Superman: A Wholesome Image of Justice?

The Superman I've always known is a man seeking justice, someone constantly defending humanity from the evil villains of the world. He is a man who would never kill, choosing instead to put the criminals and crooks of his city behind bars. Superman is an advocate for peace.

With this image in mind, imagine my shock when I turned to page 185 of The Superman Chronicles: Volume One.

The first panel clearly shows issue no. 13's villain break his neck against the street pavement after being accidentally dropped by Superman. In the following panel, with the villain's (victim's?) lifeless legs peaking out from the bottom edge, a bystander announces that the man is, in fact, dead.

I suspected Superman to feel remorse for letting a man die, even if he may not have been deemed a "good" man in Superman's very black and white world. However, Superman does not even seem to feel the slightest hint of pity for the lost life, for the murder he committed. This is made clear when he says "the fate he received was exactly what he deserved!"

I found this explicit violence interesting to compare to Tintin. Like we mentioned in class, Tintin rarely shows violence. Most violence occurs in silhouettes, leaving it up to the reader to imagine any further explicit details. And death? Although there are many close encounters, no characters, good nor bad, die. Yet, in Superman, a comic recognized and sometimes even ridiculed for its' almost comically wholesome nature, gives the reader an image capturing the exact instant of a man's death.

These early comics of Superman, stories strewn with destruction, and stories showing an emotional Superman, makes me rethink how I should view America's greatest hero. Is he someone to look up to? A character parents could feel comfortable presenting to their children? Or is he someone we should view as flawed?