Originally posted by: jonessoda
Wow. Superman is a grade-a, absolute dick. Those have to be edited, except for the propaganda ones.
No, DC comics really did these covers as a bait-and-switch: it would always turn out there was some stupid reason why supes had to "pretend" to be about to kill Lois, beat up Jimmy Olsen, etc. it was always "for their own good" or to fool some super-villain or something.
Sometimes there was no trick involved it was just an "alternate history" or "dream" story, which is why later covers would say things like "not a dream!" (yeah, it was an alternate history) or "not an alternate history!" (yeah, it was a dream).