Today, we look at the first time that Superman saved a villain's life!
In "When We First Met", we spotlight the various characters, phrases, objects or events that eventually became notable parts of comic lore, like the first time someone said, "Avengers Assemble!" or the first appearance of Batman's giant penny or the first appearance of Alfred Pennyworth or the first time Spider-Man's face was shown half-Spidey/half-Peter. Stuff like that.
A while back, reader Lefty K. asked me when was the first time that a number of superheroes first saved a villain's life. Last year, I showed when Batman first saved a villain's life and this time around, we're looking at the Man of Steel!
Early on, the Man of Steel was pretty hardcore. He wasn't going around slaughtering people, of course, but he would throw dudes hard against a wall and jump around with them tucked under his arms, psychologically tormenting people into spilling secrets to him.
In Action Comics #2 (by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster), Superman threatens some gunrunners and depending on how high they were up, those window jumps might have been fatal...
This leads Superman to another country where he argues that it is the munitions industry that is pushing countries into war with each other. Superman forces a gun maker to enlist in the military to see firsthand the effects of his actions. While overseas, Superman sees a guy torturing soldiers and Superman sure seems to kill him here, right?
I guess out of sight, out of mind? So if you don't actively see the guy die, then we don't know that he died for sure?
He definitely kills whoever was in the airplane here...
But that was the main way things went in those early comics. He wasn't, like, punching people's heads off, but he would frequently destroy planes or tanks or submarines with bad guys on them. However, you could always assume that the people survived, ya know? However, in general, here's the thing about Superman. He was essentially invulnerable, and thus with the level of crooks that he was fighting (you know, not super-crooks), there were little for them to do that would ever put either them OR Superman into harm's way. So as a result, there really was no reason for Superman TO rescue anyone, since the situations didn't present themselves.
In Action Comics #13, a villain tries to stab Superman while he is leaping through the sky with him. We fail to see whether Superman would have tried to save the guy in the end...
That issue saw the debut of Superman's first supervillain, the Ultra-Humanite, and Superman NEVER tries to save Ultra. He is always very happy to kill Ultra...
Ultra shows up and is killed off in, like, every appearance and, again, Superman never tries to, say, punch Ultra's head off, but he's very happy to destroy Ultra's planes or other means of transportation and destroy them. Ultra just always escapes (well, eventually Ultra transplants his mind into a woman's body, but same deal).
Then a major change occurred in the Superman titles, original editor Vin Sullivan, who was pretty much the definition of a creator's editor, left the book over a royalty dispute (Sullivan came up with the comic book that became World's Finest Comics and he felt that he was going to get paid a royalty on it and National Allied was, like, "Nah."), leading his old colleague Whitney Ellsworth to have to take over the titles and Ellsworth, while also a brilliant guy in his own right, was controlling where Sullivan was loose and one of the things that Ellsworth (who was very much a big picture guy) thought was important was that National's big heroes can't be killing people anymore.
The effects weren't immediate, but almost.
In Superman #4 (by Siegel, Shuster and Paul Cassidy), Superman saves a blackmailer who plans to kill himself and have the money be lost at sea with him...
But it seems clear here that Superman's mostly just trying to save the MONEY, right?
So I don't know if that necessarily counts.
Superman #5 is also tricky. This guy, Moseley, is a bad guy, but in the same comic story, Luthor is brainwashing people (Moseley seems to NOT be mind-controlled, though), so perhaps Superman thinks Moseley is not all evil himself, but for whatever reason, he keeps trying to keep Moseley from dying...
even after Moseley betrays him again....
However, at the end of the tale, Superman is thrilled that Luthor is seemingly killed...
New York World's Fair Comics #2 (by Siegel and Jack Burnley) is the real tipping point, as Superman actively decides to save some bad guys from dying for the first time for no other reason than he wants them to face their crimes...
Amusingly, though, in a Superman #6 (by Siegel and Cassidy) soon after that, Superman is still very chill about villains dying...
But by Superman #9 (by Siegel and Cassidy), we have the new setup, which is that Superman would rather villains live so that they can pay for their crimes in jail...
Finally, in Superman #13 (by Siegel, Shuster and Leo Nowak), Luthor tries to blow himself up and Superman stops him, which I think would count as the first time Superman saved the life of a super-villain...
In general, though, Superman is more than happy for Luthor to seemingly die over and over again.
Superman #57 (by Edmond Hamilton, Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye) sees Superman really actively saving Luthor in that sort of bland way that that era of Superman titles would be most remembered for...
The trick there is that there are some one-off villains that you MIGHT consider "super-villains" that might have been saved between Superman #13 and Superman #57, but Luthor is the first regular villain that Superman actively saved.
Thanks for the suggestion, Lefty! Okay, folks, if anyone has a suggestion for/question about a notable comic book first, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!