Man of Steel has been out for a couple of weeks now, so we figure it's pretty safe to run this story now. But that said,

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Superman

Superman

Superman

Superman

Superman

Anyway, the manner in which Superman deals with General Zod in the end -- which is to say, in a neck-breaking, won't-see-him-no-more kind of way -- has upset some fans. "Superman doesn't kill!" they yell, while buying a ticket to their second, or third, showing of the film. I admit to being bothered by that development myself after seeing the film (the first time, not as much the second), and I'm not alone in this regard on the IGN staff.But as our own Joey Esposito pointed out recently, Superman does kill . Not often, and not without remorse and great provocation, but he has done the deed on several occasions. So let's take a look at a few of the more noteworthy murder-death-kill moments on Kal-El of Krypton's résumé…Note: We're only talking about mainstream continuity Superman (Supermen?) here. So any accidental punching of Lois Lane into space or the like doesn't count.The gosh-gee-whiz approach of Smallville's Clark Kent went out the Phantom Zone window in the sixth-season episode of the show, "Combat." When Clark found himself in battle -- in a Fight Club, actually! -- against Titan, played by none other than the WWE's Kane, it was a clash of the, uh, titans. Titan was another villain mistakenly freed from the Phantom Zone, and while killing was abhorrent to Clark, once the bald-headed baddie got to throwing a midriff-exposed Lois around, well… enough was enough was enough. A super-punch from Clark caused Titan to fall on his own Wolverine-esque, possibly copyright-infringing bone claw, killing him in the process. This was not as direct a kill as some of the others Superman has committed, but it was a kill nonetheless.And you know what they say: The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club. Or killing Phantom Zone bad guys.In John Byrne's seminal reboot (before it was called that) of the Man of Steel after DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths, Superman was faced with the unthinkable: A world where everyone has been killed by General Zod and his Kryptonian cohorts Quex-Ul and Zaora. Luckily for Supes, this was an alternate universe so it wasn't really his world that had suffered this fate, but still… Zod was too much of a threat. So in order to prevent him from ever terrorizing his own universe, Superman busted out the kryptonite and then just stood there while he watched the three criminals die. Quex-Ul and Zod expire while grappling with each other in one last fit of hateful deceit, while Zaora pitifully begs for her life and offers to show Superman "pleasures such as you never dreamed," Lady Shylock style.And then he buries the three of them. Damn, son.This is the most obvious of Superman's kills. As the mindless beast known as Doomsday rampaged across America -- as unstoppable as a torrent of speculative comics-buyers looking for a copy of the black, bagged issue of Superman #75 -- Kal-El realized that he must destroy the creature for the greater good. And so it was that the pair fought it out on an epic scale, eventually beating each other to death in the streets of Metropolis. (And then they both came back to life a few months later.)This is probably more a case of criminally negligent manslaughter, but it's so weird I had to include it. In an episode of the old George Reeves Adventures of Superman series called "The Stolen Costume," the Man of Tomorrow takes a rather backwards approach to disciplining a pair of common crooks. Since the criminals know his true identity (due to the titular stolen costume), Superman leaves the duo on the wintery top of a mountain where they can't reveal his secret to anyone else. He departs, and the crooks promptly fall to their deaths when trying to climb down. Later, when Clark relates their fate to a friend, he has a bit of a chuckle about the whole experience!Even the Christopher Reeve Superman was a killer! After depowering Zod, Ursa and Non in the Fortress of Solitude in Superman II, the Man of Steel could've just carted the trio off to the proper authorities, right? (Which did happen in an old TV cut of the film.) But no, he instead crushes Zod's hand and then throws him into the frozen depths of the Fortress, allows Non to jump to a similar death, and watches with amusement while his girlfriend murders the female Kryptonian in cold blood. As Zod once said, this super-man is nothing of the kind…These are just a few instances of Superman tucking his enemies in for the big sleep. Can you recall any others?

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