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Heroism? In the DCU? Not on Didio's watch, bub.

Isn't there a whole website--nay, a whole webmovement--about Superman being a dick?

Seems like a return to form.

But, what the hell. I blame Hal Jordan. That kid's a bad influence. On writers.

That does seem a bit much, as well as misunderstanding the main reasons Superman doesn't tend to like Luthor. My understanding has been that most of Luthor's activities are such that Superman can't touch him. He's doing wrong, but it's stuff that requires legal authorities, and courts, and real evidence and discovery and chain of custody. Things Superman can't do. Superman may KNOW he did something specific, and SAW him destroy the evidence, but he can't just beat Luthor up, because it's not 'superpower' stuff, but just 'normal' stuff.

You're nitpicking.

Lex Luthor went out of his way specifically to piss Superman off, and it worked. Superman was noticeably angry the entire story because Luthor was torturing the JLA. He shattered Luthor's armor. Big deal.

So what if they disabled part of his armor so Superman could take out the rest and maybe get a lick in at the same time? Have you not read all of the stories specifically designed to show you that Superman has to be careful and hold back so he doesn't crush someone when hitting them?

As mad as Superman was, he actually held back and only disabled Luthor's armor and knocked him out. That the other characters supported and helped this is only showing that they understand Superman and felt they should him get that shot after everything Luthor has done to him.

Is it too much to ask for you not to snipe and nitpick and whine so much? I guess. This is why I usually skip your posts to get to Cronin's, because he is generally positive and well-written.

Whoah... Nitpicking because he wants Superman to live up the ideals and characterization that made him the template for all other superheroes? So its fine if someone has been messing with you and your friends to have your friends hold him down so you can beat him? Superman is now behaving like Tony Soprano?

I feel as if they've been whittling down the character of Superman since John Byrne revamped him... First the made him less super by having him fly home to whine to his parents every weekend, now he's just lording his superiority over lesser mortals...

Given how superficially executed the whole Injustice League storyline has been -- it seems rather like the arc of the last two JLU seasons with the conspiracy B-plot stripped out completely -- I suspect we were supposed to read in Luthor's prolonged riling-up of Superman from that series somehow. McDuffie seems to be writing as if we've all watched JLU and want a highly abridged comics version.

And Cat Skyfire, the "business Lex" status quo was dropped quite some time ago. Lex is just a really smart supervillain these days, and has to break jail like everyone else.

If Superman had actually injured Luthor, as opposed to broken one of his toys, I think you'd have a point. As it was, he made sure that, at the very least, he wouldn't be able to just goddamn buy it back off of the black market the next time he broke out of jail.

Hal and John weren't really "holding him down," either. They were just holding him. He was, after all, being restrained under (citizens') arrest after engaging in acts of conspiracy, kidnapping, torture and domestic terrorism. It's not like this was the Sharks vs. the Jets here; the Justice League was apprehending criminals.

Actually saying "Do you want a piece of him?" was dickish of Hal. But that's at least consistent characterization, because Hal's always been a bit of a dick.

I'm not touching this one.

I don't even read the book.

Is it really any worse than this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkJ-g3MVuDw

I'm not sure superhero ethics rule out the occasional free hit.

It's not nitpicking at all. The whole point of Superman-- post-Golden-Age, anyway-- is that no matter how angry someone makes him, he does not lose the moral high ground. He practices justice and, when warranted, forgiveness. He is supposed to be the bigger man. He's about protecting the innocent and seeing that justice is done, not about punishing the guilty.

C'mon Tom... Join the fray! Its fun!

Oh wait... as far as I'm concerned Evan wins the argument... If Godzilla does it, it must be right... Man... that is one of my favorite Godzilla bits... I especially love that he stops and cheers himself between his flying kicks...

If you guys think Hal has "always been a bit of a dick", you should have seen Guy Gardner... or, for that matter, Ron Marz and Kevin Dooley's Kyle Rayner.

As for the scene itself, as others have pointed, destroying the armor isn't really all that serious a deal. And by holding Luthor, the GLs actually allowed Supes to more carefully measure the strength he used, therefore making the whole situation safer for Luthor.

And while the "lawful citizen" facade may have dropped, Luthor is still the same basic person that he was just after the Byrne reboot - a sadistic who used to kill innocents and his own henchmen just to cover his tracks and then gloat about how Superman couldn't prove anything.

Supes shouldn't enjoy punching Luthor. But neither should he go too far out of his way to avoid enjoying it.

