5. The Worst Parent Of All Time - Superman II
Aside from Clark Kent/Kal-El's four parents, pretty much every parent in the Superman film universe prove themselves to be wholly unsuitable to bringing up children. The most ridiculous example comes in Superman II, when Clark is forced to weigh up giving up his secret identity in order to save a brat who inexplicably ignores all notions of common sense and the fundamental threat of plummeting to his death by swinging provocatively over the edge of the Niagara Falls. Naturally he falls, and Superman swoops in to save the day (despite the fact that Supes' casual flying arc would never have caught the falling lad.) It's a necessary scene, for drama firstly, and also to show the contradiction in Clark's need to preserve his secret, and to save every little urchin who should probably stop stinking up the gene pool anyway, but it is undermined slightly by the idiot mother who first allows her son to play on the barrier, and then ignores him entirely up until the point he falls to his almost doom. And if she wasn't dumb enough, the off-screen proclamation that meets Superman's saving of the child is both corny and jaw-dropping stupid: "what a nice man!" as if everyone would be equipped to pull off the daring rescue if only they weren't such lazy, horrible cretins.