The Supergirl Saga Conclusion

The question of whether or not Superman would kill his enemies has always been controversial.  In the final Pre-Crisis story, Superman crosses that line and then castigates himself by permanently removing his powers with gold kryptonite.  The Supergirl Saga would come to define the post-Crisis era through its nearly opposite handling of the subject.

Superman #22

Superman and Supergirl attack the three Phantom Zone criminals, but the Kryptonians on this Earth are each more powerful than Post-Crisis Superman.  Bruce Wayne and then Smallville station are the first to fall.  Zod and Zaora blast Supergirl with heat vision and she falls from the sky as a dissolving mass of protoplasm.  So as not to be overheard by the criminals, Lex Luthor asks Superman to read his lips as he tells him his plan.  Superman flies to where this dead Earth's Smallville used to be and searches the remains of Superboy's secret lab.  Quex-Ul catches up to Superman and almost defeats the Man of Steel until Superman pulls out an ace card: a canister of gold kryptonite.  He uses the gold kryptonite to also permanently remove Zod and Zaora's powers and then traps them in a make-shift prison while he rushes to find Lex Luthor dying.  Before he dies, Lex tells Superman that Supergirl isn't really Lana Lang but an artificial life-form he created.  He also confesses that while he knew the gold kryptonite was always there, he never used it because he wanted to defeat Zod himself.  With the last living human on earth dead, Superman decides to administer justice on General Zod and his accomplices by exposing them to green kryptonite until they die.  He finds his way back to his own Earth and leaves the mass of Supergirl's proto-matter with Ma and Pa Kent to regenerate.  Superman needs to be alone to think, so he flies off into the clouds.

There's a lot to unpack in this one issue.  Superman's thought on the last page is that things can never be the same again--and he's right.  Fans would be divided over this issue for decades, some citing this story alone for preferring Pre-Crisis Superman over Post-Crisis.  Ultimately, this was actually a very safe and controlled laboratory experiment, set on an alternate Earth with the genocide of the entire human race.  It's almost an imaginary story (aren't they all?) and Superman would never face a comparable capital punishment dilemma in the "real" world.  While Superman would agonize over this decision for decades, the issue also served an important continuity purpose:  John Byrne (in his final issue) completely and absolutely closes the loose end of Superboy's pocket universe so future writers wouldn't be tempted to revisit it.

Adventures of Superman #445

Jerry Ordway resumes his plot lines from before the Supergirl Saga.  Jimmy Olsen investigates the deaths of missing homeless people.  Cat Grant is spiraling into alcoholism.  Jose Delgado gets a mysterious phone call offering to cure his paralysis, which the reader eventually sees is coming from Lex Luthor's office.  Back in Smallville, Ma and Pa Kent are concerned about how Superman has withdrawn from the world and still refuses to talk about what happened on the other Earth.  Superman eventually decides the best of course of action is to go back to Metropolis and jump back into action.  There, he finds Jimmy's investigation has led him into trouble with Braniac, now in full control of Milton Fine's body.  Braniac pushes the Man of Steel too far and unleashes his full anger.  The paramedics arrive, and taking Milton Fine to the hospital on a stretcher, they argue whether Superman could have killed the villain, and whether he should have.

The World of Metropolis #3

A young Clark Kent arrives in Metropolis trying to get into Metro University.  He starts a lowly job at a restaurant where he meets a waitress named Ruby.  Clark discreetly starts to do heroic deeds, including rescuing a certain Daily Planet reporter from being run down by the mob.  Clark then gets the idea of becoming a reporter as a career to be better equipped to handle the evils of the world.  A years-long relationship with Ruby is suggested in a montage, but she will never really replace Lori Lemaris as Clark's college girlfriend.  By the end of the issue Ruby is married with kids and is never seen in the comics again.