posted May 13, 2002 01:52 PM    

It's also been my observation that the person who starts the topic can never control what will happen as other posters contribute to its growth. This is actually my hope for this thread, since there's a lot that I don't know, and I would be just as content to read other people's posts on this important phase of Superman's history.

But to impose some shape upon this topic, at least to begin with, I would say there are three periods we have to consider here. It breaks down like this...

pre-1938--the Creation of Superman by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

1938-1948--the Development of Superman by Siegel and Shuster.

1948-1958--the Transition (or "Flux"), after the departure of Siegel and Shuster, as new ideas grew and changed, leading eventually to what we call the Weisinger Era (that era that is the prime concern of "Superman in the Sixties").

Getting things started, I've copied this synopsis of the Superman creation from the "Superman throught the Ages" web-site:

quote:

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The Original Superman
1933-1938

Superman is the brainchild of writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster. "Joe and I were high school classmates in Cleveland," Siegel recalls. "Like me, he was a science fiction fan; we published a fanzine called Science Fiction, with Joe as art director and myself as editor." In the January 1933 issue, Siegel's The Reign of the Superman, illustrated by Shuster, saw print. In this tale, the "Superman" becomes a villain after being granted super-powers by a mad scientist who is very much like the later arch-villain, Lex Luthor.

Later in 1933, when Siegel saw Detective Dan, one of the first comic books, "it occurred to me that a Superman who was a hero might make a great comic character," and wrote a comic book story that Shuster drew: The Superman.
After it was rejected by Dan's publisher, a dejected Shuster destroyed all of the original art - only the cover survived.

Pulp publisher Street & Smith's advertisement for Doc Savage's launch in 1933 bears similarities to Siegel and Shuster's alternate cover rough for The Superman.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"We had a great character," Siegel remembers, "and were determined it would be published." They set out to recreate Superman as a comic strip. One summer night in 1934, Siegel came up with almost all of the Superman legend as we know it, wrote weeks of comic strips by morning, and had Shuster drawing it all the next day - including the creation of Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Superman's distinctive red, yellow, and blue costume.

"I suggested to Joe he put an 'S' in a triangle," Siegel says. Shuster added the cape to help give the effect of motion to Superman. Together they chose primary colors for his costume because they were, Shuster recounts, "the brightest colors we could think of."

Over the next three years, their Superman strip was turned down by every comic syndicate editor in the country. Esquire Features suggested, "pay a little attention to actual drawing. Yours seems crude and hurried."

But Sheldon Mayer, an editor at the McClure syndicate "went nuts! It was the thing we were all looking for!" He couldn't convince his boss, M.C. Gaines, to publish it - but when DC Comics publisher Harry Donenfeld called Gaines looking for material for his new title, Action Comics, Gaines sent him Superman.

Donenfeld showed it to his editor, Vince Sullivan, who bought it, saying, "it looks good... it's different... and there's a lot of action! This is what kids want!"

In order to meet the first issue's deadline, Shuster cut, pasted, and redrew Superman's daily strips into 13 comic book sized pages. The cover was based on an interior panel; according to Mayer, "Donenfeld felt that nobody would believe it!"

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------------------
Ink's links:

for Book of Oa--
http://web.archive.org/web/20050221050805/http://www.glcorps.org/

for DC golden age sites--
http://web.archive.org/web/20050221050805/http://www.best.com/~blaklion/dc_links.html

for DC indexes (Earths 1&2)--
http://web.archive.org/web/20050221050805/http://www.dcindexes.com/indexes

for Superman in the Sixties--
http://web.archive.org/web/20050221050805/http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/files/Forum30/HTML/007889.html

for Superman in the 70s--
http://web.archive.org/web/20050221050805/http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/files/Forum30/HTML/004040.html

for 80s Superman--
http://web.archive.org/web/20050221050805/http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/files/Forum30/HTML/006883.html

posted May 13, 2002 04:46 PM    

quote:

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Posted by India Ink:
pre-1938--the Creation of Superman by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

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I hope we will also see some discussion of the many great creators and writers who helped inspire the creation of Superman. Superman wasn't created in a vacuum, and the possible inspiration taken from the Doc Savage ad (I have a copy of that somewhere...) has already been mentioned in your quote.

A favourite novel of mine is Gladiator, and I believe that without this book, first published in 1930, there would be no Superman (as we know him) today. Its importance to Siegel & Shuster can't be overlooked.

posted May 13, 2002 06:53 PM    

Since I'm pressed for time at this moment I can't much elaborate, but it strikes me that Carter along with some other creations of Edgar Rice Burroughs must have had some influence on Jerry and Joe (and of course the whole comics medium).

posted May 13, 2002 09:59 PM    

Lee Falk actually created Mandrake the Magician before The Phantom. Mandrake would be quite infuential in comics--since these books started out reprinting comic strips and only turned to new material when there wasn't enough supply of strips to reprint. Mandrake being a favourit strip, every comic book needed to have a magician in its stable. This led to the creation of characters like Dr. Occult and Zatara the Magician.

A google search provides the needed info on both Mandrake and The Phantom...

quote:

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The Mandrake daily strip premiered on June 11, 1934, a matter of months after Falk celebrated his 23rd birthday. The central character was inspired by the great stage magicians of the era, such as Thurston, and by popular fictional detectives like Arsene Lupin and Sherlock Holmes. As a child, Falk avidly read the stories of Marco Polo, Richard Halliburton and other adventurers, as well as fairy tales, epics and legends from Europe and other parts of the world.

The name "Mandrake" was inspired by a poem written by the famous 17th-century poet, John Donne: "Goe, and catche a falling starre ... Get with child a mandrake root." Falk learned that mandrake was a herb (Mandragora officianarum), commonly used in ancient (and modern) naturapathy. He thought it was an interesting yet simple word which admitted of just one pronuncitation, the perfect name for his comic strip magician. The new strip proved very popular and in February 1935, a Sunday page was added. With this increased work-load, Davis hired an assistant named Ray Moore to help with some of the inking.

Despite the successes of the Mandrake strip, Falk did not "put all his eggs in the one basket." He spent three or four years writing copy for a St.Louis advertising agency of which he later became vice president. It was in this job that Falk received inspiration for the name of a new character in the Mandrake strip. While mulling over a pile of trade papers on his desk, he came across one from the National Association of Retail Druggists (NARD), and simply added an 'a' to the end which made Narda. Falk also directed radio shows and proudly recalls that experience: "Radio was a brand new business at the time, and I had the enormous studios of KMOX to work with. I did two or three shows a day over there, some using big orchestras, and it was like working with a stock company."

