Pure of heart[]
How is Superman NOT pure of heart? He is selfless, commits self-sacrifice on numerous occasions and saves a girl from commiting suicide even when he is on the verge of death. He practically the living embodiment of a pure of heart hero. Larry.z.eata (talk) 00:07, November 27, 2016 (UTC)
Impure[]
Although he does save others, is it "pure" to smash villains against walls? despite good intentions. Considering he is almost "undamage-able" the risk and "sacrifice" is small; (as Chloe points out to Superman when she (temporarily) knew his secret), like the "bold fearless" human standing under the "barrage of water" from a hose.
However, more important than ethical nit-picking... his refusal to kill murderers claiming "life is precious" is at the SAME price the lives of the victims of those murderers... as if the life of a criminal is MORE precious than the lives of the victims... consider how many lives Lex Luthor could not kill if Superman murdered, as a vigilante Alexander lex Luther. So at "the end of the day" his story is exciting but he is far from pure. NoCircumciseBaby (talk) 17:18, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
Who Is pure then?[]
Fair points. Except Superman Does kill when, first as original Superman by Siegel and Shuster before character became really popular and editors started restricting him (realistically Luthor and Ultra-Humanite for example should've died after the first encounter with the man and only survived because they are really smart and resourceful and just plot armor thing). But at the same time he was very rarely a straight up murderer, unless it is last last resort. Thing is in contemporary status quo comics, they exist in timeless void, some characters age while Superman and Batman will always be 30-40 years old and there is no meta referencial explanation for it. What comes with is that they are always in the Very beginning of their lives as superheroes. 10-20 years at best, in during most of those years they don't need to make any compromises with their morality because people like Red Hood and now-(kinda)-reformed Zod exist, ie versions of these characters that are "allowed" killing. But in any ways, they will always be only superheroes, because everything else falls under the realm of Elseworld story of Future End or The Dark Knight Returns. We never see progression of time and progression when things get so bad that these superheroes need to become rulers (like in Red Son, or Master Men, Calvin Ellis Superman) or slaves of the state (like Superman was in The Dark Knight series), assuming they Will getting worse instead of , for some reason, all their villains, all Lex Luthors and Jokers will eventually get tired/change their mind, and the Legion future (kinda) utopia will become real. Of course you can deconstruct any notion any way you want, like in All-Star Superman seeing him using tiny kandorians to cure kids with cancer. Good deed? Yes, but also we never ever see it before Superman gets "sick", didn't he know kids with cancer exist, what about adults, or why not build or make kandorians build tiny super-robots so that terminally sick people may get at least a chance. Then again it is same comic that in the first place Invents the incapability of Lois and Clark to ever have children without special procedure (unlike comics where kryptonians are basically like humans just more evolved and they don't need any special procedures for "cross" breeding) , or give Superman incurable desease from being too close to the sun (in other comics he was that close and closer many times) , or have Superman being unable to unshrink (he did in "normal" comics before that) Kandor and instead having him to just leave it on Mars in a tiny form. Etc, etc, etc. In the end these are just fictional stories, in which morality questions can only go as far as audience wants it.
Superman 1940s[]
One Cinema series, "Superman", was released to theatres in the 1940s, (starting in 1941, three years after his appearance in Action comics). The series had 17 shorts (until 1943). (For more details see https://topvideossummaries.fandom.com/wiki/Superman_(1940s) ).