The Day Superman Killed...

[thelazyreader]

Since the Silver Age Superman has always had a strict code against the taking of life. This one principle is so central to his character that when he accidentally killed a villain in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow he immediately stripped himself of his powers and hung up his cape.

It is with this in mind that I show you what is perhaps the most controversial Superman story of all time, The Supergirl Saga, which depicted the only canonical instance where Superman ever killed someone in cold blood, and also featured the first appearance of Supergirl in post-Crisis continuity.



This was the last story in John Byrne's long post-Crisis Superman run that started with his Man of Steel revamp in 1986. It ran in Superman #21, Adventures of Superman #444 and Superman #22, respectively.

At the beginning, Superman is flying over Kansas when he gets the feeling he's being followed.



Supergirl's powers are somewhat different from Superman's, as she demonstrates by morphing her face to reveal she's actually Lana Lang. To add to the confusion, she has a firm belief that Metropolis was destroyed years ago and that Lex Luthor is the world's greatest hero. A fight breaks out over the misunderstanding before Clark starts figuring out what's going on.



Supergirl finally remembers that she's from an alternate universe, sent to Superman's Earth on a mission.



"Welcome to the end of the world, Superman."

The guy on the bottom left is Lex Luthor, with a full head of hair and a much nicer attitude. Superman finds himself in a different universe where the Earth is a barren wasteland with the sole exception of Smallville, which is protected by a forcefield designed by Luthor.



And now I must briefly explain a convoluted part of post-Crisis DC history. When DC rebooted Superman's origin after Crisis on Infinite Earth, they created a huge discrepancy with the Legion of Superheroes comics. In the post-Crisis DCU, Clark never became Superboy. But Superboy was crucial to the Legion's existence as well as a recurring character in their books. So in order to keep their stories in continuity, DC had the Time Trapper create a 'pocket universe' where Superboy existed, and stated that this Superboy was the one the Legion knew.

This pocket universe was the one Superman now found himself in, with Earth in a devastated state after Superboy vanished years ago.



Lana and Pete gave Luthor access to Superboy's Kryptonian lab, hoping that he could find a way to bring him back.



You can guess who 'Von-el' really was.



Interesting members Luthor's resistance has there, eh? Unfortunately even having the entire world united against him only pissed Zod off. He no longer gave a damn about ruling and decided to just wipe out the puny Earthlings.



Supergirl eventually finds Superman and brings him back to her world. Now he is the survivors' last hope of bringing Zod and his cohorts to justice for causing armaggedon.

Superman leads the resistance in mounting an offence against the Kryptonians.



But he fails to turn the tide. As the 'pocket universe' was a homage to the pre-Crisis DCU, these Kryptonians are much stronger than Superman. They crush the resistance and destroy Smallville.



Luthor's secret weapon is a piece of Gold Kryptonite, which, in the Silver Age, could permanently strip Kryptonians of his powers. As the Kryptonite here emits radiation at different wavelengths as compared to Superman's universe, he is immune to its effects. But Zod and his followers aren't.



Luthor dies, and thus the human race is extinct. Superman returns to the cell to face the difficult decision of dealing with the ones responsible.



And he exposes them to Green Kryptonite, killing them.

After burying the bodies, he prepares to leave when he notices Supergirl's protoplasmic form moving in the rubble. He takes her back to his Earth and leaves her at the Kent farm to recover, after which she would go on to become the 'Matrix' Supergirl. He then tells his parents that he needs to be alone for a while, to think things over.

"It is strange now to feel the wind against that face, after the hard vacuum of that other Earth. Strange to think of five billion humans going about their everyday lives, unaware of the annihilation of their doppelgangers."

"And strange, too, to know that in their eyes I am still Superman, the untarnished champion of humanity. When I know that from now on, things can never truly be the same again".

----

This story was heavily criticised at the time, with many readers outraged that Superman had violated a moral code he had held for over 50 years. After Byrne left succeeding DC writers tried to downplay this story, and Superman was haunted by this event for many years, at one time even exiling himself from Earth because of it.

Presumably because of the controversy this story was not collected in trades, so finding it was pretty hard. But it was worth it; it was a good story, and something to think about.
 