The Phantom
Soon after Mandrake began to appear in the newspapers, Falk thought of an idea for another strip ... The Phantom. He planned out the basic structure for the first few months of the story, and drew up the first two weeks himself. King Features Syndicate liked the concept and were quick to buy it. The Phantom daily strip commenced in American newspapers on February 17, 1936, a little before Falk's 25th birthday. While the costumed hero was by no means original in 1936, it was certainly new for one to be featured in the comic pages of newspapers. Masked adventurers such as The Phantom Detective had appeared in pulp magazines since 1933 and the idea of a masked avenger predates even Zorro.
The artistic duties for Falk's second strip were shared with Ray Moore, who was moved over from Mandrake. Falk continued to work on the layouts whenever possible, but his heavy workload with scripting daily and Sunday Mandrake strips, plus the new Phantom daily strip, combined with his commitments to radio shows proved too much. The artwork on The Phantom was soon left entirely to Ray Moore. A man named Eddie Walcher did the lettering on both Mandrake and The Phantom strips for many years.

The Phantom underwent some major changes during his first adventure. Falk explains "For the first few months, The Phantom was intended to be Jimmy Wells, a wealthy playboy who fought crime by night in a mask and costume. This was, of course, several years before Batman and Superman appeared on the comics scene. I never came out and actually revealed that the playboy was really The Phantom and in the midst of the first story I suddenly got the other idea. I moved The Phantom into the jungle and decided to keep him there. Gradually the whole concept of The Phantom developed; the generations behind him, the Skull Cave, his wolf Devil and horse Hero and the Bandar pygmies." Falk was a great fan of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, and paid it homage by calling the Phantom's pygmy friends "the Bandar", which comes from the monkey tribe who were friends with Mowgli.

It took some time before Falk warmed up to the title he had selected for his new strip. "I tried to think up a more original title. There was already The Phantom of the Opera, the phantom of this and the phantom of that. For a while I considered calling him The Gray Ghost but I let it ride because I really couldn't come up with a title I liked better than The Phantom."

"The Phantom comes out of my great interest as a kid in hero stories, the great myths and legends - Greek, Roman, Scandinavian, the Songs of Roland, El Cid in Spain, King Arthur and others. There's a heroic thing about him, he's sort of a legendary character. He started out fairly simple and gradually I've added more and more legendary things about him till he has a whole folklore around him. The Jungle Book of Kipling's and Tarzan of the Apes influenced me, as you can imagine. Apparently this legendary quality seems to be the most popular feature of The Phantom with readers."

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So The Phantom (and Mandrake for that matter) comes after Jerry and Joe first created their hero, yet before their creation saw publication. No doubt the success of both Mandrake and The Phantom encouraged the Cleveland duo in their endeavours to sell Superman to the newspaper syndicates.

posted May 13, 2002 10:26 PM    

But since I have a bit more time, I'll advance my hypothesis a bit further concerning John Carter and Superman.

The other side of the cover page on my old Ballantine Books (1975) edition of Edgar Rice Burroughs' "A Princess of Mars" tells me that

quote:

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A Princess of Mars was originally published under the title Under the Moon of Mars by Norman Bean (pseudonym) in All-Story Magazine as a six-part serial, February through July, 1912.

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The "Princess of Mars" in question is actually Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, lady love of Earthman John Carter. The first thing to note here is that she's Princess of Helium. Helium, of course, for all those who know their periodic tables, is one of the inert gases. Another inert gas is krypton. In Burroughs day, I'm sure "helium" was not all that commonly known, so the word still had some mystery and appealed to the wordsmith. In Jerry and Joe's day, "krypton" probably was obscure enough to be used as the name of their planet. Heck, even today it's kind of obscure--I have no idea what the properties of krypton are.

Siegel and Shuster's Krypton seems to have actually been in our solar system, according to the early stories. The boys probably thought of it as being somewhere between Mars and Jupiter, in the area of the asteroid belt. The theory that the belt was composed of debris from an exploded planet has had some popular credence, and may have inspired Jerry and Joe.

Whereas Carter is a man from Earth transported to Mars, Superman is a man from a tenth planet transported to Earth. Gravity being lighter on Mars, John Carter can leap great distances at a single bound, and has incredible strength. But whereas Superman was transported as a babe by rocket ship to his new home, Carter leaves his body on Earth and mysticly transports himself to Mars--or Barsoom as the locals call it. In this regard, John Carter of Mars is much more like Adam Strange of Rann.

Superman's origins as a fish out of water are actually similar to another Burroughs creation--Tarzan of the Apes. Born from parents of a noble line, Tarzan grows up in a place far distant from the English civilization of his parents. The contrast of the primitive and the advanced in Burroughs is given a slightly different twist in Siegel and Shuster. And whereas Tarzan is actually born in Africa, Superman is born first on Krypton before being transported to Earth.

posted May 14, 2002 01:42 AM    

Krypton is an inert gas. I think it's one of the "noble" gasses -- it won't mix with or react with anything else under normal circumstances. (Headache from trying to remember high school chemistry lessons.) The word itself has a fundamental relationship with cryptic, meaning hidden, unknown, or mysterious. I don't know when Krypton the element was discovered, but I'd lay odds the boys knew what it was. They were well-educated, intelligent, and well-read. I don't think they would've just seen the name somewhere and said, "Oh, that will do."

I have hundreds of Lee Falk-written Phantom comic books in my collection. I loved them as a boy. Ray Moore was the early artist, whose work I like, then came Wilson McCoy whose work I adore, and later the great Sy Barry. I loved the true (ie. Lee Falk) Phantom as a kid.

If you take Superman from the early Action/Superman issues, remove the Clark Kent identity (sort of), and remove the outer space origin, you have Hugo Danner, the character from Gladiator. The powers of Superman are taken directly and completely from the novel. I haven't read the novel for many years. I will re-read it when I can, so as to contribute more to this thread.

Remember those early panels from Superman, drawn by Shuster, explaining Superman's strength by comparing him to ants and grasshoppers? That's taken directly from the novel, almost word-for-word. Danner's parents advised him to keep his abilities hidden from ordinary people, a direct forerunner of Superman and his parents -- I remember his father giving him a Pa Kent-like speech, about keeping the powers secret till one day he can use them for "good". Danner resembled Superman closely -- muscular-athletic build, black hair, handsome...

