Written by Elliot S! Maggin. Art by Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson.
Maggin's first-ever Superman script has Supes
questioning (thanks to a sub-conscious suggestion by the Guardians of the
Universe) whether his "mother-henning" earth is actually doing harm, in
the long run, by making people rely on him too much.
This famous Superman tale is a fine mix of
elements: Superman averts a cosmic crisis, then switches to a "small" domestic
problem, while grappling with a profound moral dilemma. Heady stuff.
But the conclusion is everything, and that's where things get problematic.
This story is a forerunner of comics-to-come
(most notably The Watchmen or even Kingdom
Come) in that it kind of missus the point of superheroes.
By taking the genre too literally, it renders it irrelevant. SUPERHEROES
DON'T EXIST! I'm sorry, they don't. So you can either
see them as a metaphor, for everyday people dealing with everyday issues,
or you can take them literally, in which case they're a metaphor
for...nothing.
To whit: Superman witnesses a boss assaulting
a Latino boy attempting to spearhead a strike at an orchard, but Supes
chastises the other workers when they turn to him for help. Taken
literally, the story is about a superbeing telling people they have to
help themselves (fair enough), but taken metaphorically, a guy witnesses
a crime -- an assault -- but shrugs and says, "hey, it's not my problem".
Worse, since Superman is clearly an authority figure, imagine a police
officer standing by while a mugging occurs, letting the mugger run off,
then blaming the victim when the victim turns to the police officer for
help. Essentially, this issue can be seen as advocating a Right wing,
head-in-the-sand, every-man-for-himself philosophy, not to mention vigilantism
since it labels as self-pitying whiners anyone who turns to someone else
(a friend, a social worker, a cop, a politician...or a superhero) for help.
Spider-Man once said: "With great power comes
great responsibility". Here, Superman seems to be answering back:
"Nyah."