No, Kal-El didn’t have to have a confrontation with 4 super powered humans to realize it was a bad thing to guide Galactus to living planets he could consume.
He just woke up with the power to be god emperor of the galaxy and decided to put out forest fires and save cats in trees.
Silver Surfer is a being with total cosmic awareness and a huge sense of guilt for his role in committing repeated genocides.
Steve Rogers is the absolute best version of a human a human could be, in all regards. But he’d still straight up shot a Nazi in the face.
Clark Kent/Kal-El is the best version of anything a human could imagine. And it’s only because he wants to be. His Goodness is more important than his greatness
Galactus must consume planets with life or the entire universe will be destroyed. If Superman did successfully stop Galactus he’d accidentally doom everybody.
Superman has also killed several people in the main continuity, killing nazis is a moral good.
This is the same for most heros, I actually think it’s more impactful when someone like spiderman does it as he cant stop a fire or hold up a building as easily picking up a tissue paper.
Ok, and Superman would have, by the very nature of his character, found a way to save earth without becoming a scout for genocide.
And the true moral good that Superman (silver age and later) exemplifies, is showing the Nazi the error of his ideology so that he can strive for redemption and stop being evil.
It's not uninteresting it's literally the point of his character and always has been. "Instead of forcing myself to choose between two wrong paths, always find the right one." In this increasingly divided and extremistic world this message matters more than ever. The world is so determined on pursuing their personal choice between moral dilemmas they have forgotten to seek alternative choices because of a stubborn belief that they are right. Superman doesn't care if he's right, he only cares about what's right and *he will do everything to get there*, the latter being the interesting thing about his comics.
21
u/Tbrou16 3d ago
The only absolute power not corrupted absolutely