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.

---

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.

---

(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.

---

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.

---

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

quote:

---

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.

---

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."

---

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

quote:

---

(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.

---

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:

---

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").

---

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:

---

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.

---

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.

---

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!

quote:

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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.

---

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.

quote:

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

---

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:

---

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

---

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.

---

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).

posted June 07, 2002 06:18 PM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by India Ink:
Another important figure we have to discuss is M. C. Gaines who plays a many and varied part in the early history of Superman.

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posted June 18, 2002 08:04 PM       

�Three Supermen From Krypton� from Superman #65 (Jul/Aug 1950) � 1st appearance of Kryptonian villains

�Superman's Super-Magic Show� from Action #151 (Dec. 1950) � featuring the Prankster, Luthor, and Mr. Mxyztplk

�Citadel of Doom� from Superman #79 (Nov/Dec 1952) � battle with Luthor

�Superman's Big Brother� from Superman #80 (Jan/Feb 1953) - Mon-El prototype?

�The Menace from the Stars� from World�s Finest #68 (Jan/Feb 1954)

�The Girl Who Didn�t Believe In Superman� from Superman #96 (Mar 1955) � Superman tries to convince a blind girl of his existence.

�The Super-Dog From Krypton� from Adventure #210 (Mar 1955) � 1st Krypto

�The New Team of Superman and Robin� from World�s Finest #75 (Mar/Apr 1955) � Robin must sub for an injured Batman.

�Superboy�s Last Day In Smallville� from Superman #97 (May 1955)

�The Six Jimmy Olsens� from Jimmy Olsen #13 (June 1956)

�Mrs. Superman� from Showcase #9 (Jul/Aug 1957) � quasi-imaginary story featuring what a Superman/Lois marriage might be like.

�The Super-Duel In Space� from Action #242 (Jul 1958) � 1st appearance of Brainiac and Kandor.

�Titano the Super-Ape� from Superman #127 (Feb 1959)

�The Ugly Superman� from Lois Lane #8 (Apr 1959) � Lois dates a wrestler with the moniker of �Ugly Superman�!!

"The Supergirl From Krypton" from Action #252 (May 1959) � 1st Supergirl

�The Battle With Bizarro� from Action #254 (Jul 1959) � 1st time the adult Superman encounters Bizarro.

�The Bride of Bizarro� from Action #255 (Aug 1959) � 2nd part of 2-part Bizarro story introducing Bizarro-Lois

The 1st Fortress story, "The Super-Key to Fort Superman" and the 1st Lori Lemaris story are not here, but they have also been reprinted on numerous occasions, most recently in the Superman Annual replica from a few years back.

posted June 19, 2002 03:56 PM    

I also think it's "cheating" to include the WORLD'S FINEST story with Robin in a solo Superman collection, especially since it will be reprinted in a World's Finest Archive edition long before any of the Fifties' other Superman stories will be reprinted in Superman archives.

posted June 19, 2002 07:54 PM       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Continental Op:

I also think it's "cheating" to include the WORLD'S FINEST story with Robin in a solo Superman collection, especially since it will be reprinted in a World's Finest Archive edition long before any of the Fifties' other Superman stories will be reprinted in Superman archives.

---

posted June 30, 2002 04:27 AM    

quote:

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In 1954 a psychiatrist treating juvenile delinquents, Dr. Fredric Wertham, argued in his book Seduction of the Innocent that the "unwholesome" elements in comics were responsible for all kinds of social ills. Wertham's main targets were crime and horror comics, but he also attacked super hero comics. Finding fascistic tendencies in the Man of Steel in the comics and on TV, Wertham declared,

"Actually Superman (with the big S on his uniform -- we should, I suppose, be thankful that it is not an S.S.) needs an endless stream of ever new submen, criminals and 'foreign-looking' people not only to justify his existence but even to make it possible. Superman has long been recognised as a symbol of violent race superiority. The television Superman, looking like a mixture of an operatic tenor without his armor and an amateur athlete out of a health-magazine advertisement, does not only have 'superhuman powers,' but explicitly belongs to a 'super-race.'"

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posted July 01, 2002 04:47 AM    

Superman: The Complete History by Les Daniels (1998), p. 131.

quote:

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The comics industry responded by creating a self-censoring body called the Comics Code Authority, but the damage was already done. Distribution dried up, publishers went bankrupt, and by the time parental indignation was redirected toward rock 'n' roll a few months later, the comic book industry appeared to be on its last legs. "We were really suffering," said Julius Schwartz. Still, DC was one of the few publishers still standing, and it fell to Schwartz to pump some new blood into the business.

---

Just around the corner was one of my favourite eras of comic books.

posted July 04, 2002 07:28 PM    

quote:

---

The skyscrapers that towered over Superman's Metropolis were inspired not by Manhattan or even by Cleveland, but by Joe Shuster's hometown of Toronto. He had worked as a paperboy selling Totonto's Daily Star, and that was the name of the newspaper where Clark Kent worked until an editorial decision changed it to the Daily Planet. "Whatever buildings I saw in Toronto remained in my mind," said Shuster, "and came out in the form of Metropolis."