Not nitpicking or curmudgeonly at all. I admit I've not read that issue, but only because I stopped buying JLA in disgust two months ago.

Guy Gardner's not a bit of a dick. He's a humongous dick.

And Kyle was never a dick. A schmuck, but not a dick. And he got progressively less schmuckish as time went on.

Iron Man did the same thing, too. In the 60s he released a helpless Titanium man because it was honorable, yet in the 80s during a re-match he continued to beat the crap out of the guy once he was a "sitting duck".

I think Greg was trying to illustrate the deplorable state of the current DCU as a whole, not just this particular episode.

Back in October on my own blog, The Geek Curmudgeon, I ranted about the whole mess in a lead up to a review of Doctor 13: Architecture & Mortality

******************
The DCU in its current deplorable state takes itself way too seriously. Heroes and villains dying for absolutely no reason save titillation and sales. The revamps of characters just for the sake of change with no discernible purpose.

Continued at http://www.revolutionsf.com/bb/weblog_entry.php?e=602
******************

And Greg is right on the mark. Are there any heroic acting characters in the present DCU?

I don't think it's nitpicking to ask the Ur-Hero in the DCU to live up to heroic standards. I don't care that he slugged Luthor, but the fact that Hal egged him on and the fact that Luthor was essentially beaten just bugged me. I read the whole arc, and I know that Luthor was trying to make him angry, but Superman ought to be above that. Batman slugging Luthor when he's already beaten, I can buy. It just depresses me when Superman acts like a bully. I've read several stories in the past where the simple fact of Superman beating him makes Luthor crazy with anger and jealousy. The fact that he goaded Superman into punching him should be seen as a triumph for Luthor, and I wish more had been made of that. Whatever.

Nitpicking, Chris? Jesus. Nitpicking would be wondering why Firestorm uses poor grammar on the first page: "What were you planning on doing with that, buttering his neck?" Nitpicking would be pointing out that Geo-Force appears on the splash page, then disappears for ten pages, then reappears for four panels, then disappears again and is never seen again. Nitpicking would be whining about the fact that Speedy (or whatever the fuck he's called these days) can't stop talking about sex in the middle of a goddamned fight. But I'm trying to stay positive, right? So I won't mention those things. I guess I can't expect writers and artists to give a shit about that stuff. They're too busy writing and drawing cool shit like Hal and John holding a defeated Luthor up so the strongest man in the world can give him a love-tap.

Ian Astheimer said:
"Isn’t there a whole website–nay, a whole webmovement–about Superman being a dick?"

Yep-

http://www.superdickery.com

Just a couple points of order:

Luthor wasn't defenseless. He was still wearing his super battlesuit; the only thing the GLs disabled was his kryptonite.

Superman was destroying Lex's armor, not slapping him around for shits and giggles. Lex was still talking afterwards, not the mark of someone who was just on the receiving end of a super slap.

So "nitpicking" may be harsh, but I certainly can't agree that it's a sign of anything bad.

When is Lex Luthor ever NOT a threat?

Aren't the most celebrated Superman stories the one where he does act like a dick? Shooting heat vision at Mongul, beating the Elite to "death," killing Doomsday, executing the Phantom Zone criminals, going insane and almost killing Swamp Thing, being emotionally cruel to Lois, being a dick to the Question, beating the crap out of Darkseid, almost destroying the UN, killing Norse trolls with Wonder Woman, almost killing Wonder Woman....

I think destroying a weapon custom-made to kill him, as soon as he could, was a pretty reasonable course of action for Superman.

O-kay, then while we're discussing the finer points of the higher moral grounds:

What about the Punisher? Does he have the right to kill bad guys (or mobsters) without due process?

How about John Horus who assassinated the president for crimes?

Or Ozymandias who killed the Comedian, and had countless of people killed (in an lethal pyramid) to see his masterstroke plan to put an "end" to fighting? Does the "end justifies the means"?

I think the "nitpicking" claim loses merit when it's followed by a lengthy treatise on the subject. Someone's paying too much attention, that's for sure.

I agree with you. Superheroes used to be compassionate, as well as strong. I don't read comicbooks regularly anymore because the stories have gone down hill since the late 70's or early 80's to reach a low point in the current decade. Now too much emphasis has been put on titanic fight scenes and less on plot. Superheroes also don't have the same strength of charadcter as they used to. Now, they act more like bullies, cruel and violent, than heroes.

This reminds me of the end of Super(boy)man Prime, where a bulk of DC heroes pigpile the guy and a number of pages go by where they are just basically beating the snot out of him... and enjoying it.

