Action 775 is one of my very favorite issues of all time and showcases the reason that Superman is the greatest.

I don't really buy that. What if Batman decided to retire? Whose fault would the Joker be then?

Seems like Batman's ethical problem about whether or not to kill the Joker is as set up by genre conventions as is the inability of a jail to hold a single prisoner. In a way, they're exactly the same thing.

But since prisons in superhero comics are about as secure as a house of straw, and since characters like Lex Luthor don't have any interest in reforming of their own accord, and since Supes isn't exactly going to remove Lex's free will via heat vision lobotomy, there's no practical reason for the superhero's " technical pacifism ". There are plenty of external genre reasons ( most notably, the need to have popular villains survive ) which I accept, but if we're talking about the ethics within the story itself, then the code against killing is actually a moral weakness.

Isn't it a bit selfish that the Joker gets to murder hundreds of innocents every time he gets out of Arkham so that Batman doesn't have to get his hands dirty? Soldiers kill as part of the job, and policemen will kill if there are no other options. The traditional Silver Agey superhero isn't expected to, even if it's pitting the lives of a thousand civilians against one sociopathic mass-murderer. Which makes it even more irritating when the heroes who are willing to take lives immediately fall into the bad guy camp.*

* ( Note that I said willing to do so, not interested in doing it; I don't think a character who enjoys taking lives can be a hero. The problem with the Authority isn't that they use lethal force, but that they fetishize it; where Jack Hawksmoor actually wept when forced to kill in Stormwatch, he jokes about beating up villains with one of their comrades' severed head once Millar takes over. Even Hawksmoor in the Ellis Authority was portrayed as numbing himself to the shock, as opposed to damn near getting off on it... )

Superman, at its best, is all about not falling into that senseless trap and instead aiming for higher ideals.

Okay, that's fine, but what point is that arguing? "Superman's better because he's better"?

It's actually pretty depressing that SBP is getting so many votes, because the character is really crappy, and will likely be the running joke of this decade.

There sure are a lot of Superboy Prime fights on this list. Oh well.

I was just thinking the same thing. Maybe people just like seeing Superboy Prime getting beat down...?

Anyways, when I first read that JLA issue with the Atom riding a beam of light into Darkseid's brain, it totally blew my mind. And I still think it's a pretty awesome moment in a pretty cool fight.

The use of Psylocke made it a much better fight scene than a Logan/Creed match would have given; the X-Men had assumed that Betsy was just an elegant socialite useless in a battle, but facing Sabretooth alone and walking away alive is no small feat. ( This is made more remarkable because this was prior to Betsy's ninja makeover ).