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posted July 05, 2002 06:41 PM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by BruceWayneMan:
Does anyone know anything about Siegel and Shuster's intentions to develop a back history for Superman depicting his adventures as a boy? I know that the Superboy lawsuit occured in 1947, but I'm also aware of Siegel's statement that he and Shuster had plans to introduce Superboy almost from the start. He was described as "Superman before he developed a social conscience" and, now that I think of it, might even have been a precursor for Mr Mxyztplk. Considering the fact that Superman disregarded the law pretty blatantly during his first few years of operation, a mischevious Superboy with a disregard for social convention sounds like a suitable backstory to me.

---

Rather than the idea of a mischievous Superboy being a precursor for Mr. Mxyztplk, the imp was inspired by Bugs Bunny (with Superman in the Elmer Fudd role).

By 1941 Siegel was making plans for a feature called Superboy, a look back into the youth of Superman. In accordance with your quote, B.W.M., Superboy was intended by Siegel to focus on an adolescent's practical jokes, and would be about Superman "before he developed a social conscience".

Depicting Superman's adventures as a boy seems to be an intention more of Siegel's than Shuster's. Contributing to Superman after Siegel was drafted during the War (in 1943) was a writer named Don Cameron. Joe Shuster was not drafted due to poor eyesight, and continued to work on Superman.

In 1945 Don Cameron wrote the scripts for a new comic book series about Superboy. The Superboy art in More Fun Comics #101 is unsigned, but is most likely the work of Joe Shuster, who apparently had no objection to DC's version of Superboy.

posted July 06, 2002 04:54 PM    

Was this because National had overstepped their rights in creating a Superboy without Siegel's permission? Did somehow this trampling of creative rights, end up giving S&S their creative rights on Superboy, even though this isn't the exact character they would have created. Whereas by actually creating Superman, S&S didn't have a claim on the character, because their legal rights weren't violated when they signed away their ownership?

posted July 09, 2002 04:53 PM    

What I have so far is an impression -- just an impression -- that Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster actually did VERY well out of their creation in the early days, both in terms of income and fame. They were famous, and not just in comic book circles. Jerry Siegel, in particular, loved this part of the deal, and he enjoyed being popular. The duo, from what I get so far, actually made a truckload more money than they ever thought they would. They made more money than they'd dreamed of when they were trying to get the strip into the newspapers. From where I sit, Siegel & Shuster really did hit the big time.

Superman hit the big time too, of course. Superman, in a very short time, was @#$% HUGE!

Somewhere along the line, Siegel & Shuster became disgruntled. Or so it appears. They sued DC in '47 for $5M and the rights to the character. Why?

After the war, their income began to drop. Apparently they viewed this with suspicion, but Superman, along with other super heroes involved in the war effort, was actually in decline (for the moment). This was also the time, as I talked about in a recent post, that Siegel got the pip over Superboy. It's also possible Siegel viewed DC's other super heroes, who had sprung up in Superman's wake, as competition that cut into his income. (Much of this is in Superman: The Complete History (1998) by Les Daniels.)

There is a really interesting tidbit also, for anyone who knows who M.C. Gaines is.

In this attack on DC, the co-creators found an ally in M.C. Gaines. In 1955, years after the lawsuit, William Gaines, the son of M.C. Gaines, said, "As I get the story, a couple of sharp lawyers got ahold of these boys and got them malcontented."

Siegel & Shuster approached Gaines senior with their story of injustice on DC's part, and initially he helped them in their lawsuit against DC. But M.C. Gaines soon dropped Siegel & Shuster like "hot potatoes" when he felt they were misrepresenting certain facts!

posted July 09, 2002 07:36 PM    

quote:

---

Posted by India Ink:
Now help me understand this. As I understand it, the courts decided that Siegel & Shuster owned the rights to Superboy, but not Superman.

---

According to Newsweek, the court had decided that Sigel & Shuster had no property rights in Superman.

A settlement was arranged in which Siegel & Shuster received (jointly, apparently) $100,000 for signing away any claim over the rights to Superman and Superboy.

So what you say, India, may have been the case. In between the court decision and the signing of the waiver, it seems Siegel & Shuster still had a claim on Superboy. Or at least, that's the way it reads...

posted July 13, 2002 10:33 AM    

Over to you, Nelson...

"When we decided to publish a comic magazine featuring the origins of the great DC heroes and villains, we began digging back into the past to find when and where the origins were first printed. We made some surprising discoveries.

Take Superman. His origin was first told in ACTION #1- yet that version was one which had NEVER been reprinted! What a collector's item! So you have it at last- in this mag.

In the first issue of SUPERMAN, a different origin, two pages long, was given. Now we actually see the Kents, who are nowhere in evidence in the ACTION version. They find the child in his rocket and later return to the orphanage where they left him to adopt him. But there is still little about the Man of Steel's real parents, beyond referring to his father as a scientist; they are not even pictured.

