I just remembered a Superman comic book that I read, which seemed apropos to a conversation I was having about alternatives to capital punishment. So now I would like to find that issue again.
Unfortunately, all I really remember is an alien supervillain explaining how he came to be on Earth. He had committed egregious crimes on his home planet, but they had abolished capital punishment. So, rather than executing him, he had been frozen in a block of ice and dumped in deep space. However, by some unfortunate coincidence he had ended up on Earth and was causing trouble there.
The supervillain was not one that I think I had ever heard of before (or since). I vaguely remember him looking like a pale-skinned and bearded human male, wearing an "alien" outfit that (as best I remember it) was white and red/pink—somewhat like the appearance of the Silver Age Cosmic Boy. He might have had a helmet. Unfortunately, I don't remember anything about his abilities or what he actually did on Earth, apart from explaining his origins.
The story probably came from my brother's collection of vintage comic books, which were mostly from the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s. He was a big Superman fan, but it could have been any Superman-related title (including ones featuring Superboy or the Legion of Super-Heroes). It is also conceivable that a different superhero was involved, but I think that is pretty unlikely.
