Superman Through the Ages! Forum

There are a couple moments that come immediately to mind: the first is, obviously, the oft-reprinted few couple of panels from that Denny O'Neil story where Superman EATS Kryptonite.

Some of the less-famous shocking moments have to be during the Cary Bates story where the space-Amazon Quazars attack earth, and in order to grant immunity from the Quazars' mind control, Superman has to KISS Lucy Lane. And not just a chaste peck - a big, fat, horny smackeroo using the tongue. Boy, I'm sure Lucy hated every second of that.  ;) Jimmy Olsen's Superman's Pal, but there are definitely limits.

Another would have to be that Cary Bates story with the woman that claims Superman crippled him. In it, Superman takes a missile directly to the face, and LAUGHS. Big Blue then sticks his thumb out, points it at his chest-symbol and says,

"Do you see THIS? Do you know what this STANDS FOR? It means I can mop up the sea with saltwater scum like you...and you can't do a THING to STOP me!"

Wow, I sure wasn't expecting that.

Another shocking moment would be in that Jerry Siegel/Curt Swan 1960s story where a cabal of villains captures Superman and puts him on trial. Superman literally PLEADS for mercy in the most pathetic way possible, trying to bribe all the villains in exchange for saving his life. He offers Saturn Queen eternal youth, turning Lightning Lord's lightning power to nuclear power, Lex Luthor a group of Kryptonian super-weapons that are buried on earth (which is especially selfish of Superman, considering all the mayhem Lex would consequently release with them on innocent people).

and which he would have to clean up... making him look good in front of the press. but as it is often noted superman is a.... well im not sure if i can finish that sentance  :P

the obvous one is superman killing the kryptonian villians of the pocket universe, people are still recovering from that... and another obvous one is superboy prime goes nutty rampage

id have to say one of the most shocking superman comics i read was action comics #4 (superman plays football) were he picks out a football player on the simularity of build, kidnapps him, drugs him and keeps him trapped in his room as he impersonates him on the field! i know this was the early days were superman was meaner, but usually his targets deserved to be victimised to some extent, tommy burke was just some poor sap who happend to be in the wrong place wrong time.

one story i havent read but heard about is the one were lois lane goes back in time and romances Jor-El! thass all kinds of dodgy

Superman 305 (1976) in which the original Golden Age Toy Man kills the 1970s version in his sleep, just for usurping his name.  A Martin Pasko tale that took a classic fun character and made him "dark" long before Alan Moore, et al.

Well, it sort of shocked me when I read it for the first time last year....

I suppose that citing any instances in which Superman kills between, say 1938-1940 wouldn't really constitute shocking behaviour so much as it would reflect business as usual, but what about Clark Kent?

Remembering the trouble they caused for him when last they met, Lex Luthor has two of his men kidnap Clark and Lois and bring them to him.  "We-we'd better do as they say, Lois".  What follows:

The roadster streaks down the side of a mountain road at breakneck speed. Acting swiftly, Clark presses a certain nerve on Lois' neck so that she will be unconscious during the ensuing events. 

Clark (thinking): Sorry I have to do this Lois, but it's to save you from a certain death".

Goon: Hey!  What in-!

Clark (ripping the steering wheel off with his bare hands) Mind if I borrow this?

Frantically, the driver reaches for the emergency brake, but Superman beats him to it and crushes it to a pulp!

Goon (firing into Clark's face): The bullets - bouncing off!

Clark: My teachers always did tell me that I was thick-skulled!  Let's see how thick your skulls are (he slams the goon and the thug's heads together)

Out of control, the roadster races for the edge of the road.  With but seconds to act, Clark seizes Lois and leaps away as the car plunges off the road to destruction!

Moments later

Lois: What- what happened?

Clark: Those thugs released us with a warning to abandon our investigation.

That is NOT what happened Clark! 


What's really shocking is that Kent's actions set in motion a sequence of feelings in the criminals that the reader also feels.  The first emotion is shock, followed by bewilderment, then stark, gripping terror, and then numbness. This is Superman...in his Clark Kent disguise.  "Time for me to become a timid, mild-mannered...remorseless killing machine"  And there were so many other ways Superman could have resolved this.  He could have knocked out the men, let them take them to Luthor and then make his move, he could have tampered with the car discreetly, etc. 

I've noticed that when Superman kills in these stories, he does so with either one of two motivations.  He'll either address a great injustice, such as giving a murdering devil the punishment he deserves, or he'll seem to be following a "Much as I hate to take a human life, I'm late for work" policy.  And the lie he tells Lois - who was right next to him the whole time -  MAN!  Did he return later to hide the bodies so that his story wouln't be contradicted?    It really feels as if I'm leaving something out - I still can't seem to enunciate how bizarre and shocking this one page scene is, but...wow...do I need to say more?

Well, boeuf bourguignon is a bit shocking when placed in context.

Other than that, shocking moments tend to show the less pleasant aspects of Superman's ego: his self-importance in "The Last Days of Superman" is a bit shocking, or at any rate off-putting. I mean, he goes to the lengths of engraving his words of wisdom ("Do good to others", etc.) along with the secret of his identity on the moon; he erases the Clark Kent bit later, but leaves the first bit, where it will presumably be visible to all of humanity for all time. Werewolves will learn to hate those words.