And how about the collective glee of the Green Lantern Corps when they can FINALLY start killing people with their rings.

The DC multiverse is an awfully bloodthirsty place. Honestly, is this really what readers want?

I can only hope the Final Crisis (final...yeah, right) will address this problem.

Tom, the problem with your examples is that John Horus and Adrian Veidt were specifically created to explore exactly those plotlines, and then The Punisher is about as far from Superman as you can possibly get in every single regard.

Quite frankly, as DC wants to present him, Superman should be held to a different moral standard than The Punisher.

I won't say that you're being a curmudgeon, Greg, but I can honestly say that I didn't see anything wrong with the scene.

My take is basically the same as Whitmore's - all Superman did was smash Lex's armor, making Luthor actually powerless.

He and Lex are still jawing at it afterwards, so it didn't seem like a big deal to me.

That's not to say that I enjoyed the issue - for the most part, I thought it was not good. I just didn't have any problem with that particular scene.

If the discussion is about moral high ground, I still stubbornly think it comes back around to unclearly executed story context.

We have, in the issue itself, a Superman certain that Lex is still orchestrating something even in defeat. In this sense, I expect that we're meant to think of Superman's bullying as a sub-par effort at Batman-style intimidation aimed at getting Lex to spill the beans.

But my earlier comment that McDuffie is scripting as if the JLU backstory was somehow implicit or assumed is part of that unclear or improperly executed contextualiztion.

It doesn't work. It raises the question Greg asks and we're all responding to. But don't think McDuffie intended there to be a question for the reasons I've laid out.

I decry the grim-and-gritty aspect of modern comics as much as anyone, make no mistake.

I just don't see this as part of the trend. It's an extra punch, maybe more than strictly is needed but not exactly police brutality. I don't think it damages Superman's moral or ethical standing- at worst it's a momentary lapse, and a minor one, like leaving a 10% tip instead of 15-20%.

Yes, superhero comics are too dark at times and DC in particular needs to cut back on the bloodspray, but I don't think something like Superman taking a free punch at his archnemesis or Hal Jordan finding Supergirl attractive represents an unacceptable level of superhero dickery.

I just have to say:

WHEN did it become commonly accepted that Hal Jordan has "always been" a dick?

I haven't read a Green Lantern title -apart from New Frontier, which is kind of really a GL book that happens to guest star the rest of the DCU- since the whole Paralax thing, which put me off since it was so out of character.

Thw Hal Jordan I grew up reading about was flawed- a little too trusting of authority, not always the sharpest tool in the box, and kind of self-destructive- But he certainly wasn't a dick, and he never would have egged anyone on to punch a defenceless man.

It doesn't bother me, particularly, since the comics I grew up with stay good no matter what anybody else does with the character- but I'm interested to know when the popular interpretation of the character changed into this wierd fascist I keep reading about on various comics blogs.

Omar K is my new hero. He used "raise the question" where everyone else merely "begs". You can bet if Omar was an editor at Marvel a couple of years ago, the must-read event wouldn't have been "Decimation"...

I'm with davidwynne being confused about Hal Jordan's "dick" status: when did that happen, exactly?

You know what I want to see? Lex taunting Superman about how he killed all these people and how Supes can't prove a thing. Superman smiles, pulls back the 'S' shield to show that he's wearing a wire. Lex just stands there, mouth slack, as federal agents arrest him.

Doesn't seem that difficult, really.

...y'know, Lex DOES gloat a lot.

Is there any reason Superman COULDN'T wear a wire?

A good comic booky explanation could be that Lex has a fake tooth that constantly transmits white noise to listening devices.

My problem is more with the JLA comic as a whole, in that its crap.

That is a huge misrepresention of what happened.

Superman did not beat up Lex. He destroyed his weapon.

There is a HUGE difference.

For what it's worth I thought JLA 15 was leaps and bounds better than anything in the run so far (including McDuffie's first two issues and the special). The character beats were a lot tighter.

He also had a great issue of FF in the last month.

You know what I want to see? Lex taunting Superman about how he killed all these people and how Supes can’t prove a thing. Superman smiles, pulls back the ‘S’ shield to show that he’s wearing a wire. Lex just stands there, mouth slack, as federal agents arrest him.

Doesn’t seem that difficult, really.

I used to think that too. It makes Superman look inept not just as a superhero but even as an investigative reporter to not do something that simple.

