With Linda's permission I'm restarting this thread, minus the innocuous comment that inadvertently triggered some political discussion. So reminder- no politics here, please.

When that Man of Steel movie thing came out a year or two ago there was a lot of discussion about the appropriateness of Superman killing, and one of the things I recall people talking about is how he used to kill people "all the time" back in the Golden Age. Last year I read through the first couple years' worth of Superman stories, and while it's true he did at times kill people (or passively allow them to die) it would be stretching it to say he did so all the time. Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to chronicle and review each instance of Superman killing during the early years of the character. Let's begin...

Superman makes several threats in Action #1, but there's no actual killing. It's not until Action #2 that he first kills people. Superman has forced a corrupt munitions manufacturer to join the army in the small South American country of San Monte (so that he can experience firsthand the results of the weapons he sells). While there, Superman comes upon a soldier torturing people to get information:


This first instance is characteristic of Superman's kills. Nobody is ever shown dying on camera, and I suppose it's possible the guy didn't die but was simply maimed. But in all likelihood, being thrown that far would result in death.

Superman doesn't let the grass grow under his feet, and on the very next page he kills again. It's a war zone, so I guess it's not surprising:

This example illustrates the most common way Superman kills people: by setting in motion a chain of events that likely result in the person's death. Again, I suppose one could argue that it's possible the guy parachuted to safety, but there's nothing in Shuster's drawing to suggest that.

Thank God this came back.

This is gonna be great.

Almost a year goes by before the next time Superman kills. When it comes, it's in the midst of an exceptionally bloodthirsty story in Action #13, as Superman goes up against his arch-foe the Ultra Humanite. In the course of this story we see one of Ultra's henchmen plummet to a painful death on the pavement below when Superman accidentally drops him. It's the guy's own fault, since he tries to stab Superman when they are in mid-air leaping between buildings, causing Supes to lose his grip. So it doesn't count for the purposes of this thread. We later see another henchman's throat impaled by the fragment of a saw blade that shatters on Superman's head. Supes is unconscious at the time, so again, not his fault.

But on the final page, Superman is sufficiently pissed at Ultra that does decide to mete out some final justice:

I like the fact that he doesn't bother to be certain it's Ultra's plane. "I bet" is good enough for him to deliberately smash the propeller.

Unfortunately, Ultra has an annoying habit of always teleporting away, so he escapes death:

The two henchmen/pilots, though... clearly not so lucky. He apparently can find more than a trace of them, though as usual we don't see the bodies of people Superman kills.

This brings our body count up to 4.

Badass.

I'm impressed by the historical accuracy on show in this thread.

I do wish the body count had been a bit higher, though. It seems disappointing that he wasn't killing more readily in the days when he was able to do so. It's like he wasn't making the most of that era or something.

I love the art, too - it's cartoonish without being too exaggerated. There's something so direct and unpretentious about it.

So, about the political ramifications of this…

Okay, just kidding. This will be a wonderful thread. Thanks for bring it back, Jason.

I missed out on whatever else got posted before the cornfield.

Now there's only the swift and sweet deaths meted out by Superman to make up for it.

I agree with you about the art and come to think about it about the body count, too.

Those first two examples appear to be pure Joe Shuster, before he started hiring assistants. I love his early work. Later he and the assistants start taking Superman in a rounder, more stylized direction that I don't like as much. The early stuff does have that raw energy despite Shuster's lack of technical skills.

Our next examples come from Superman #2 in the fall of 1939. And unfortunately, these are going to screw up the precision of the body count. Superman goes after some evil munitions manufacturers who have stolen a secret formula for a deadly gas, in the process killing its scientist inventor. He gets embroiled in a civil war in the fictional country of Boravia, where the manufacturers appear to be based. Seeing a small village under bombardment, Superman grabs up the falling bombs and decides to return them to sender:

Unfortunately for the purposes of counting, we have no idea how many people are killed by these bombs Superman drops. But since Siegel uses the phrase "terrific carnage" we have to assume there's a significant amount.

The factory tries to defend itself with a dirigible attack. That doesn't go so well:

Again, we have no idea how many people are in there, but those things don't pilot themselves or work by remote control.

For the sake of the ongoing count, I'm going to have to take a conservative approach and just count "1" for each of these instances, though it was likely many, many more people than that killed. So our ongoing body count is now 6.

I actually like it -- real consequences, and we explore the justification for it (or lack thereof). In those days he was not as powerful so his solutions were more deathy. I think one of the reasons he kept going on that path to Silver Age power levels was because they wanted to have him solve situations without harming a hair on anyone's head. That naturally leads you to him having almost light speed, super vision, unlimited strength, etc.

I like Race Bannon because he is like Golden Age Superman. And this tendency is spoofed well by Brock Samson in Venture Bros.

This next example gets an asterisk, but I've decided to include it. It also comes from Superman #2, from the very same story as the previous examples. In this instance the criminal's death is not caused by Superman's direct actions, but rather by his inaction.

Superman has tracked down the criminal who stole the poison gas formula. He tries to intimidate Superman, but his clumsiness proves his undoing:

Showing Mr. A how it's done, Superman just stands idly by and watches him die.

Afterwards, he's ready with a grim pronouncement about how the guy got what he deserved:


This is a rare on-camera death where we actually see the body. Of course one can argue that failing to rescue someone is not the same as deliberately killing him, and that is most certainly true. But since this is a case where Superman very easily could have saved this guy's life but chose not to, I think it's fair to include it in the body count. So we are up to 7.

I'd actually love a Ditko Superman comic where Superman is essentially Mr. A with powers. I'd love a lot of different Superman comics where Supey is just a mouthpiece for any particular creator's deeply held beliefs. They'd be hilarious and sometimes thought-provoking.

Those panels seem ripe for editing into pure hilarity.

Yeah, it counts. That was awesome.

Just like Pa Kent!

Too soon.

When you consider that Pa Kent was Kevin Costner, it makes Superman's decision understandable... and even heroic.

Our next installment comes from Action Comics #19 (December 1939). Superman is abducted by the Ultra Humanite, who is spreading a deadly purple plague across the city. Ultra hypnotizes Superman and sends him out with some henchmen on a mission to further distribute the plague. Of course, Superman is just faking, and he sabotages the mission:

Not much more to say about this, except it's becoming clear that Superman's favorite way to kill people is to disable aircraft and cause them to crash.

Ultra Humanite also appears to die at the end of this story, but it's not at Superman's hand and he's not really dead anyway (his assistants wind up transplanting his brain into the body of a young actress named Delores Winters... take that, Steve Gerber). For those keeping track, the art here shows the hand of Paul Cassidy starting to assist Joe Shuster.

I've decided to dispense with the running body count. Too many instances in which Superman kills unspecified amounts of people like this, so there's no way to be accurate.