Rather than being from outer space, the hero of Gladiator was the product of a scientific experiment inflicted on his pregnant mother, while he was still in the womb (I'll have to check that when I can re-read the book -- but I'm fairly sure that's the way it went).

I read the novel a few years ago in Australia (it was an old library book, and @#$% hard to find), and I remember it was riveting. I read it in one day.

posted May 14, 2002 01:07 PM    

It does seem that Jerry and Joe used a lot directly from Gladiator, but I take exception when some folks allege that therefore Superman is not an original creation--downplaying Siegel & Shuster's leaps of brilliance, and possibly setting up an argument for DC ripping them off.

Sure, if you just take the powers alone and the description of them there isn't much difference between Clark Kent and Hugo Danner. But John Carter displayed many such abilities before either character existed.

Then there are characters like the Scarlet Pimpernel which must have influenced this kind of pulp action hero. Add in bits of The Phantom, Tarzan, Flash Gordon, and Buck Rogers, even Popeye, and Superman becomes simply an amalgam of characters that already existed. Reducing Siegel and Shuster to cut and paste masters. Which simply isn't true.

The business of creation is really a business of synthesizing what already exists into something else. There are no writers that can claim to have come up with their ideas in a void. All ideas foster other ideas.

But it is true that Jerry and Joe put out their own sci-fi fanzine, and thus they probably knew about all these characters.

posted May 14, 2002 03:32 PM    

I totally agree with you regarding Superman's originality. I totally agree with you regarding the brilliance of Siegel & Shuster.

quote:

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All ideas foster other ideas.

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posted May 15, 2002 03:06 PM    

quote:

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SIEGAL AND SHUSTER'S SUPERMAN :
PART I: THE ORIGIN

In 1934, one evening, a young lad named Jerry Siegel in Cleveland was having trouble sleeping in the hot summer heat. Then he started to conceive a hero...who would become one of the most famous heroes of all time. The next day he went to see his good friend, Joe Shuster, who also went to Glenville High School, and his talented artist friend drew the first picture of...Superman.

Superman had many roots. Perhaps his most direct predecessor was Hugo Danner, the protagonist of GLADIATOR. Like their later creation, Hugo DAnner (an experiment of his biologist father) was bulletproof, able to leap immense distances, bend steel, run faster than a train. But unlike Hugo Danner, Superman found an outlet for his powers, whereas Hugo's lack of any release for his powers, caused him to die in despair. Other influences on the Superman-to-be were Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, especially Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon, where we can see prototypes of the famous suit. Yet another influence wasDoc Savage, "The Man of Bronze", who went around righting wrongs and had abilities at the limit of human potential...and whose real name was CLARK Savage Jr. Interestingly, another pulp hero (one with a double identity, The Shadow, had an alter ego whose real name was KENT Allard, although he often posed as LamonT Cranston.)

However, Siegel himself said the name of their most famous character was derived from two movie stars...CLARK Gable (who was also the source for Doc Savage's first name) and KENT Taylor. Superman was physically modelled on Douglas Fairbanks Sr., by the Canadian-born Shuster. Lois Lane's first name was modelled after Lois Amster, a girl whom many boys at Glenville had a crush on...and it seems Joe Shuster was among them. Interestingly, a woman who had served as a model for Shuster for Lois Lane, Joanne Carter, would later marry Jerry Siegel.

For four long years they tried to sell the idea (which had been conceived as a newspaper strip, a la FLASH GORDON or BUCK ROGERS) and got nowhere. In the interim, they did some work on the new comic books, including the rough-and-tumble detective Slam Bradley, who would run for years in DETECTIVE COMICS (which would later be home to BATMAN) and DR. OCCULT, a "ghost detective" with occasional mystical powers, a precursor for the later Dr. Fate, Dr. Strange, and other mystical comic heroes. But beaten down by years of rejection, they sold the first 13 pages of Superman, along with a customary release form relinquishing all rights to the character, in return for a mere $130, which they split between them.

At first, Superman was rarely cover-featured...he was cover-featured in his first appearance in ACTION#1, but after that he was kept off the cover, until the publishers realized kids were asking for "that comic with Superman in it". In 1939, a comic devoted JUST to Superman was released...Superman #1. Superman soon had a host of imitators, in the original Human Torch, Sub-Mariner, Captain Marvel, and in his own company, competition from Batman, Flash, Green Lantern.

Their publisher, Harry Donefield, allowed them to do a strip for the McClure Syndicate, if they would agree to work exclusively for Donefield for the next ten years at $35 a page. Siegel and Shuster are estimated to have earned approximately $400,000 from Superman between 1938 and 1947 (worth roughly three or four times that in today's dollars) nevertheless it was a paltry sum compared to what the comic book company was making. In 1940-41 Superman made in the neighborhood of $1.5 million, while Siegel and Shuster split maybe $150,000 between themselves and a staff of five artists working out of a one-room office in Cleveland. (Shuster's eyesight was deteriorating, although he continued to do all the FACES of Superman himself, no matter who else drew the actual stories.)

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posted May 15, 2002 03:49 PM    

quote:

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Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster

Jerome Siegel and Joe Shuster are two of the most important figures in the development and creation of costumed comic heroes. As co-creators of one of the most famous of these mythical beings, the immortal Superman, they propelled the superhero into the public consciousness, injecting popular American culture with one of the most enduring icons of the twentieth century.

Joseph Shuster was born in 1914 in Toronto, Canada. Jerome Siegel was born in Cleveland, Ohio on October 17, 1914. An avid reader with a great interest in science fiction & fantasy, he published his own fanzine in 1929 called Cosmic Stories, a "hectographic" booklet with stories written by himself. It is recognized as the first sci-fi fanzine, and it was just a prelude to future accomplishments. He published several other booklets over the next few years.

In 1931 he met and befriended Joe Shuster, whose family had moved to Cleveland from Canada. They became fast friends, in part due to Joe's interest in science fiction novels and also because Joe was a competent artist and Jerry loved his work.
In 1932, the pair put out another fanzine called Science Fiction. Filled with fantastic stories, later day fan celebrity Forrest Ackerman wrote for it. In the third issue a story entitled "Reign of the Superman" appeared, with a villainous super-being. Later the character was converted to a hero and the seminal creation of the most popular comic character in history.

