10 Times Superman Was Forced To Kill

8. Dr Light During Trinity War

Just to make sure you didn't think that was a momentary lapse in morality, or particularly out of character for this all-new all-different big blue boy scout, DC decided to follow up the dragoncide of Superman #13 with even more murder amongst the Trinity War crossover a few months later.

The premise of the eleven-issue event that ran through the Justice League title was that Pandora's Box actually existed and was a crazy powerful, ancient weapon that a lot of bad dudes wanted to get their hands on. Pandora herself approached Superman to look after it, believing him to be "without sin", but just touching it made him go a little loopy, so she scarpered.

A little while later, the Justice League end up in Kahndaq trying to stop Shazam from causing a diplomatic incident, which escalates into a battle between the League and the government-sponsored JLA. One of the members of the JLA is new recruit Dr Light, who was best known in the pre-New 52 continuity for being at the centre of Identity Crisis, a.k.a. the worst comic book ever written that reduced all of the DC superheroes to manipulative, back stabbing jerks.

Hoping for a bit of career rehabilitation in this new universe, Light teams up with this nice team of do-gooders and ends up fighting Superman. And by "fighting Superman", we mean "having his head blasted clean off of his body by Superman's heat vision".

During the heat of the battle the Man Of Steel and Dr Light wind up duking it out mano-a-mano after he inadvertently attacks Wonder Woman (whom Superman is sweet on, because they get fan fiction people to write comics now). Everyone is shocked at the cold-blooded murder, not least of all Supes himself, and it's later revealed he was mind-controlled to do it as an ongoing campaign to discredit him and the Justice League.

Still killed him, though.