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A History Of Superman Being A Killer, And If Absolute Superman Is One

A History of Superman being a Killer... and if Absolute Superman is one (Absolute Superman #11 Spoilers)

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Article Summary

  • Explore Superman's early comic history as a killer and how his no-kill rule evolved over the decades
  • Revisit infamous moments when Superman killed in alternative timelines, Elseworlds, and major battles
  • Discover how Absolute Superman is pushed to kill by Absolute Brainiac in issue #11's psychological showdown
  • Question whether Absolute Superman ultimately becomes a killer or resists, with major story spoilers inside

In his first few issues, Superman killed. Making threats in Action Comics #1 in 1937, it was in the second issue that he threw a torturing soldier to his death, before causing a manned warplane to crash. In Action Comics #13, he causes a supervillain's plane to crash; the villain escapes, but his henchmen do not. In Superman #2 in 1939, he drops bombs on factories, destroys a manned dirigible, and allows someone to die from their own poison gas. In Action Comics #19, he again causes a villain's plane to crash while he flies off. In Action Comics #23, he throws one pilot out of a warplane before causing others to crash into each other. And then Superman #4 from 1940 saw him bombing planes and letting gangsters fall to their deaths. Later, he floods Luthor's island and everyone on it and kills a villain with the electricity that his body had been flooded with by reaching out to touch him. In Superman #7, he dropped iron girders on villains, but at this point, he was doing it a lot less. Action Comics #31 again went with the ironic death, a death ray being willingly reflected back on the enemy spy who used it on Superman. And in Superman #9, he throws someone in front of a bullet meant for someone else…

After this it would start to happen a lot, lot less. The ironic death would happen occasionally, bullets bouncing off Superman and hitting the shooter, cars that miss him and fall off cliffs, that sort of thing, but even that faded away.

He killed Mxyzptlk at the end of Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow by Alan Moore and Curt Swan in Action Comics #583, before retiring from being Superman as a result of his action.

He famously killed General Zod, Quez-Ul and Zalora with green and gold Kryptonite in John Byrne's Superman #22, carrying out a Kryptonian government-decreed death sentence, before swearing off killing. This echoed the deaths of Zod and co in the Superman II movie, after the scene showing their survival was cut.

Parallel universes and alternate futures let him kill willy nilly. Dark Knight Returns saw him kill Batman, after Bruce had a heart attack fighting Superman. Superman knows Bruce's heart issues and can hear them, but doesn't stop. It was a feint, but Superman did not know that then. In the world of Injustice: Gods Among Us, the Joker tricked him into killing Lois Lane and their unborn child, so he punched the Joker through his chest after he killed Lois Lane and their unborn child. This flipped a switch in him, and he became an evil tyrant, leading him to kill more, like throwing Parasite into the sun, and Mogo and Ganthet, also into the sun. He kills Kalibak with his bare hands, punches Green Arrow to death, and blasts Black Canary and Shazam with heat vision. A future version of Superman from Future State also threw Darkseid into the sun, killing himself in the process. In Elseworlds' story Superman: Speeding Bullets, the young Superman, found by Bruce Wayne's parents, kills Joe Chill with heat vision. DCeased saw a zombification of the DC universe, killing zombie Flash by letting him run into Superman. An Absolute Power version of the future, in Superman/Batman #15, saw Superman strangle Wonder Woman with her own lasso.

There were the ones where he was possessed, Superman was hit by Kryptonite and killed Doctor Light with heat vision in Justice League #22, and was possessed by Poison Ivy, killing Batman, but only for a bit.

There are also the non-human but still-sentient deaths. In Superman #13 in 2012, he killed a sentient Kryptonian dragon. In JLA #99, he killed the vampire lord Crucifer. In Action Comics #847, he killed a Sun-Eater. In Justice League #1-5 in 2011, he killed plenty of Darkseid's sentient parademons.

But then he also killed villains Impreiex and Brainiac 13 by sending them back in time to the Big Bang in Action Comics #782 with soime weak line about having their essence not die but spread out across the expanding universe. He kills Doomsday in Superman #75, when they both fight to the death. Returning to life, he killed Cyborg Superman in Reign Of The Supermen after punching him through the chest.

And, of course, he snapped Zod's neck in the Zack Snyder movie Man Of Steel which caused Mark Waid to stand up, shout out anger and leave the cinema. There are probably many others… but what about Absolute Superman? Well, today's Absolute Superman #11 by Jason Aaron, Carmine Di Giandomenico and Clay Mann has Absolute Brainiac is trying to turn him into a killer by persuading him that he is one.

And he knows us well, he has been on the Absolute Earth for eighty-six years…

And so when Absolute Superman breaks his chains, he turns on his torturer.

And reaches to kill Braniac…

But then does not. But of course, none of this is actually happening.

It's all part of Brainiac's plan to break him and turn him into a killer. But it turns out that it's an inspirational example…

As the other Brainiacs, slaves to this Brainiac, just as he was once a slave to other Brainiacs, are finding their gumption.

Absolute Superman is turning the tables on Brainiac, but is it enough? Maybe not. Because just as his friends and family make to rescue him…

… as well as the death of General Lane. So, inside his head, Absolute Superman has been turned against his aggressors.

And while he may have limits over just who he will kill inside there…

Braniac may have finally succeeded in turning him into a killer, both inside his head….

…and outside of it.

Is this one of those ironic Golden Age deaths? Brainiac turning Absolute Superman into a killer, and then killing Brainiac? It's a question.

Though, more spoilers, recent Superman issues do suggest he survived, even if only in a parallel universe. A future of the DC Universe…

Absolute Superman #11 by Jason Aaron, Carmine Di Giandomenico and Clay Mann is published by DC Comics today.

  • Absolute Superman #11 by Jason Aaron, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Clay Mann
    For five years, he's been on the run, hounded across our planet, and treated like a criminal…yet his only crime was being born somewhere else. Now Superman's rage threatens to engulf the world at the urging of Ra's al Ghul. And the only ones who can save the day…are Kal-El's dead parents.

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Rich JohnstonAbout Rich Johnston

Founder of Bleeding Cool. The longest-serving digital news reporter in the world, since 1992. Author of comic books The Flying Friar, Holed Up, The Avengefuls, Doctor Who: Room With A Deja Vu, The Many Murders Of Miss Cranbourne and Chase Variant. Lives in South-West London, works from The Union Club on Greek Street, shops at Gosh, Piranha and Forbidden Planet. Father of two daughters, Amazon associate, political cartoonist.
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