A large glass cabinet stands in the Fortress of Solitude, compartmentalised into 200 'nooks' and one large central area. In each nook are a number of medals, certificates and so forth. Every day one of the Fortress' attendee robots dusts the display cabinet and rearranges the 'memorabilia'.

Most of the time Superman never approaches the display cabinet, often handing any new additions over to the attendee robot. The cabinet has grown significantly in size over the years, as has Superman's distance from it. It holds too many memories. Too many times where he considers himself to have let someone down, even though the countries, and the world as a whole, celebrate otherwise.

The attendee robots record everything. There have only been a handful of occasions when they have provided an account for some of the medals but, still, they record everything. Including the painful failures.

Medal of Freedom from the President of the United States, for leading the Justice League against the invading forces of Kanjar Ro (2,945,401 lives lost)
Honorary Knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for diverting the flood waters caused by an Appolaxian crashing into the North Sea (710 lives lost at sea)
Nishan-i-Imtiaz for brokering a peace deal with India
Bharat Ratna for brokering a peace deal with Pakistan

And so on...


(just another ramble)