Lynn wrote:
Superman as originally depicted strikes me as a bully who delights in manhandling the bad guys and who isn't even too concerned if innocents get injured along the way. Hardly the Boy Scout which he has become and whom we all know and love.
Lynn, we have to remember that the world of 1939 was much different. Japan was embroiled in a long war in China (started in 1931 by the Japanese militarists in the army), Poland was about to be crushed and divided between Germany and the Soviet Union, Italy had invaded Ethiopia, France was gearing up to fight the Great War all over again, Spain had just gone through a bloody civil war which left the country barely intact and ruled by a dictator, and European Jews - along with other "undesirables" - saw the beginning of the concentration camp system which would kill millions of people over the next six years.
Have you read the story of Superman saving the innocent woman about to be executed for murder? He lacked proof of the guilt of the actual killer, so he waited until the day of the execution to break into the real killer's home and force her to write a full confession, then dropped her off at a police station and ran to the governor's home (because he didn't start off flying) and woke him up to have him write a stay of execution, then when the phone to the prison didn't work he ran to the prison and broke in and stopped the execution, gave the governor's pardon to the warden, and carried the innocent woman to her home. (The innocent woman was not Lois Lane, by the way.)
None of that would work in a story today. When Clark broke Lois out of jail in L&C, there was a hue and cry for their capture. Contrast that with Texas Ranger Frank Hamer's ambush of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker in 1934, just five years before Superman's debut. No one called for prosecution of Hamer and his deputies for gunning down Bonnie and Clyde, but that's what they did. Different times, different mores. And despite the Barrow gang's status as folk heroes among the Depression-era poor people, even their families accepted their violent ends as something they'd brought on themselves.
Superman has changed through the years, but he's always reflected an ideal of truth and justice. In 1939, it wasn't unreasonable to consider the bad guys as targets for law enforcement gunnery practice, especially if the bad guys killed people during the commission of their other crimes. This mindset can be seen by viewing some of the serious movies of the day and by reading the gritty crime novels then popular. Or you can read some of the Dick Tracy comics from that day. Now there were some shoot-em-up cops!
By the standards of today, the Superman of 1939 would be tried for multiple crimes and probably convicted. But we can't try him by our standards or by our mores. We have to recognize that society changes, and that Superman has changed to reflect that society. I, too, prefer the Boy Scout version of Superman in L&C, but I can also read those old comic stories and see how people viewed the concepts of truth and justice way back then.