Real name: Thornton Blakely
A.K.A.:
First Appearance: Action Comics I#3 (August 1938)
Abilities: Mine owner
Quotes: "Help! Help me-I'm suffocating!"
Worst Act: Substandard working conditions
Created by: Jerry Sigel (writer) and Joe Shuster (pencils/inks)
Here's where things get a bit more topical. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was still a recent memory around 1938, as were the clashes between unions and various coal mines down south, so the idea of a corporate boss ignoring the unsafe working conditions and blaming the workers for the accident was not unheard of and still sadly relevant today.
Superman shows up to save a trapped miner at the Blakely Coal Mine and from there we learn the unsafe conditions at the mine. Superman decides the best way to handle this is trick Blakely and his rich friends to go down into the mine and bury them alive.
He gets them out, eventually, but this would be the first story to focus entirely on social ills. Sadly you can't punch something like that better, although burying them deep is one way to deal with things.
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