I was watching a DC animated film a few days ago. In it, Superman is fighting a bad guy in downtown metropolis. Building are falling, and cars are flying with pedestrians all around. At this point, it’s all fairly typical. But then, in a last effort to beat the bad guy, Superman flies the guy all the way up into space and then dives back down to Earth to body slam the guy. But instead of flying him back down to Earth in a desolate place where no one could get hurt, Superman decides it would be best to slam him down in the middle of Metropolis leaving a huge creator.
Superman is involved in insurance scams, certainly. I doubt his part time reporter salary pays all the bills. He’s clearly getting kickbacks under the table.
I seem to recall (my memory’s mostly OK, these days) in a “Birds of Prey” comic, a few years ago, the Birds took on a rookie superhero, kind of a hothead, who did something stupid (and against orders) on a mission, that directly resulted in some innocent people getting accidentally blown up. I think in Metropolis, at that. Rookie lived.
And Supes’ response was to…fly to the Birds’ HQ, coldly tell them he’d be “keeping an eye on them” from now on, and leave. 'Didn’t tell them to hand over the Rookie to face trial for manslaughter, or stay out of his city from now on, or even just to keep the Rookie on a tighter leash until she got her head on straight and some better training.
He just chose the option that both sounded sanctimonious, AND was completely reckless from an operational standpoint.
In The Death of Superman (don’t worry, he got better) Doomsday wiped out the Justice League in Ohio, destroyed a LexOil refinery, annihilated a rural police force, knocked a couple of National Guard helicopters out of the sky, trashed a LexMart in Midvale, and punched Supergirl into a pile of protoplasmic goo. All the while he fended off Superman’s punches until they battled their way into the heart of Metropolis. At that point, Superman told Doomsday, “Metropolis is where I hold the line.”
Well, thanks, I guess. But couldn’t you have held the line back over that lake or in the mountains where there would have been a lot less collateral damage?