Inspired in part by Philip Wylie's novel "Gladiator", and in part by the Samson & Hercules legends, the redesigned "Superman" was put together in comic strip form as early as 1932, and then as a comic book in 1933. Unfortunately, when the comic book was rejected, Shuster destroyed the artwork. Fortunately, Siegel had rescued the cover art.

In 1935, the pair tried again to sell Superman to several comic book publishers, including DC. Once more their idea was rejected, but they did secure work at DC comics doing another feature they created, Dr. Occult, who made his first appearance in New Fun #6 cover dated October 1935.

They continued to do Dr. Occult and some other DC characters through the next couple of years, all the while working on the Superman feature that they wanted to sell so bad. Finally the big break came. In 1938, as they tried to peddle the character to DC again they wound up in the office of Max Gaines, the publisher of the All American label. Max wasn't interested in Superman, but Sheldon Mayer was starting a new title at sister company DC and needed a cover feature, so he sent the pair over to the office with their hero tucked under their arms and Sheldon decided to take a shot with the Superman, giving him the cover of the first issue of Action Comics dated June 1938.

Superman was a smash hit with issues of Action selling out at the newsstands every month. Other companies, trying to cash in on the craze created by Superman tried to emulate the character to varying degrees. Some were successful, some were not. Some companies were even sued by DC for copying the Superman, even while DC itself copied the character without remuneration to Siegel & Shuster. But by 1941, the Saturday Evening Post reported the pair as making upwards of $75,000 each per year. They had certainly hit the bigtime.

But by 1946 it was not enough. DC was making millions of dollars on the character the two created, but they were still only making near one hundred thousand each. They sued DC over right to the character, to whom they had signed off all rights in 1938. Represented by attorney Albert Zugsmith (who later went to Hollywood to produce 50's B-movies), they would remain involved in a protracted legal battle with DC that would also keep them from being employed by the company, and that would also drain their finances until finally in 1948, they decided to take a settlement from DC of around two hundred thousand dollars, and only for royalties to the Superboy character that DC had created on it's own, without the duo. In addition, the creative team that was largely responsible for the proliferation of comic book culture had to sign away any further claim to Superman, or any character created there from.
It would also signal the virtual end of their mutual careers. Shuster would leave comics while Siegel continued to write scripts for different publishers and become the comic art director for the Ziff-Davis company in the 1950's.

From then on however the pair's byline was removed from DC's Superman logo. The team would receive screen credit for creating Superman only in film versions of the character and on the TV show. But they had essentially become two forgotten creators, outside of the small circle of people who collected comic books.
Siegel moved to Los Angeles and became a recluse. With the advent of comic collecting becoming a national hobby, and the proliferation of comic conventions starting in 1968, Siegel & Shuster again regained the public eye and in 1975, the two once again sued DC for royalties to Superman. Though they courts deemed that DC was not bound to any remuneration toward the pair, DC did decide (with prodding from publisher/editor Carmine Infantino) to give them $35,000 each a year for the rest of their lives. Though in some ways generous, it seems a paltry sum compared to the tens of millions (maybe hundreds of millions) made by DC since 1938.

Jerry Siegel passed away this past January 28 in Los Angeles. Joe Shuster died of heart failure on July 30, 1992.

Joe Shuster

Jerry Siegel

Site design by Sharkfire

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This bio has S&S creating Superman in 1932. In Ron Goulart's Great Comics History (I think that's the title), they Cleveland boys created a "superman" villain for a story in their fan publication--but in this bio, our version of Superman seems to have already been created in 1932. In other bios, Superman seems to have been created as late as 1934.

posted May 15, 2002 06:11 PM    

quote:

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Originally posted by India Ink:
As you will see on that JOE SHUSTER link, the "Reign of the Superman" appeared in the January, 1933 issue of Siegel & Shuster's Science Fiction fanzine--featuring a Luthor like villain with extraordinary power.

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I've actually read the original 1933 "Reign of the Superman" - and it's almost a direct re-telling of Wylie's Gladiator. So although Siegel and Shuster deny any connection between Superman and Gladiator, I'm convinced there is one.

posted May 16, 2002 12:23 AM    

quote:

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Originally posted by BuddyBlank:
I've actually read the original 1933 "Reign of the Superman" - and it's almost a direct re-telling of Wylie's Gladiator. So although Siegel and Shuster deny any connection between Superman and Gladiator, I'm convinced there is one

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There is more than a mere "connection", of course.

Buddy, did you read my post back there, of 14 may, 1:42am?

Your mention of it is the first time I've heard of Siegel & Shuster disputing a connection between Gladiator and Superman. That's extraordinary. Who were they trying to kid? It does a great disservice to Philip Wylie. As I said in my post, Hugo Danner is Superman without the costume and the outer-space origin. A great many things were lifted directly from Wylie's novel by Siegel & Shuster. No point in anyone arguing about it. Anybody can just read the novel and see for themselves.

So, although I love Superman, and applaud his creators, it's also very important to acknowledge the huge debt Siegel & Shuster owe Philip Wylie.

posted May 16, 2002 12:33 AM    

What I would also hope we can do is have some discussion of the actual character of Superman from the late 30s. From what I've seen of the actual comics, and also from articles I've read over the years (and hopefully someone has the Archives), I understand Superman, then, was very different in character to what he is now. The current version is a hand-wringing, self-pitying sissy-boy. But the early Superman was more a rough and tumble character, physically tough on thugs, and quite brutal if the occasion demanded it. He wasn't above using threats of violence, or simply giving some thug a smack around the ear just-because.

posted May 17, 2002 04:41 PM    

But before getting around to talking about the actual early comics and strips (or for that matter the radio show and cartoons), I still want to lay the groundwork, to discuss everything that preceded that, all the contributing factors. But I trust in time we'll get round to the actual comics themselves (and this'll buy me time to get on with some reading).

I'm at disadvantage, too, since I haven't read Gladiator or Reign of the Supermen (or even Doc Savage), so I can't make a comparison. But I'll take all of your words for it that Reign and Gladiator are almost the same, and that Action no. 1 is derivative while not being entirely a copy (how could it be a copy when you have the secret identity element which accounts for about one third of Superman's charm?), but this all makes perfect sense...

Check out the fanfiction on these boards or in other fan sites and zines--you'll see a lot of guys ripping off their favourite writer without so much as a by your leave. Heck, check the wonderful Big Bang Comics--the writers (and artists) therein steal from the greats. So the teenage Jerry and Joe's zine, Science Fiction[i], was like all fan publications. But that's how aspiring writers and artists get started, they copy and copy to get down the basics, and then (hopefully) create something original.