And what's that story with the little duplicate of him that outdoes him all the time? He actually considers killing it. This is a callow side to Superman's nature that appears elsewhere: Superman is bothered when Mysterio appears in Metropolis, and, much later, when Mr Miracle started showboating about the place in that DCCP issue.

For people that have grown up with the "kinder, gentler" and much more polite and humble Christopher Reeves take on Superman, the moments in the 1970s and before where Superman was a hardassed authoritarian/patriarch probably are very shocking.

You hit it right on the nail, there, Permanus. The funny thing is, I don't think these moments are necessarily all that bad an idea, as they give Superman such a concrete personality.

It's a pity in many ways that the characterization Steve Englehart used for Superman in his issue of JLA didn't catch on (ditto for his Superman/Creeper team-up in DC COMICS PRESENTS) because Superman had such a definite personality: he was exceptionally proud of his status as Earth's greatest hero (though he refused to rest on his laurels), he was stubborn, patriarchial, and also something of a conservative. Englehart's Superman marvelled at earth expressions like a foreign exchange student; Superman under Stainless was most explicitly ALIEN, a character that was very much apart from Earth.

cough...

http://seductioncomics.ytmnd.com/

Love it, Monkey!

I just remembered one of my favourite shocking moments, from the Futuremen story:

http://superman.nu/tales4/futuremen/?page=11 (http://superman.nu/tales4/futuremen/?page=11)

Lord, look how pathetic he is, cornered and powerless in the proverbial abandoned warehouse, sweat beading on his forehead, glancing desperately out of the window. You almost expect him to whip out a Tommy gun. "Ya'll never catch me alive! I'm Superman! Ya hear me? Superman! Top of the world, Ma!"

Back in the old 10, 12 and 15 cents days, the stories were short and the challenge on the writers was pretty great.  I was always bugged by how Superman could fall in love like a rock fell on him as long as the relationship never had a long term chance.  He fell in love with Lyla Lerroll instantly, and then fell in love with her android duplicate even faster (even ripping up pictures of Lois and Lana in front of her).

This story bothered me a lot:

http://superman.nu/wiki/index.php/Amnesia_Machine

Superman became so obsessed with "dicovering" Batman and Robin's identity after a mind wipe that he neglected his own job (sulking while warnings of a disaster came over emergency broadcast channels) and it was up to Batman to make sure that Superman succeeded so that he could get over his mental flaw.

I agree with you: there's a clear appeal to seeing Superman as a fallible character, even one bordering on the psychotic. His world and situation are completely insane, when you think of it. He is a serial liar who spends half his time pretending to be someone else, he is secretive to a degree that might be diagnosed as paranoid, or at the very least severely depressed. It's almost reassuring to see him fail in these ways.

What's interesting, though, especially in the 1950s stories, is the fact that just about everyone behaves in this way, as if the entire world were bipolar (which, in some ways, it was back then). Lois goes to extraordinary lengths to weasel out Superman's secrets, Perry wants impossible stories, Jimmy hoards Superman memorabilia. The general public is frequently portrayed as craven, money-driven and emotionally stunted - I remember a story in which some inventor perfects a machine that erases people's memories (I thought at first it was the one referred to by MatterEaterLad above, but it's not that one), and people go mad for it, everyone having guilt or grief that they want rubbed out.

Lois and Clark having sex in that 1976 Xavier story (ok so the more explicit implications were cut out but still. Jimmy almost killing Superman when he thinks he killed Clark Kent in a 1967 story.

- Superman kills the 3 Kryptonians. Then I iscovered that he killed in the Golden Age, so the impact of that event diminuished.

- The Toyman kills the Toyman II.

- Blaze kills Jerry White.

- WORST OF THE WORST:

The Toyman kills children cutting their throats.

Seeing the Toyman in S:TAS the first time kinda shocked me.

The post Crisis Superman has a lot of gore. Even MXYZPTLK kills by the late 80s.

sometimes writers get in their heads that mxy will make a "cool villian" and give us stories where he turns evil... i dont like these stories as they break the character, it was ok in alan moores "whatever..." but that was because it was supposed to be the "final" story and so it couldnt really be developed on. after you get past the shock that this loveable character has gone bad you have just got another nasty all powerful villain on your hands


the last thing modern comics needs is another nasty all powerful villain

mxy should stay as comic relief i think, a filler character

that said, i like how more recent comics have portrayed mxy as a nostalgic character who views superman as a friend, which just confuses superman because he doesnt remember most of their battles

I agree.  Mxyzptlk works great as a prankster and practical joker, but I can't see it as believable that he would take a life on his own.  No incarnation of Mxyzptlk that I've ever seen, in the comics, and on TV and such, have ever shown him to be a murderer. 

For me the post crisis Superman , the death of Superman in  90s,and the stupid marriage between Clark and Lois..

Seeing the end of the Emperor Joker storyline, where Supes basically has his heart ripped out was a shocking moment for me.  The fact he was still alive and kicking probably lessened it a bit though.  I can still picture him hugging the sun for survival.

Oddly enough, his early 90s death wasn't a big deal for me.  After the death of Robin in 1988, it just smacked of another marketing ploy, and you knew he'd be back.  Similarly with his killing the 3 kryptonians, the shock just wasn't there as I saw it before in Superman II as a younger kid.  I guess they were more WTF moments for me.  Right up there with finding out Clark was actually Gangbuster for a time due to amnesia.