Superman being bitter and cowardly without his powers

[Harrynorine]

From Superman/Batman Annual #2. Superman loses his power to a villain called Mr. Socrates, and becomes a mortal, man. Unable to be a superhero, Clark decides to go back to smallville to work on his family farm. Bruce comes to visit him some time later and brings a glass of lemonade for him while he is working out in the field.



Superman is now overly bitter towards Bruce; who now is his better in every possible way. A little while later, Metallo attacks the city, superman sees batman defeat him in a suit and gets inspiration to become a hero again. He sees that even if a man is mortal, he can still combat superman level threats through tactic, ingenuity, and technology.

Superman goes to batman and ask him to retrain him into being a superhero again. Thus, begins superman's training montage.



Superman sticks to batman's rigorous training schedule but is struggling and having a hard time being a non-powered hero like batman. After a months worth of training, batman takes superman out to the field to fight crime. He gives superman a jetpack, since he is familiar with aerial combat. Superman debuts in Gotham as Supernova, he stops an apparent mugging but when he goes to help the "victim", it turns out to be the joker.



The joker uses his hand buzzer to incapacitate Clark and was about to shoot him in the head. Superman panics and fires off a flame thrower from his wrist, which causes the Joker's hair to catch on fire, and he flees the scene. Superman is utterly ashamed that he gave into his fear and almost killed a man out of self preservation. He laments about quitting when Robin reminds him that superman doesn't quit.

Now this brings up an interesting topic of whether superman ability to be brave and optimistic comes from a place of privilege of being a living god. It's not so different from someone being born with good looks and not suffering from mental health. In general, they would receive far better treatment and more positive experience than someone who is average in looks or even ugly. In addition, the quote "it's easy to be brave when bullets bounce of you" has been used many times in films before to signify that someone with superman's ability can be brave when there are very few things that can hurt you. And yes, superman has fought beings that can possibly kill him, but him fighting tooth and nail against them could just be him not realizing that said person is capable of killing him and thus instilling fear like it would a normal person. For example, if you were a world class MMA fighter, you might not be afraid to get into a fight with multiple attackers even if there was a good chance you could die. From your perspective, you feel confident in your abilities that you can win and the thought of death doesn't slip into your mind.

[The World]

This question was already answered in the Golden Age from the creators. This Johnny come lately take is irrelevant.

Also the sheer amount of time I've seen this silly question get posed makes me hope if we ever get alien contact that it ends up being an Omniman type and not a Superman type. Just some unstoppable lunatic killing as many people as they possibly can.

[manwhohaseverything]

this isn't related to superman ..but batman..This post would be cool..if batman actually stopped a guy without basically hitting below the belt and cleaned up the **** hole that is gotham.Yet he chooses to play around with mentally insane and make more of em.His moral superiority is like a pink elephant.Anything nature provides can be taken away by nature as well if you aren't willing to work on it.If clark doesn't learn to leap,he can't fly.He became bulletproof by actually being brave enough to instinctually jump infront of a person in need.Not because some dumb trauma.Hitting people below the belt is not "tactic".It's weakness disguised as "intelligence".bruce could be anything and do anything.Yet he chooses to play the wallowing,self pitying victim of circumstances.

[Stanlos]

A living god?

It makes me shudder when I read bible epithets used for Superman.

[Kuwagaton]

This question was already answered in the Golden Age from the creators. This Johnny come lately take is irrelevant.

Also the sheer amount of time I've seen this silly question get posed makes me hope if we ever get alien contact that it ends up being an Omniman type and not a Superman type. Just some unstoppable lunatic killing as many people as they possibly can.

You realize this story comes from WF #178, right? Still after the Golden Age but the Silver Age isn't quite "Johnny come lately."