For what it’s worth I thought JLA 15 was leaps and bounds better than anything in the run so far

Faint praise indeed.

I object! Hal Jordan isn't, and never was, a "dick". What he IS, and has always been, is the dumbest of all JLAers. Hal has the most powerful weapon in the universe, able to materialize anything he can think of - and the best he could ever think of was a giant boxing glove. I mean, seriously.

Oh, and I agree that Superman looked like a bully when he punched a man who was being held immobile. The fact that his punch "destroyed the armor" doesn't change the fact that this was, in essence, a cowardly action.

STFU and grow up.

It was wrong. In the Silver Age, Superman would have used his heat-vision or super-breath to strip the battle armor off Luthor. Hal or John would have gripped Luthor in a giant Fist to keep him from escaping, as opposed to pinioning him so he could be throttled.

I understand that what happened is perfectly acceptable in "modern" story-telling , but it's not what *Superman* or *Hal* or *John* would do. They're better than that. Or at least, they used to be.

STFU and grow up.

Considering your eloquence, maybe you need to do a bit of growing-up yourself.

I think if Supes had said something like "And this takes care of your deadly armor, Luthor." then it would have made it clear that Supes was just wanting to take disarm Lex... But having Hal precede the action with the line, "You want to a piece of this" changes the dramatic intent of the action...

Perhaps McDuffie didn't intend for Supes to take a grudge punch at a helpless Lex. In that case its just a case of sloppy writing. In a flagship title, that's just as bad.

I'm just impressed that Superman didn't beat him within an inch of his life or rape him. That type of restraint in the Didioverse actually IS heroic.

Poor Lex. You'd think that after all these years he'd learn to stay off of the front lines.

In JLA 217 (http://vu.morrissey-solo.com/moz/perez/cv/jla217z.jpg),
Superman and the rest of the JLA make fun of a homeless woman for her smell. It seemed a little bully-like to me. I've been sitting on this complaint for a good 20 years, I'm glad I'm finally in a forum where I can share my disappointment.

"Are there any heroic acting characters in the present DCU?"

Yup.

If you don't like the current Justice League title, try Justice League Unlimited. Sure it's based on the show that current JLA writer Dwayne McDuffie was a writer/producer for, but there's very little gloom and doom there. Same thing with Legion of Superheroes in the 31st Century and the other Johnny DC titles.

The Flash is quite good too. The dynamic between Wally and his kids is a lot of fun, and the whole family is into the superhero business and having fun doing it too.

Birds of Prey is another book that seems to fit the bill too, but really the book you're looking for is Blue Beetle. Track down as many issues of it as you can -- you won't be disappointed. The last issue had him defending the guy who led to his father being crippled from the Spectre, for pete's sake.

Personally, I didn't have a problem with the issue. Just seemed like when it comes to Luthor for Superman it's more than personal so it makes sense he'd tear Luthor's suit apart in lieu of ripping Luthor apart.

Have a good day.
John Cage

And you have to take it in context. Really.

There's just been three issues of Lex showing Superman the torturing of his friends and gloating at him.

Yes, there'll be a little bit of well-deserved bullying there.

I've heard more complaints that Superman just stands there twiddling his thumbs as Batman is all but forcing Firestorm onto the League.

Hammerhead said: - and the best he could ever think of was a giant boxing glove.

Sir, in the last year alone he has thought of far more interesting and complex things to make than a giant boxing glove. In one instance, he created a mob of soldiers to trammel a baddie.

Check out issues written by Geoff Johns, who seems to have a special talent for making the Green Lanterns interesting and smart.

And dicks, too, apparently.

And my two-cents on Superman doing whatever he did to Lex:

Lex has it coming. A thousand times over.

The true offense is the behavior of the group, that these guys gang up on somebody when he's helpless -as Lex definitely was- and take potshots.

Isn't this the kind of non-heroic behavior that sparked the infinite crisis? And wasn't it bad hero behavior that created the identity crisis?

Those whackos at DC are building an epic storyline. I bet the house next year we'll start seeing ramifications. We've already got the Kingdom Come Supes showing up at the JSA. He's the Wise Superman and he's going to do the usual Alex Ross thing and be a savior to the world.

But not before he gets another free shot at Lex's mug.

In Superman's very first appearance, he punches out a wife-beater who, while he clearly deserves it, poses no physical threat to Superman. At the end of the same issue he's carrying another criminal under his arm as he jumps between telephone wires, and teases the terrified man with the possibility of their lethal electrocution if they touch a pole. But *now* he's a "punk and a bully" because he disarms a master criminal of his dangerous weapons systems? Should he have had the GLs turn him lose so he had a sporting chance of getting away or injuring someone, perhaps?

