SUPER TOM -- not.

CALL us cynical, but is Tom Cruise really as heroic as his handlers like to claim?
The wacky superstar and fiancée Katie Holmes were widely reported to have pulled over when they saw an accident on L.A.'s 101 freeway last Saturday, and waited with motorist Jon Henningsen and his wife until police arrived at the scene.

But that was hardly the first time that Cruise has supposedly come to the rescue of some lucky civilian. According to various press reports over the years:

* In 2003, while filming "The Last Samurai" in New Zealand, Cruise supposedly helped a local family change a flat tire on a country road and assisted a young girl in catching her runaway horse. He also donated $3,800 to a local school that needed a "sun shelter."

* In 1998, Cruise rushed to the defense of a woman being mugged on a London street and stopped thieves from making off with more than $150,000 in jewelry.

* In 1996, he summoned an ambulance to help an aspiring actress who was the victim of a hit-and-run, then paid her $7,000 emergency room bill.

* While he and then-wife Nicole Kidman were vacationing on a 210-foot yacht in Capri in 1993, they were reported to have come to the aid of a family whose yacht had caught on fire. Cruise and Kidman allegedly rescued the family from their life raft and took them aboard their luxury yacht until help arrived.

* That same year, Cruise was said to have pulled two young boys to safety after they were almost crushed in a mob of out-of-control fans at the London premiere of "Mission: Impossible."

Cruise's representative, Paul Bloch - who took the reins from his publi-sister, LeeAnn Devett, several months ago - told Page Six: "I don't know about the rest of them, but the one on Saturday night actually happened. The others happened before I represented him."

Pat Kingsley, who represented the superstar for much of his career, up until two years ago, said, "I have made it a policy not to talk about [Cruise]."

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