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He was stone evil, of course. That's the only possible explanation; the only one which makes any sense, in the final analysis.
Of course... I'm talking about Superman. 
The Silver Age era Superman -- for all of his numerous (and well- documented) virtues -- suffered from a peculiar (and pronounced) mental "blind spot," when interacting with the dominant native life forms of this, His Adopted Planet. (In the interests of simple charity, I'm perfectly willing to assume that said aberration of personality is, in fact, some sort of inborn Kryptonian trait; and that The Big Blue Bounder simply couldn't help himself, in this regard.)
Plainly speaking: whenever he became romantically... ummmm... "involved" with a Terran female...
... he promptly set about to treating her (regardless of her personal
accomplishments) like a particularly inbred and backwards backwoods hillbilly;
making her doubt her own sanity, a la Charles Boyer in the movie
GASLIGHT; and -- in general -- displaying (and manifestly reveling
in) the gleeful sort of sadism and cold, calculated cruelty normally displayed
only by serial axe murderers; small boys loitering around ant hills; and
executive vice-presidents for the WB television network.
This wholly detestable pattern of behavior manifested itself early on in the chronicled adventures of the Krypto(fascist)nian Kid. As evidence, I site Exhibit "A": "The Two Boys of Steel."
As our tawdry little tale opens, young Clark Kent is testing out "a new lightning rod I've invented" one stormy evening. For reasons never rendered sufficiently lucid by the (uncredited) scrivener, said device is affixed with a sizable chunk of Green Kryptonite, encased in a plain leaden box.
Wouldn't you just know it, though: an ill-timed bolt of lightning strikes the device (well... it is a lightning rod, after all), and rudely shatters the leaden (pseudo-)safeguard into eleventy-gajillion pieces. The dopey farmboy -- who, apparently, never stopped to ponder overmuch on why, precisely, most people do not attempt to affix lightning rods (of any design) on rooftops in the middle of violent thunderstorms -- kerPLOPS to the ground like a ruptured duck.
Turns out that the combination of the Green K rays and the massive electrical discharge have rendered The Boy of Steel a terrified amnesiac. Fleeing in panicky confusion from his own adopted parents, He-Who- Was-Once-Clark manages to stumble all of fifteen, maybe twenty feet to the house next door: home of the redheaded Lana Lang. [See panel reproduction, below]
Inbreeding must be the indoor sport of choice, down Smallville way:
not only does Lana (whose seen both "Clark" and Superboy, close-up,
more times than you've seen your own toes) not recognize the glasses-less
Clark... but: we discover that the residents of said sleepy little hamlet
are distinguished, chiefly, by their clothing. ("I know everyone
in town! No one wears a jacket like that! Who
can he be?") Just one, big, happy Nazi Youth rally, our little
Thornton Wilder-ish ubertown.
The ever-kindly and solicitous Lana -- heedless of the cruelties soon to be visited upon her by the (still-)dazed super-sadist -- gently tucks The Teen Torquemada into bed for the night (you go, girrrrrrllllll -- !), out of simple, homespun heartland charity. And then, of course, she submits the mysterious jacket to an exhaustive battery of spectrographic analysis testing, in her underground "Lana Cave."
No, no; I just made that last part up, you big sillies.
The next morning, Lana is still unable to reconcile the image of "Clark," sans glasses, with that of Smallville's Most Famous Resident. (Lana's parents, you see, were first cousins.) An inadvertent display of super-strength (involving a piano) on the amnesiac "stranger's" part, later that afternoon, however, finally sets the redhead's mental wheels to tortured spinning.
"Put that piano down, and remove your shirt!" Lana commands; and "Clark"
meekly obliges. (Boyoboyoboy... could this story ever
have turned "kinky" in a tearing hurry...!) Seeing the familiar
red-and-blue costume heretofore hidden underneath the "stranger's" clothing,
Lana shrieks: "Ma! It's Superboy! He must have had
some kind of shock, and lost his memory!" The little
snitch.
One thing leads to another in quick order (as they were so wont to do,
in these little nine-page morality plays) and the thoughtful Lana counsels
the befuddled super-teen thusly: "In order to keep using your super-powers
for good, even while you have amnesia... you'll need a secret identity!"
It is decided that Superboy shall assume the persona of "my cousin
Andy Lang, from New York"... complete with a teensy faux "moustache,"
which (ultimately) makes Our Hero resemble nothing so much as down-at-the-heels
gigolo.
"Andy" espies a framed photograph of "Clark Kent" on Lana's dresser, and is instantly (O, bitter irony!) consumed with jealousy. Later on that evening, The Stalker of Steel decides to do a little covert x-ray "spying" on his (*kaff*kaff*) "rival"... and discovers one of those ubiquitous "Clark Kent robots" that his paranoid super-self always used to leave strewn about the Kent household, like so many dirty socks.
"Ha-ha!" the super-sadist inwardly exults. "She doesn't know it... but she loves a robot!"
Yeah. Ha-ha. This sweet, good-natured kid (who's shown me every possible kindness and courtesy, in my infirmity) is in love with a mechanical construct. Ha-ha. And I can't wait to tell her, and break her sweet little heart into jigsaw-sized pieces. Ha-ha. Maybe later on, I can use my heat vision to flambe a sackful of newborn kittens. MWAH-ha-
ha.
The humiliation train just keeps on a-rollin' for Our Lana, however,
as her tireless attempts to safeguard "Andy's" secret identity -- the
sanctity of which he (from all indications) seems to esteem almost as
highly as might you or I a dead woodchuck carcass or three in our breakfast
cereals -- are so completely and thoroughly bollixed by the Boy of Steel,
his double identity is all but plastered across the town's movie house
marquee by the end of the week.