It makes sense, therefore, that [i]Reign is unoriginal, while the early Superman is a combination of derivation and originality. Look at where Superman went from there, and I expect you'll find that rather than continuing to copy from the source(s) it actually started to create new pathways.

The same can be said of Captain Marvel. I'm fully convinced that the publishers wanted to rip off Superman. But creative people can never quite copy a thing exactly much as they might try (Alex Raymond was thoroughly unsuccessful in copying Buck Rogers, despite the urging from his bosses that he should do just that), and so Capt. Marvel begins to go down a completely different path from Superman.

posted May 17, 2002 05:58 PM    

Doc and his five extraordinary assistants are confronted with the sudden death of Clark Savage, Sr., Doc's father. The elder Savage died under mysterious circumstances in the jungles of Central America from "The Red Death", but not before dispatching an epistle eluding to the unusual legacy that awaits Doc there, in the Republic of Hidalgo. Attempts on Doc's own life by red-fingered Mayans only serve to strengthen his resolve in discovering what in truth happened to Clark Savage, Sr., as Doc claims his father's legacy.

posted May 17, 2002 06:16 PM    

I would have to wait for the Steranko History of Comics (vol. 1) to get the behind the scenes story.

Google searching has not turned up any good sites for that Steranko book--none that have any quotes that I might copy onto this thread. So I'll have to do things the old fashioned way and transcribe passages from Steranko.

As a teenage boy reading Steranko's chapter on the Cleveland boys and their creation, "The Super Star," I felt an immediate sense of identification--

quote:

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On a sweltering summer night in 1933, Jerry Siegel lay in bed counting the cracks in the ceiling of his Cleveland, Ohio bedroom. The air was still and heavy. Clouds drifted past the moon. Up there was wind. If only I could fly. If only...and SUPERMAN was conceived, not in his entirety, but little by little throughout a long and sleepless night.

Siegel tells it this way, "I hop right out of bed and write this down, and then I go back and think some more for about two hours and get up again and write that down. This goes on all night at two-hour intervals, until in the morning I have a complete script."

Without stopping for breakfast he raced through the deserted dawn to awaken his friend Joe Shuster, 12 blocks away. Breathlessly, he explained the nature of his creation. Shuster was ecstatic. Without wasting a moment, they began developing the character in comic strip form. Both were 17 years old.

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posted May 17, 2002 06:39 PM    

quote:

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Initially, Superman was a variation of pulp heavyweight Doc Savage. The concept, and even the name Superman, could easily have been inspired by a Street & Smith advertisement that ran in the early 30's pulps. Comparison between Shuster's original Superman drawing and Doc's promotional ads bears marked similarities.

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(see the preliminary sketches shown on http://web.archive.org/web/20050219004016/http://members.ttlc.net/~bobhughes/JOE_SHUSTER.htm http://web.archive.org/web/20050219004016/http://members.ttlc.net/~bobhughes/JOE_SHUSTER.htm )

quote:

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Siegel's Superman concept embodied and amalgamated three separate and distinct themes: the visitor from another planet, the superhuman being and the dual identity. He composed the Superman charisma by exploiting all three elements, and all three contributed equally to the eventual success of the strip.

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(I'm almost tempted to put the above in bold since it serves my basic argument...)

quote:

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[Siegel's] inspiration, of course, came from the science fiction pulps.

The idea of a visitor from a world other than our own probably took its fictional bows in Voltaire's 1752 tale Micromegas. Since then, countless authors have employed the idea including H. G. Wells in War of the Worlds. More probably the thought came from John W. Campbell's AARN MUNRO stories about a descendant of earthmen raised on the planet Jupiter who, because of the planet's dense gravity, is a mental and physical superman on earth. Siegel used this man from another planet speculation to explain the reason for his protagonist's extraordinary physical development. The idea of Jor-El saving his only child by propelling him off the planet in a tiny rocket had its biblical counterpart in the parable of Moses and his concealment from the Pharaoh. The doomed planet Krypton exploding at the point of escape was a perfect dramatic touch that lent an epic quality as the first episode unfolded.

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posted May 17, 2002 06:49 PM    

Steranko then continues...

quote:

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Wylie's story was one of Siegel's favorites; he even reviewed it in his S-F fanzine . . .

The business of being a reporter and having an alter ego had been done dozens of times before. The only difference was that Superman was playing the role of Kent. Siegel's mythical blending of the three themes was inspirational.

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(should I put that in bold? I shall...)

"Siegel's mythical blending of the three themes was inspirational."

posted May 17, 2002 07:27 PM    

quote:

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Superman was a bold, bright figure displaying the three primary colors, red, yellow and blue, with poetic legitimacy. Not only would every costumed hero to follow be patterned after the Man of Steel's powers, but his costume would, of necessity, be some blend or synthesis of Superman's own.

Every other hero to follow acquired his or her title in some devious way. Not Superman. He was nobility among other super heroes. He was born a monarch. He never even found it necessary to wear a mask like the rest, another factor for his success.

Superman's creators came from similar backgrounds. Siegel's parents ran a men's furnishing store, barely making a living for their six children. The Shusters had it even tougher. Joe's father was a tailor and had four besides himself to feed. Joe worked at odd jobs. He learned to draw after winning a scholarship at the Cleveland School of Art and later at the John Huntington Art School where he paid for lessons a dime at a time.

Siegel and Shuster met in school and began collaborating in Science Fiction, a small mimeo fanzine. Siegel submitted stories to leading S-F pulps under the pseudonym of Bernard J. Kenton. Both boys were heavily influenced by the pulps. They "inspired me to devote myself to writing science fiction literature," Siegel confessed...

The secret of Superman's existence, of course, lies deep within the psyche of his creators. Described as "two small, shy, nervous, myopic lads," Siegel and Shuster made the Man of Steel everything they weren't: massive, confident, strong, handsome; a being with perfect reflexes and super vision. They were, in their own way, striking back at a world of bullies that had threatened, bruised and beaten them. No small measure of Superman's success can be attributed to their explicit tenacity for acting out their juvenile fantasies of swift justice against their persecutors.

From Plato's Republic to Opar to Kane's Xanadu, at every level, the human imagination has attempted to fashion something better for itself than the existing society, to establish a personal primacy in a world in which reality diminishes the individual. Nietsche said man is only a rope over an abyss, a rope between animal and Superman. The strip's appeal seemed to prove that out...

