The Man of Steel was beginning to grow up. The Superman who debuted in Action Comics 1 in June, 1938 was one tough monkey, a hero who thought nothing of smashing through the governor's bedroom door in the middle of the night in order to get what he wanted. Who would hang a bad guy by the heels high over the city to scare the needed information out of him. Who smacked around an abusive husband as a way of giving the man a taste of his own medicine. Who fought (mainly) guys in suits out to screw over the little guy. Tough... but, in his own way, mellowing. Which isn't to say that the Superman of those second and third years in Action was going soft. He was still a hero of the people, a post-Depression, pre-War populist who battled exploiters of child labor, insurance fraud targeted at the elderly, and crooked doctors who claimed to be able to cure polio, to name but a few... Whatever wrong faced the honest citizens of the world, whichever bully threatened Joe and Jane Average was confronted head-on by the one guy who couldn't be hurt, wouldn't be intimidated. The hero determined to outbully the worst bully. Superman.
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