Comments

[psychopathicus_rex]

Well, perhaps he COULD, but it strikes me as unlikely. I mean, think about it - these guys are depowered now, right? So to anyone who DIDN'T see them torch an entire planet with their powers, they'll appear as regular human beings. All the forensic evidence that could be uncovered by Superman - and it wouldn't be much; an airless void is not exactly the best environment for preserving a crime scene - would point to the work of super-strong beings with heat vision, etc. Which, of course, is exactly the case, but the law won't know that - they'll just see three normal people in funny costumes. With - and here's where the jurisdictional part comes in - no surviving native of the pocket universe to back up his claims - in short, no witnesses, and no arresting officers - they'd have to go entirely on Superman's say-so that these three now-normal people USED to be capable of laying a planet to waste. Even if a genetic scan proved their alien origin, they could always simply claim that they were simply of a different variety of Kryptonians or something and had always been powerless - with the planet blown up, it'd be pretty difficult to prove they were wrong.
So, no witnesses, no arresting officers, no reliable proof of any kind, and the whole thing having taken place in another universe that no one but Superman has ever visited. If their case ever reached court in the first place, any half-competent lawyer could get the whole thing thrown out as a farce of justice.
And yes, he could have tried going to the Guardians and stuff. But A: Supes is a guy who's used to fighting his own battles, and B: there is also another issue here which has not been addressed yet. While Superman has always identified strongly with humanity, he is still a Kryptonian, and so are Zod and his cronies. As far as he knows, they are the last Kryptonians in existence. Therefore, this is not merely an issue of justice - this is a matter of cultural retribution. You've heard the phrase 'a jury of one's peers'? Well, their only peer is Superman. It is practically a matter of family honor that he try them himself. Sensible? Rational? Perhaps not - but then, these things never are.

[sadoeuphemist]

This is rapidly descending into a debate based on fictional minutia, but oh well.

1. Kryptonians have a different physiology than humans. Even if they're depowered, a simple x-ray would reveal their alien origins.

2. An airless void is the perfect environment for preserving crime scenes. The first footprints left by astronauts on the moon are still there. Because there's no atmosphere to blow them away!

3. There are no doubt recordings of them murdering people, oh, everywhere on earth. There is literally a world full of evidence against them.

4. Cultural retribution? What the heck? You were saying at first, there was no other choice. But now its, oh, sure there were other choices, but Superman felt he had to deal with it personally by killing them even though it sent him spiraling into a mental breakdown.

5. This whole thing is based on paranoia and nihilism. Every other possible option is rebutted with, oh, it'd never work, when it costs Superman nothing to at least try. Again, if every court on Earth shrugs and does nothing, Superman can still kill them if he's so goddamn worried about it.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Well, really, it all boils down to story logic, which you can either accept or not. We could argue 'til the cows come home, but that's what we'd be left with. I'm fine with it, but that's just me.

[sadoeuphemist]

This isn't even story logic, because none of this is in the story. All this rationale is straight from you. Superman doesn't consider the difficulties of proving his case in court, he just skips straight to the killin'.

Which brings me back to my previous point, stories like this are stupid and people ought to stop writing them.

[thelazyreader]

Well, if it helps, Superman was, in a way, deputized by the people of Smallville to help in stopping Zod, and as such really is 'the last representative of law and justice on this planet'. So (in that universe) he was somewhat legally justified in being judge, jury and executioner.

[sadoeuphemist]

Legally justified? Who cares? Here is the issue: Superman really does not want to kill. He says it'll be the hardest thing he's ever done. And yet he does not explore, or even seem to consider, options other than killing. He just skips straight to the kryptonite, and has emotional trauma for years after. This is stupid. Superman is being stupid.

Actually, you know what? I'm just going to assume Superman was lying to himself when he gave his little speech, and was secretly grasping for an excuse to see them dead. Problem resolved!

[psychopathicus_rex]

You're right, it's not in the story - my point is, it doesn't HAVE to be in the story, because story logic makes such things irrelevant, or is supposed to. Its logic is not that of continuity or character, its logic is that of structure and plot, and at that point, they could have done one of two things - have the story continue, perhaps working in the details you mentioned, or bring it to a close. They chose to do the latter, and either it works for you or it doesn't. It works fine for me, and it doesn't for you - that's what it all boils down to. I say it's good, you say it's stupid - fine. Let's leave it at that.

[sadoeuphemist]

I don't think the story should've continued either. I think he should've just flat-out executed them for mass murder without bringing any of the "ho ho ho, even though we're powerless and trapped alone on a dead earth we'll still somehow find a way to kill everyone in your universe" spiel into it.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Well, he DID, didn't he? The rest was just added incentive.

[sadoeuphemist]

The idea that he absolutely had to kill these depowered Kryptonians because they were too much of a threat, that's quite frankly laughable and detracts from the rest of the story. I would've just cut it entirely.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Why is it laughable? They just destroyed a world between them, each being several times more powerful than he was, and yes, they're powerless NOW, but they're a variety of Kryptonian he's not familiar with - he doesn't know what they can do; for all he knows, they could figure out a way to repower themselves any minute. Perhaps he jumped to conclusions a bit, but I wouldn't call it LAUGHABLE - he was doing the best he could armed with rather scant information and huge possible danger if he blundered. Maybe he did make the wrong decision, but no one's perfect.