McDuffie's JLA run thus far has been lousy. I read the first three issues of this arc (including the Wedding Special) and decided to bow out.
Forget about the issue stated above with Superman and Lex. We got four issues of heroes vs. villains and at the end of the book, rather than give us some rationale explanation, we get a "Lex is up to SOMETHING but check out..." Check out what? Normally I'd say "future issues of JLA". But the way things are going at DC, it could be anything from "Countdown" to "Final Crisis" to "Action Comics" to "Blue Beetle" to some unannounced miniseries. There was no satisfying resolution to this story and, really, no satisfying beginning or middle, either. Just a bunch of uninspired fighting.
McDuffie did a bang-up job on the JLA cartoon, but he's not my cup of tea for the ongoing comic. Maybe it's editorial's fault. But either way, JLA is not getting any more of my money while McDuffie's on board.

I don't read the JLA, but based on everyone's comments of what happened, I have a question. If he's wearing the armor when Superman punches it so hard it explodes, does that REALLY just count as "disarming him"? I imagine it would really hurt to have your metal clothes violently explode into billions of tiny shards. Especially if the most powerful being on the planet is doing the punching. Maybe thats just me. Don't let that stop you from yelling at a guy who didn't like your comic book though.

In Superman’s very first appearance, he punches out a wife-beater who, while he clearly deserves it, poses no physical threat to Superman. At the end of the same issue he’s carrying another criminal under his arm as he jumps between telephone wires, and teases the terrified man with the possibility of their lethal electrocution if they touch a pole. But *now* he’s a “punk and a bully” because he disarms a master criminal of his dangerous weapons systems? Should he have had the GLs turn him lose so he had a sporting chance of getting away or injuring someone, perhaps?

First off, you cannot hold the modern Superman character to the standard of the original debut Superman. Not only has the character changed drastically over the course of his history, but there was even that big crisis-thing, which caused them to literally re-start the thing. So, at the very least thanks to Byrne's re-vamp, he is literally a different character.

Second, you're generalizing to cover up Greg's real argument. It's not what he does with the punch that matters. It's the fact that he does it with a punch. He could easily grab the armor and break it off. He could cut it with his heat vision. He could move at super-speed and take it apart, piece by piece. But he has his friends hold Luthor down so he can punch him.

That's what makes it a bullying move.

No offense, but what kind of argument is "Lex had it coming?" Shouldn't Superman, of all people, be above dolling out "eye for an eye" "justice" just because a bad guy "earned" an extra-hardcore beatdown?

Doesn't everything Superman stands for run counter to that? Batman, yes-- Batman would give Lex his "just desserts" for no other reason than to instill fear in other villains. But Superman? The Superman I know, the ultimate paragon of heroism, would have looked at Hal and John and said something like, "Thanks, but no thanks. You lose, Lex. We're free, you're going back to jail, and you couldn't make me angry enough to hit you." And he'd walk away- he's the better man. Every time. And nothing infuriates Lex more.

It's cheesy and it's very Leave it to Beaver in its moral perfection. Hell, it's one of the reasons I don't read Superman. But that's who Superman is, and DC needs to stop being ashamed of that.

As for the entire storyline, it felt thrown together, and I didn't get the point of it all. It amounted to some dumb way to bring back the Legion of Doom Headquarters and put all the villains in one place to set up Salvation Run. It was one big wasted opportunity, and after one Amazo and Solomon Grundy gave the League all they could handle, I'm supposed to believe that the League could clean up DC's heaviest hitters that simply? Right.

Oh, and Giganta doesn't wear panties. Dumb.

1. Lex wasn't incapacitated when John and Hal grabbed him. Lex is clearly still struggling and putting up the good fight when those two team-up to take him down, he's still a threat.

2. Sure Hal says something completely inane when they've got him held down, but I don't think it has much bearing on Superman's actions. I don't think that Hal and John hold Lex and yell out "Free punches!" and Superman complies. He doesn't even acknowledge Hal's comments.