As Dame Fortune would have it, however: the effects of the electro-
charged Green K treatment finally wear off, and he manages to
utilize his god-like assortment of super-powers to sow confusion amongst
the simple, country townsfolk anew, re: His Li'l Secret. (Little
passive- aggressive mind Nazi.)
The tale ends on a happy, homespun note, as "Ma" and "Pa" Kent are reunited once more with their wayward uberson ("... and to think -- all the time, you were next door!" Real couple of Inspector Lestrades here, boy.); and Lana, in turn, "wisely" opines...
... well: maybe it'd be better if I let you read it for yourself.
[See panel
reproductions, below]
Oh, yeah. She's "not smart enough." I must have
missed the scenes where Lana was poncing about some rooftop in
the middle of a thunder storm, waving a radioactive lightning rod over
head and getting her higher brain functions quick-fried to a crackly
crunch, as a result.
Frequently, Superboy didn't even need the situational fig leaf of poor Lana's direct involvement in one of his adventures to scare up the wherewithal requisite to heaping a little more psychic pain upon his so-called "girl friend."
Exhibit "B": the cover story for ADVENTURE COMICS #240, entitled "The Super-Teacher From Krypton." [See cover reproduction, below]
A robot arrives in Smallville one day, seeking out Superboy. Upon successfully initiating said contact, the sophisticated automaton haughtily informs the nonplussed Teen of Steel that he (the robot, I mean) is the super-scientific handiwork of Superboy's long-dead Kryptonian pere, "Jor-El."
It seems that the good Jor-El -- ages agone -- had not only (I don't
pretend to follow the argument) divined that his (then-)infant son would
one day gain Super Powers Almighty whilst growing to young adulthood on
our planet; but also made the requisite mental "leap" from that
to: "... and so, naturally, he'll probably take to wearing his Underoos
in public, and calling himself a 'super-hero,' and suchlike." (Hell
of a good guesser, that Jor-El. Yessireebob; hell
of a good guesser. They probably had to bar him from every race
track and bingo parlor on Krypton, just to keep the planetary economy
from going all kerflooey.)
In any event: the senior El had taken the time (presumably, while Krypton
was shaking itself to bits all around him. Even though he could
have used that time to build a slightly larger rocket ship, and
escape from his doomed homeworld along with his son. I'm
just sayin', is all.) to launch the snooty mechanical man towards Earth,
so that he might -- one day -- arrive, all unannounced, and "test you,
to see that you are worthy of using the great powers you have been
granted." It says here.
Well: the initial "tests" -- "use your super-strength"; "demonstrate the power of flight"; "who was 'the fifth Beatle' ?"; etc., etc. -- are all aced by the oddly trusting Superboy, in good quick order. ("... from Krypton, you say? Okey-dokey; guess I'll just take your word for it, then. Huh-huh- huh.")
It's the penultimate test assigned by Jor-El's Tin-Plated Tyrant, however, that's the real doozy. To wit: "Now go back into town as you are [i.e., as "Clark Kent"], and do every super-feat you find necessary... WITHOUT CHANGING INTO SUPERBOY!"
Naturally, the unhappy Superboy finds himself doing precisely this,
three or four panels later... directly in front of an awe-struck Lana
Lang! Oh, lawsy -- !!
Now, remember: the "super-teacher's" instructions were merely for Superboy to find some way to Do His Super-"Thing" while (concurrently) safeguarding the secret of his dual identity. At no point whatsoever did said mechanoid add, in afterthought or aside: "... and -- oh, yeah -- while you're at it: make certain that the entire town ends up mocking your 'girl friend' as a brain dead virago, while you're at it, kemo sabe."
Nope. Adding that li'l fillip to his assigned task was
all Superboy's idea.
As the accompanying page reproduction makes abundantly clear: The
Boy of Steel does, in fact, cobble up a serviceable stratagem for
explaining his public demonstrations of super-strength while tarted up
in his "Clark Kent" guise -- "serviceable," I mean, in the sense that
it would work on the average Smallville-ian, in any event; probably wouldn't
be nearly as effective on anyone who hadn't been lobotomized,
at birth -- but: he takes that extra moment or two to make good and certain
that Lana ends up the town laughingstock, in the bargain.
(Whatta guy -- !)
"Folks," the merry Kryptonian prankster soothes, "I didn't mean to carry on any real hoax... but Lana Lang was so sure I'm Superboy, that Superboy fixed up a little joke on her!"
The good, simple townsfolk of Smallville react to this incredible statement
pretty much exactly the way anyone would, I suppose. ("Ha-ha-ha!
She's dumber than a bag of hammers, ain't she -- ?" "She
should be stripped; shaven; and banished from our simple, homespun
midst!" "Yeah! Stripped and shaven, anyway! Woo-woo!"
"You just get lonelier and loonier by the day, don'cha, Clem...?")
The humiliated Lana, in turn, is forced to leave town, under an assumed
name, and begin life anew several states away, as a teenage hooker for
drunken Kiwanis and entire college football teams.
"Ah," I hear one or two of you exclaim. "But certainly the young Kal-El grew out of this sick compulsion to treat the women in his life like so many filthy barnyard swine, eventually! After all: he never pulled evil, sadistic crap like that on his beloved Lois Lane!"
Uh-huh.
Meet me over on Page Two of CONSENTING ADULTS: "Sadism; Sweethearts; and the Silver Age Superman"... and take a quick gander at some of the you-know-what he's piled atop of his future wife's head, over the years.
Believe me: Lana had it easy, by way of comparison.
"Sadism; Sweethearts; and the Silver Age Superman: PART TWO"
"Sadism; Sweethearts; and the Silver Age Superman:
PART THREE"
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