Superman is known as the Man of Tomorrow. He is a shining beacon of truth, justice, and always strives to do what’s right to helps the largest amount of people possible.
Unfortunately, even a Man of Steel can falter. Being one of the figureheads of the Justice League doesn’t mean that Kal-El is immune to making a mistake. There are things Superman has done in the comics that he probably doesn’t want his son and future Superman, Jon Kent, to know about or use as an example of how he should act.
10 Starting A War Between Different Justice League Teams
The New 52’s Trinity War found Superman’s Justice League squaring off against Justice League Dark and the government-run Justice League of America. Trinity War kicks off with the main Justice League fighting the JLA, with Superman and his team unwilling to talk things out with the other League. The book leads to an all-out war with Martian Manhunter manhandling Superman.
9 Taking A Year Off To Rediscover Himself
In the wake of Infinite Crisis by Geoff Johns and George Perez, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman decide to step away from their roles for a full year and rediscover their reasons for being superheroes.
That is almost admirable if a year without three of the biggest superheroes in the world weren’t such a potential disaster — and it was. The events of 52 and Countdown show that it probably would have been best if Clark didn’t leave the shop unattended.
8 Letting His Mysteriously Not-Dead Father Take His Son
Superman actively giving up his son to an untrustworthy individual sits among his more baffling actions. With the revelation that Mr. Oz was Jor-El, Superman had a new and complicated situation on his hands. Despite that, Kal-El and Jor-El did end up doing some bonding.
Jonathan Kent, Superman’s son, decided that he wanted to go off with Jor-El — who obviously had ulterior motives at work — and both Clark and Lois let Jon leave with Jor-El. The two let their son go off with someone who was barely not a stranger, and it turned out disastrous. Superboy returned a couple of months later, but a few years older. During his time with Jor-El, he had been abandoned on Earth-3, home of the villainous Crime Syndicate, for years before being rescued by his grandfather.
7 Flippantly Declaring Himself Earth’s Representative In The United Planets
The newly-formed United Planets didn’t know how to address Earth in their proceedings, so Superman claimed its official representative without permission. This is something that should obviously be voted upon, but Clark didn’t wait for that to happen before calling himself Earth’s official governmental representative. This detail made its way back home, causing some friction between Superman and the people of Earth.
6 Instinctively Attacking Other Superheroes Upon First Meeting Them
The New 52 retelling of the Justice League origin story by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee shows how Earth’s greatest heroes first met one another. This story shows Superman meeting Batman, Green Lantern, and the Flash – among others.
Superman decides to approach these individuals with violence first. Admittedly, he’s unsure if they have anything to do with the ongoing Parademon activity, but that doesn’t change the fact that Superman, of all people, should have shown these individuals the benefit of the doubt.
5 Losing His Cool And Almost Beating The Leader Of Another World To Death
After being freed from Mongol’s Black Mercy in the eponymous For the Man Who Has Everything by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Superman did something he shouldn’t have done — he let Mongol get to him.
This led to Superman unleashing his full strength on Mongol and almost killing the warlord. Mongol, in addition to being a regular villain of Superman and Green Lantern, is the leader of Warworld, an artificial planet. Mongol rules an army of slave gladiators, and though his regime is brutal and totalitarian, killing Mongol would have inevitably led to further chaos on Warworld.
4 Involving Himself In Foreign Politics He Knows Nothing About
Superman has a bad tendency to involve himself in things that he knows little about, and there are several examples of this happening over the years to various degrees of consequence.
Darwyn Cooke’s New Frontier finds Superman chastising Wonder Woman for freeing enslaved Korean women and letting them kill their brutal and inhumane captors. For Tomorrow by Brian Azzarello and Jim Lee has Superman interfering in a Middle Eastern country (even if the leader had employed an alien killer). A more recent Justice League story by Christopher Priest and Pete Woods has the team trying to untangle the politics of a fictional African nation led by someone calling himself the Red Lion. None of this even mentions the times Superman has butted into Kahndaq politics to challenge Black Adam.
3 Openly Defying The President Of The United States
When Lex Luthor was elected President of the United States, Superman made his anger over this very clear. Luthor is, of course, one of Superman’s oldest and most dedicated enemies, so Lex being the president obviously upset Kal-El.
That said, Luthor was elected by the people, and one of the world’s most powerful superheroes openly challenging the president could have far-reaching consequences. In fact, Luthor uses Superman’s defiance to his advantage, leading him into a trap involving Metallo in the famous Public Enemies story by Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness.
2 Blindly Following Authority And Attacking One Of His Closest Friends
On the other end of the spectrum, Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns finds Superman serving as America’s only superhero and involving himself in the Cold War on the president’s behalf. When the president tells Superman to take out Batman, Superman does it loyally. This leads to the unforgettable duel between Superman and Batman that ends in Bruce faking his own death and taking his crusade underground.
1 Becoming The Literal Dictator Of The Entire World
Injustice finds Superman being perhaps the worst role model that he’s ever been. The Joker uses poison to make Superman hallucinate that Lois Lane was Doomsday, and the Man of Steel beats his pregnant wife to death. Superman retaliates by killing the Joker and then forming a regime to rule the entire world. Needless to say, none of this is something that the world’s greatest hero and most iconic role model should be doing.
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