3. Lex threatens to kill either Hal or Superman and this is what Superman reacts to. Lex clearly believes he himself is still a threat and it's quite possible that he is, considering the damage he and the others did to the JLA. When Superman destroy the armor with a punch, he says "Not in that armor!" Clearly responding to Lex's threat. Superman isn't getting his final licks in, so much as he's disarming Lex and putting an end to any possible threat he may pose to the rest of the JLA. Lex doesn't appear to be kidding when he says that he'll kill them, so why shouldn't Superman take steps to ensure that Lex is completely powerless to do so? Sure he might be taking a little extra glee in punching the armor off, but is it really that excessive? Lex winces later on, but he doesn't appear to be in any serious pain and the punch doesn't seem to connect with anything other than Lex's armor. In the next few panels, Lex is looking smug and confident. It doesn't strike me that Superman is using any more power than is necessary to incapacitate Lex and remove his weapons. It might not be the most orthodox manner, but it certainly isn't unreasonable.

"He could easily grab the armor and break it off. He could cut it with his heat vision. He could move at super-speed and take it apart, piece by piece."

Yeah, nothing threatening or bullying about doing any of *those* things at all. Superman isn't "having his friends hold Luther down"; they're already holding him. If using his powers against an outmatched foe is bullying, then doing any of the things you mention *once Luthor is restrained* (which is the only way it's possible, given the Kryptonite gauntlets) are bullying, too. And no one said "Remember when Superman was heroic, but after Crisis when it was still the same guy as now?" A general statement like "Remember when heroes did 'heroic' things?" leaves itself wide open for counter-examples.

What no one is pointing out is that Greg has slanted the discussion by leaving out two bits of dialogue. After GL's line about "do you want a piece of him," Luthor says, "As soon as I get free, I'm going to kill you." Superman responds, "Not in *that* armor" and punches...the armor. The punch is clearly aimed at the armor, as shown by both the dialogue and the art: the punch is slanted across Luthor's chest to smash the armor and leave Luthor unhurt. We see Luthor's face and bare chest clearly in the next panel, and there's no sign of injury. This is not the same as "bashing a helpless Lex Luthor." He is not "beat[ing] on [a] helpless opponent," and Luthor's threat to Superman indicates that saying "he's no longer a threat" isn't the case.

If there's really a point to be made here, the whole scene should be described, not just picking the bits that support the point, and leaving out the ones that go against it.

As for the entire storyline, it felt thrown together, and I didn’t get the point of it all. It amounted to some dumb way to bring back the Legion of Doom Headquarters and put all the villains in one place to set up Salvation Run. It was one big wasted opportunity, and after one Amazo and Solomon Grundy gave the League all they could handle, I’m supposed to believe that the League could clean up DC’s heaviest hitters that simply? Right.

The only way this storyline really works for me is if Luthor is trying to manipulate both his fellow villains and Salvation Run into getting various villains to abandon the planet; given that we're dealing with villains, pretending to make a Legion of Doom is probably the easiest way to get them all in one place at one time for easy capture.

This scenario requires Luthor to have some a priori knowledge of both Salvation Run and that something bad enough is coming to force Luthor into abandoning the planet. What's that? There's a Great Disaster coming soon?

Is it just me, or would heat vision (at a level that could actually disable the armor) be far more dangerous to Luthor than such an obviously controlled punch?

Just you. Heat vision cna be controlled and directed. Shrapnel cannot.

What? Burgas being curmudgeonly? Surely not! I haven't read the latest JLA yet, but the run sure has been a mess so far. Sounds like Greg might have overstated his case here, but I'm interested enough to give the book another issue and find out.

Shouldn’t Superman, of all people, be above dolling out “eye for an eye” “justice” just because a bad guy “earned” an extra-hardcore beatdown?

Absolutely.

So it's a good thing Superman didn't do anything that was even REMOTELY in the NEIGHBORHOOD of an "extra-hardcore beatdown".

Even "eye for an eye" would be a gross exaggeration of these events.

You should read the original Superman stories from the late 1930s. Superman was an ultra-violent left-wing vigilante who was not above scaring the crap out of criminals, trampling over due process, and interfering in the affairs of other countries. He was a brutal badass who did not take garbage from anyone. The whole "world's biggest boyscout" thing didn't come along later, when DC decided to turn the character into a family-friendly corporate icon they could license out for big bucks.

I just wanted to thank the Greg for pointing out the brutality we visionaries suffer from jealous super-police. While no visible damage could be seen in the comic illustrations, I'd just like to point this out: Much of the force from that cretin's punch went harmless through my squishy but subtle flesh and shattered my spine and legs.

As a result, I've been forced to move to an alternate reality, change my name, develop new mental powers, and start a school of the gifted where I can form my own personal army that can finally rid the multiverse of that sanctimonious tyrant.

Correct