In a way, Superman was hung-up with a psychological handicap. He transcended it in the only way available. He became Clark Kent. He could have been king, emperor of the whole world or even leave it if he chose. But as Kent he looked and acted human, complete with human imperfections like eyeglasses. Eventually, he became more human than alien.

For a superman who was able to be whatever he wanted, he chose to be Kent, to be accepted as Kent. He became bored with the perfection of Superman, preferring instead the flaws of Kent. He knew that perfection is dull and insipid, that it is the flaws, the accidents, that are interesting, often exciting.

Superman could have been Superman all the time giving us more pages of solid muscle in each story if he chose to do so. Why the 9 to 5 job? Why the silly hat, glasses, suit and tie that stifled not only bravery but brains? Why put up with Perry White's badgering? Why tolerate Lois Lane's snide remarks? Either Superman was a masochist or there was more here than meets the eye.

Remote speculation? Not at all. His creators were ordinary people. Siegel, in fact, had difficulty getting through school. Whether by accident or intent, his creators tempered their vision of the super-being by endowing him with a common, all-too-human personality. The contrast lifted the strip from ordinary (after all, Mandrake could produce super-illusions and Buck Rogers could fly) to the remarkable.

Behind his morality play simplicity and big top displays of brawn was an inner core of truth that was Superman's real strength. Atlas and Hercules performed super-human feats. Why weren't they comic book headliners? Because they lacked a weakness with which we could identify. Clark Kent existed so that we might lock into that part of him in our own fantasies, hoping somehow that a superman lived inside us until the right moment came for him to emerge. Superman, in turn, used Kent to identify with us.

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posted May 18, 2002 07:02 PM    

quote:

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Harold R. Foster

(1892-1981)

Harold R. Foster was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia on August 18, 1892. At 18 he earned money as a prize fighter and later he prospected for gold. He discovered a lode but had it taken away from him by a band of thieves, after which he abandoned the job. He rode a bicycle 1000 miles from Winnipeg, Manitoba to Chicago in 1921 to enroll in the Chicago Art Institute, later doing additional studies at the National Academy of Design & the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts.

He became an illustrator in the middle twenties doing magazine illustration as well as advertising posters. Some of his work at this time appeared on the covers of Popular Mechanics. While in Chicago, Foster also became an assistant to J. Allen St.John, one of the top illustrators of the time. St.John was the artist whose work was most closely associated with Edgar Rice Burrough's "Tarzan", and in 1928 when Joseph Neebe acquired the rights to produce a Tarzan comic strip, he went to St.John's studio to persuade him to draw the strip. St.John refused, but Neebe reportedly spotted Foster, who he had previously worked with and signed him to illustrate only the first episode in the first few months of 1929 at which point he went back to advertising illustration.

It is interesting to note that the first Tarzan daily strip appeared on the same day that Dick Calkin's first Buck Rogers daily strip appeared, January 7, 1929.
However, the Neebe office was not altogether happy with Foster's replacement (Rex Maxon) and in 1931 lured Foster back to draw the newly syndicated Sunday page Tarzan beginning in September 1931.

Foster's "Tarzan" was one of the most beautifully drawn strips and became an immediate smash. Foster's artistic style was copied by many at the time. But in 1936 he began to tire of illustrating the droll scripts he had to work with and his fertile imagination began to swirl with new ideas, so in February 1937 his "Prince Valiant" premiered.He was far enough ahead with his Tarzan pages that his last Tarzan did not appear until May 1, eleven weeks after Prince Valiant began to appear in the same papers.

Prince Valiant, along with Alex Raymond's "Flash Gordon" were the premier adventure strips of their time and these two artists are responsible for inspiring generations of artists including Lou Fine, Frank Frazetta, Al Williamson, Wayne Boring (who assisted Foster from 1966-69) and Mark Shultz among scores of others. His Prince Valiant is revered in the annals of comic art and his originals are highly prized works of art.
His virtuosity with pen and brush techniques made each page an amazing conglomeration of lines. His dry brush style was an inspiration to the young Alex Raymond before the first Flash Gordon page was a spark in Raymond's imagination. Foster's use of dialogue also took on a unique form. His text was not to explain the story as much as to compliment the artistic visuals. It is known that Foster took some sixty hours weekly to produce each Sunday episode (there was never a daily), and he never included a local that he had not personally visited for thematic accuracy.
In 1971 he drew his last Prince Valiant Sunday page, handing over the artistic chores to John Cullen Murphy. He had illustrated 1789 Prince Valiant pages. He made appearances at many comic book conventions and was a fan favorite for years. He died in 1981.

Site design by Sharkfire

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posted May 20, 2002 12:59 AM    

Yes... For me, Superman's originality lies in his bringing together of various elements that (unquestionably) already existed in popular fiction.

quote:

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It's not where you start from, it's where you end up.

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I agree. Superman very quickly evolved and became something far greater than the "sum" of his "elements".

quote:

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Forgive my mistakes on the italics...

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Where's that "edit" function we need? (grumble-grumble)

As I said a while back on the Archives board, I was given All In Color For A Dime when I was a young kid. It's a very important book to me, too. Still a favourite of mine. How many people has that little book influenced?

quote:

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I would have to wait for the Steranko History of Comics (vol. 1) to get the behind the scenes story.

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Question: Is that the book that is more like a magazine, large format but relatively thin? And is that the volume where Steranko includes actual excerpts from the Wylie novel? If so, I have that book. (It's buried somewhere in my closet.) I got it when I was about 17, and it's the reason I decided to vehemently track down Gladiator. (As it turned out, I couldn't find a copy in New Zealand, but I found a very old library copy years later in Australia.)

quote:

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"More probably the thought came from John W. Campbell's AARN MUNRO stories about a descendant of earthmen raised on the planet Jupiter who, because of the planet's dense gravity, is a mental and physical superman on earth."

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Isn't that striking? There's one of the Superman elements right there, for the taking!

quote:

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(should I put that in bold? I shall...)

"Siegel's mythical blending of the three themes was inspirational."

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It sure was!

posted May 20, 2002 01:48 PM    

But I think that we're talking about the same books here.

Anyone who has read the Roy Thomas Young All-Stars will recognize that Aarn Munro & Hugo Danner were reimagined by Thomas as a composite in the person of Iron Munro (who post-Crisis was supposed to take the place of Earth 2 Superman in the retcon golden age).

posted May 20, 2002 04:54 PM    

quote:

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But I think that we're talking about the same books here.

