10 Smartest Decisions In DC Superhero History
9. Superman Smashes The Klan - The Adventures Of Superman
Okay, so, there are actually two really smart decisions at play here. The first is the original radio serial, The Adventures of Superman, exposing the rituals of the Ku Klux Klan and thereby contributing to the group's decline post the Second World War. The second one is the decision to give Gene Luen Yang and Gurihuru the opportunity to tell their own 'Superman vs the Klan' story in the aptly titled, Superman Smashes the Klan. Because it's great, and you should all go read it.
The latter is of course inspired by the former though, which saw the Man of Steel expose the KKK while the group was in the midst of yet another resurgence.
As detailed in this Mental Floss article, a young author and activist called Stetson Kennedy took it upon himself to investigate the Klan during WW2, infiltrating their meetings in the hope any information he gathered and relayed to the authorities and press would help dismantle the organisation.
Arguably more interesting, though, was Kennedy's decision to approach the writers of The Adventures of Superman in the hope they too could put his findings to good use. And, surprisingly, they did. In a sixteen-part series titled "Clan of the Fiery Cross", the Last Son of Krypton turned his focus towards the Klan and revealed the group's intricacies to listeners, from codewords to weird rituals, painting them rightly as a band of racist, cowardly weirdos.
It would be disingenuous to claim that Superman actively instigated the decline of the Klan as a mainstream political force in the United States during the 1940s, but discrediting them in such a fashion is sure to have had some influence.