Professor (Superman (Fleischer))

The Professor was an astronomer who created the Magnetic Telescope as a means of drawing celestial bodies closer to Earth for study after nearly 30 years of research. When a comet pulled towards the planet suddenly got out of control and crashed into the bay of Metropolis, resulting in lots of panic but no loss of life, the Professor didn't see any reason why he shouldn't repeat his experiment. The Mayor saw things differantly, sending some police officers (with Lois Lane in tow) to forcibly evict the astronomer from his observatory.

The Professor locked the police out of the control room, then turned the Magnetic Telescope on, drawing another comet, identified as Falcon, towards Earth. In desperation, the officers broke into the control room and smashed the generator, but this only made things worse, as without the generator the Telescope was no longer under the Professor's control, as he had no way of shutting it off. He and the police were forced to flee the observatory as Falcon threatened to smash into it.

Ultimately, both the observatory and the city were saved by Superman. It is unknown if the Professor saw any jail time or not for his refusal to cooperate with the police.