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We are. I just went to the double closet where I keep all my comic books, and did a bit of digging. I found the Steranko book plus a few other little gems I haven't looked through for years.

The Steranko History of Comics 1. 1970. Dedicated to Jack Kirby. A foreword by Federico Fellini. "The first in a projected series of six volumes."

quote:

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There were two volumes...

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I take it the last four volumes were never produced...?

Volume one is a great book. As with All In Color it gives the reader an injection of enthusiasm for the subject (not that we really need it).

It has a reprint of the 1934 Doc Savage: Superman advertisement, showing Doc complete with curling forelock! Yes, the excerpts from Gladiator I remembered are there; they inspired in me a determination to track down the novel. And I wasn't disappointed. Steranko includes the Pa Kent-type speech from the Wylie novel. (I think I mentioned that speech earlier in the thread.)

As Steranko says: "Gladiator... served as a blueprint for Siegel's character."

Steranko talks about Superman's "self-imposed psychological barrier." (That is, dressing up as Kent and pretending he's normal.) I love that line.

India, you've quoted quite a lot of the article, so I won't go on -- suffice it to say, this:

quote:

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Posted by India Ink
pre-1938--the Creation of Superman by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

1938-1948--the Development of Superman by Siegel and Shuster.

1948-1958--the Transition (or "Flux"), after the departure of Siegel and Shuster, as new ideas grew and changed, leading eventually to what we call the Weisinger Era (that era that is the prime concern of "Superman in the Sixties").

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gives us so much scope for enthusiastic discussion, it'll take us years to exhaust the topic (if that can be done at all).

****

I also found another book, the same size as the Steranko one (about 10.5 x 14 inches), called the Official Metropolis Edition of the Amazing World of Superman. 1973. I think you have mentioned this book before, but I'm not sure. It opens with the Superman comic, "Superman in Superman Land." Next we have "How to draw Superman." Then a Superman Family portrait. Then a Krypton-Earth space chart. Then "How a Comic Magazine is Created" featuring Infantino, Schwartz, Bridwell, Milt Snapinn and other creators. Then the Superman comic, "The Origin of Superman." Then a giant colour fold-out map of Krypton. Then excerpts from the newspaper comics. Then a feature on Metropolis, Illinois and their enthusiasm for Superman (including a "Superman Day"). Then a feature on Superman villains. Then a feature about the secrets of Superman's fortress -- this is just a reprinted title sequence from a 70s comic book, which I think I've reviewed in the "Superman in the 70s" thread. Then an article on the Broadway musical. Then Superman's salute to N.A.S.A. Then important dates in Superman's life. Then "Superman's Mission for President Kennedy." Then "The Superboy Legend." Then a feature about the Super-costume. Then finally a Superman photo album with pictures from the TV show (George Reeves) and the movies.

****

posted May 20, 2002 09:57 PM    

These books were important in my life. Each came like some great revelation, exposing secrets that seemed to belong to only a private mystery cult. My mind was fixated with every minute detail they disclosed.

I don't know if a newer generation can appreciate this fact. With a click of a mouse, a few letters tapped on a keyboard, any kid can find out secrets that I worked for years to discover (literally worked since the money I saved as a paperboy went toward buying these volumes--often through the mail, at an early age I learned about postal money orders). And maybe for this newer generation, because it's so easy to access this information there's not as much fun in it so they don't even bother to look for it.

The thing I half regret/half take pride in--is that I felt compelled to literally take these books apart. From the Metropolis Edition I removed the inset colour map of Krypton, and taped it up on my bedroom wall, along with my Beatles, Bee Gees, John Travolta, Olivia Newton John, Superman, Cheryl Tiegs, Lynda Carter, Batman, and Charlie's Angels posters. I can find lots of those other posters, but I haven't been able to find the map of Krypton.

And with Steranko Histories I took out the staples, took off the wrap around covers. I never actually taped these up on the wall, I don't think, but I kept them separate from the inside pages of both volumes.

And some of the books I ordered through the mail I continued to keep in their crush proof mailers, as a way of storing them, and as a result lots of these books are rather brown.

posted May 21, 2002 12:57 AM    

quote:

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Posted by India Ink:
I don't know if a newer generation can appreciate this fact. With a click of a mouse, a few letters tapped on a keyboard, any kid can find out secrets that I worked for years to discover (literally worked since the money I saved as a paperboy went toward buying these volumes--often through the mail, at an early age I learned about postal money orders). And maybe for this newer generation, because it's so easy to access this information there's not as much fun in it so they don't even bother to look for it.

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What you say is true, I would think.

I remember it being such hard work to track down and buy the comic books I wanted. At first I had to beg my father to buy a comic book I wanted; later I spent my pocket money (allowance) on them. But all the early stuff in my collection was hard-won. Does that give it more meaning? A new comic book, for me, was an occasion of great excitement. I was a solitary kid, and I grew up not really knowing anyone else who loved comic books, or Superman or Green Lantern or Spider-Man. So it was a pretty obscure interest at the time (in my country).

The books like All In Color and Steranko's History were very important to me, in that, they proved other people cared about this stuff too! And, like you, I devoured the details.

quote:

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The thing I half regret/half take pride in--is that I felt compelled to literally take these books apart.

....

And with Steranko Histories I took out the staples, took off the wrap around covers.

....

When I was in my teens I cut out some of the figures and decoupaged them onto my wooden chest that doubled as a comic box--along with lots (read hundreds) of other pics that I cut out from comic books and magazines.

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I would never, never, have cut anything out of a comic book, or undone a staple, or removed something from a book! How different we are on that score!

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From the Metropolis Edition I removed the inset colour map of Krypton, and taped it up on my bedroom wall, along with my Beatles, Bee Gees, John Travolta, Olivia Newton John, Superman, Cheryl Tiegs, Lynda Carter, Batman, and Charlie's Angels posters.

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My love of The Beatles was a few years away, and my only major claim on this era is I had a poster of Lee Majors on my wall. I surely did love Six Million Dollar Man when I was small. I was a bit too young to fully appreciate the charms of Cheryl or the Angels. I did like Wonder Woman, but a poster was out of the question. I think you may be a little older than me (I'm 34), but we're obviously of the same generation of fandom.

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I can find lots of those other posters, but I haven't been able to find the map of Krypton.

