You're a Real Jerk Sometimes, Superman!

A favorite joke of mine involves a guy at a bar betting one of his fellow patrons that he can jump out of the window of a tall building without getting hurt. The set-up is a little convoluted and doesn't lend itself well to transcription (as opposed to live performance), but the punch-line is, "You're a real jerk sometimes, Superman!" I recently came across a Superman story from decades ago that could have inspired this joke.

In the November 1950 story "The Secret of the 6 Superman Statues" (Action Comics #150), a greedy inventor named Morko attempts to trick the Man of Steel into using his powers in ways that would make the inventor and his henchmen wealthy. Though Superman foils Morko's plans in a ways that help others, he's frustrated by the realization that Morko and his men didn't actually break any laws. Rather than let that minor technicality dissuade him, Superman resolves that "a trickster like [Morko] shouldn't go free!" and tricks the inventor and his men into attacking what they think is simply a statue of Superman. This manufactured assault in turn serves as a pretense for Superman to take them to jail.

As those who've read Superman's early adventures know, he wasn't always the "big blue boy scout" we know him as today, with implied and not-so-implied threats of violence being a typical method of getting results. The difference is that the people whose civil liberties were being violated in the early stories were genuine bad guys. When compared to the various  murderers, wife-beaters and war-mongers, a greedy man who didn't actually hurt anyone seems like a rather petty target for someone with such great power.

Superman's ruse seems driven more by having his ego bruised as a result of being used by Morko as it is by any particular sense of justice. Simply put, it makes him seem like far less of a hero. For those who love this icon, it's a good to know that the past sixty-some years have brought his actions and the values he represents into closer alignment making him a bit less of a jerk.