with her cousin and help him protect the Earth as a superhero. Far from welcoming her to his home, Superman dropped her off at an orphanage, telling her never to use her powers without his express permission. He also tells her that she can never have a family. Superman’s treatment of Supergirl wasn’t about protecting her from villains. Rather, it was about keeping her hidden and isolated so that he could use her as a secret weapon in the future. To abandon your recently discovered, only living blood relative and treat her a mere instrument for your own selfish purposes isn’t just unkind – it’s diabolical.
6) Made Lois Think That She Killed a Dog
Lois Lane is well-known as a daring reporter who is willing to risk her life to uncover the truth. However, in Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane #30, Lois’s latest story, she is tossed out a window by mobsters that she was investigating. After saving her, Superman chastised Lois for her recklessness and irresponsibility. Superman then decides to teach her a “lesson.” The next day, when Lois buys ice cream while following a mobster, a black dog suddenly appears and snatches the ice cream from her. The dog then immediately keeled over and died. Superman, as Clark, claimed that the ice cream must have had poison in it that was meant to kill Lois. Believing that she had killed a dog and almost died herself from the “poison” ice cream, Lois is horrified. However, in reality, there was no poison in the ice cream – the dog was simply Krypto, painted black, pretending to be dead. The idea of tricking someone into thinking that they had indirectly killed a dog and nearly died themselves to teach them a lesson about responsibility is both cruel and disturbing.
7) Destroyed a Town
Superman was created to be the champion of the oppressed, but in Action Comics #8, he decides to destroy an entire neighborhood for the crime of being poor. In this story, a young man is prosecuted for assault and battery, for a crime he proudly boasts about committing. The crook’s mother, claiming that her son is a good boy, explains that he only turned to crime because of growing up in the slums, surrounded by crime and violence. With the worst of good intentions, Superman decides the best way to fight crime plaguing the community that the boy’s mother describes is by destroying the community. Like a lunatic, he goes on a rampage in the slums, destroying every building and home in sight. The slum’s residents manage to escape the carnage but are left homeless. When the National Guard arrives to halt the Man of Steel’s path of destruction, Superman flees, satisfied with the devastation he has caused. After the slums are demolished, shiny new apartment buildings are put up in their place – apartments far beyond the reach of the low-income families who once lived there. So, to clarify, Superman leveled a neighborhood, paving the way for gentrification, and left numerous people he should have protected displaced and homeless.
What do you think about these less-than-heroic Superman moments? Let us know in the comments.
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