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The map of Krypton (from the centre pages) is a pretty crude affair, really. My copy is still stapled and intact, but folds out to about 21 x 28 inches in size. It has an "Old World Hemisphere" and a "New World Hemisphere". On the old side we have the Striped River; Erkol, oldest city on Krypton; Fungus Caverns; Boiling Sea; ruins of the ancient city of Xan; Mt. Mundru, highest peak on Krypton; Glass Forest; Jerat, the 'ghost city'; Vathlo Island; Antarctic City. On the new side we have Kandor, capital of Krypton till it was stolen by Braniac; Kryptonopolis, birthplace of Superman; Undersea Palace; Fort Rozz; Atomic Town; Jewel Mountains; Rainbow Canyon; Gold Volcano; Fire Falls; Scarlet Jungle; Meteor Valley; Argo City, Supergirl's birthplace; Bokos, independent island of thieves; Magnetic Mountain; Lost Valley of Juru (unexplored).

If you feel the map is something you need in your collection, let me know. I can try to get it photocopied, and I could post a copy to you.

posted May 21, 2002 12:20 PM    

A while back, on another forum, I asked about the projected six volumes of Steranko's History of Comics and I was provided with an answer--but I can't remember the explanation now. For some reason Steranko was prevented from getting the other volumes published, but they were in the works it seems.

I dimly recall what those volumes were supposed to contain. I'd hazard a guess that vol. 3 would have been about other publishers of the golden age--Fiction House for instance--maybe some funny animals, maybe MLJ. Then I'm sure that there was a plan to do EC, which would probably be in vol. 4. I believe volumes 5 & 6 would have dealt with the comics revival--what we call the "Silver Age," although in the mid-seventies I'm not sure Jim Steranko had a clear idea just what that was--there would have been a lot of inside info about Marvel, probably a really great interview with Jack Kirby. Whether Steranko would have approached DC, or the other publishers of the sixties, with the same level of detail I rather doubt.

posted May 22, 2002 02:00 AM    

quote:

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Posted by India Ink:
what we call the "Silver Age," although in the mid-seventies I'm not sure Jim Steranko had a clear idea just what that was

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In The Steranko History of Comics 1, there is a great paragraph in the "Playboy Hero" section, on page 47. Steranko talks about Jerry Robinson, circa 1939-1940, during The Batman's formative period, and Robinson's sharing of an apartment with other comic book creators of the time -- the apartment was a hangout for comic men. "Frequently a half dozen artists and writers like Charles Biro, Bob Wood [India, who is this? The only Wood I know is Wally], Mort Meskin and Whit Ellsworth would congregate there to finish a few pages and discuss storytelling techniques or what the competition was doing [India, who were the "competition" in 1939?]. Steranko then goes on with this great paragraph:

posted May 22, 2002 02:47 AM    

quote:

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Comic pages were tacked up everywhere. Walls were floor-to-ceiling comic murals. Even the old radio which kept them in touch with the world was covered with so many sketches only the knobs could be seen. The two sofas in the room slept whoever got to them first. The clan ate from tiles peeled from the bathroom walls. If they found the going tough, no one mentioned it. They were too busy creating comics "golden age."

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posted May 23, 2002 04:43 PM    

At a swap meet about a month ago, as I was looking through a box of sixties Action, a young women came running over to her boyfriend (who was standing next to me, looking through another box) and she was showing him this ragged copy of a golden age Daredevil comic--with the Little Wise Guys. She was wondering who this Charles Biro was, this guy who did such great facial characterizations, never having heard of him--nor had her boyfriend. Ever the introvert, I didn't interject, but I was stunned to think that anyone (anyone with a serious interest in comics) would not know who Charles Biro was!

posted May 25, 2002 06:21 PM    

I really miss the kid gangs.

posted June 06, 2002 06:04 PM    

I just wanted to cut and paste this bit that I found on a geocities homepage, as it mentions both Gaines and Lev Gleason. These two guys seem to have travelled around a lot pushing the comics medium in new directions...

quote:

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Funnies on Parade

BEFORE 1933, COMIC BOOKS as we know them today didn't exist. The newspapers were where most of today's great comic writers and artists would have had to publish their work if they wanted to get into the business. Of course, back then comic strips were more detailed -- and a lot more highly regarded -- than they are today. Once the syndicates realized how popular their strips were, they published hardcover and softcover collections of the black-and-white daily strips and the color Sunday comics.

In 1933, those reprint books would become the inspiration for an interesting experiment. Three men at the Eastern Color Printing Company in Connecticut -- Harry Wildenberg, M.C. Gaines, and Leverett Gleason -- were amazed by the full-colour comics that rolled off their presses, especially their ability to increase the sales of newspapers in which they appeared. They figured that the brightly colored pieces of paper could also sell other products, if they were marketed in the right way. Then, according to legend, Wildenberg was playing with a sheet of newspaper one day, and discovered that a standard sheet could be trimmed to produce 16 pages. Even better, they found the comics of the day could be shrunk to fit without losing their readability.

Wildenberg made an arrangement with the McNaught and McClure Syndicate for permission to reprint some of its popular strips, and Gaines lined up Proctor & Gamble as a sponsor. The idea was simple: Consumers would clip coupons off their favourite P&G products and then send them in to receive a comic book in the mail.

The promotion was a success, and other manufacturers were soon sold on the idea. The comic book, at least as a promotional item, was born.

The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

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I'll have more to say on these fellows at a later date.

posted June 07, 2002 12:18 AM    

When I suggested that Charles Biro and Bob Wood had a loose partnership I was in error, in that they had a real official partnership indeed--more on the level of a Simon and Kirby or Andru and Esposito.

Gleason began publishing Silver Streak Comics with Arthur Bernhardt in the early forties--under the name of Rhoda Publications. The notable feature in this comic was "The Claw" created by Jack Cole (an extreme Fu Manchu type villain). Many different heroes went up against the Claw. With the Daredevil finally taking on the villain. The Daredevil then became so popular that he pushed out the Claw. And when Biro was doing Daredevil Comics, the Little Wise Guys virtually edged the Daredevil out of his own book.

Rhoda went through some name changes and Lev Gleason eventually bought out Bernhardt, becoming the sole publisher of what was then called Comic House, Inc. In the mid-forties the Gleason comics had his name right on the cover. On the covers of Daredevil, Boy Comics, & Crime Does Not Pay, Lev Gleason was listed as Publisher, while Charles Biro and Bob Wood were listed as Editors (apparently they co-edited everything).