There was more development in the origin stories for the daily newspaper strip of SUPERMAN and the novel by George Lowther. IN the strip, Superman's parents were called JOR-L and LORA , while, in his 1942 novel, SUPERMAN, Lowther called them JOR-EL and LARA- names that have stuck ever since, as has his name for their child, the future Superman- KAL-EL. However, the same cannot be said for the Kents. In the SUPERMAN magazine origin, Ma Kent is called MARY; Lowther called her SARAH, and her husband EBEN- but these names have only been used one other time: on the Superman TV show.

The daily strip and the novel were clearly used in the origin story which appeared in MORE FUN COMICS #101 (Jan.-Feb., 1945), when the first of the Superboy stories was published. Here we saw JOR-EL and LARA, and learned that Kryptonians were not super-powered on their own world, but got powers on Earth from its lighter gravity. This idea had been used before, but not in comic mags. It was a necessary change from the earlier idea that all Kryptonians were super on Krypton, because of the more powerful image Superman had developed; if the Kryptonians had been that mighty, the exploding planet couldn't have killed them. A change- only temporary- in the origin had an unnamed motorist finding the child and taking him to the orphanage. And the Kents were given no first names until several years after the SUPERBOY feature started. In fact, they were seldom shown in the early Superboy strips.

Ten years after his first appearance, Superman's origin was again retold in his own magazine. This time there was more detail- but oddly, though SUPERBOY had been running for three years, first in MORE FUN and then ADVENTURE, no mention of his Superboy career was included. And his foster parents' tombstones gave their names as JOHN and MARY (SUPERBOY would soon change them to JONATHAN and MARTHA KENT). Later, in a 3-D edition of SUPERMAN, this story was redone- with the same ignoring of Superboy.

There have been many retellings of the story since then- some with strange differences. It has now been established that Earth's yellow sun also helps to give Superman his powers; and stories of little Kal-El on Krypton have meant having him about two years old when he came to Earth."

Thanks, ENB. THis issue, incidentally, also includes the first two-page Batman origin from DETECTIVE COMICS #33 by Gardner Fox and Bob Kane (and Jerry Robinson?); the first Silver Age Flash story from SHOWCASE #4 by Robert Kanigher, Carmine Infantino and Joe Kubert; and the first Golden Age Hawkman story to feature one of my favorite villains, the (Gentleman) Ghost, by Kanigher and Kubert from FLASH COMICS #88. Hey, wasn't it cool when they still called these things "mags"?

posted July 13, 2002 04:48 PM    

This shows the shift in thinking. In the later stories, being a product of Krypton the rocket would not have been wrecked by crashing into the Earth. And if its star-spanning fuel had exploded into flame, then likely the entire town of Smallville would have been blown off the map.

posted July 13, 2002 05:32 PM    

quote:

---

Posted by C-Op:
Bridwell's commentary reminds us that much of the lasting Superman lore actually originated OUTSIDE of comic books, and that much of even the earliest background was being contributed by others.

---

True. And, besides background, even characters as significant as Perry White and Jimmy Olsen were created on the 40s radio show. Kryptonite was created for the radio show as well.

The inspiration for Kryptonite, however, may have come from an unpublished story by Superman's creators, in 1940, about a substance similar to Kryptonite called K-metal. This story never saw print probably because it contained a scene in which Superman revealed his secret identity to Lois. Obviously, "second thoughts" withheld this development from publication.

posted July 18, 2002 04:32 PM    

"UNder the influence of Earth's environment, I... and everything else from Krypton that came with me... was already invulnerable! I was thrown out of the rocket by the force of the impact... as, in the next second, the rocket exploded! It was only the combustion of its fuel- which had also become "super"- that was able to shatter the rocket into fragments..." [Actually, it remains mostly intact, but the window does crack and some metal is loosened].

By the way, Superman's yellow belt was originally the rocket's seat-belt, and his boots were made from the interior's upholstery. He stitched them together himself using a sliver of rocket metal as a needle.

So that was the official version that week.

This issue was, incidentally, also the first time I recall the Kents talking like inbred hicks, which they never did in the Silver Age, beyond the occasional "Land Sakes!" and such. Pa seems to have flunked grade-school English, saying things like "I exploded DYNAMITE under the BLUE blanket, and it ain't damaged neither!"

posted July 18, 2002 09:03 PM    

I haven't looked at the Martin Pasko origin from the late seventies in a while, and clearly I don't remember telling details. But I'll have to correct that one of these days and soon.

Getting back to the thirties and Gaines, one of my favourite books on comics--besides Feiffer's The Great Comic Book Heroes, the anthologies called All in Color for a Dime and The Comic Book Book, and Steranko's History of Comics vol. I & II--is Ron Goulart's Great History of Comic Books (1986).

Les Daniels does an awesome job of bringing together a lot of information, with interesting pictures, in Superman: The Complete History. But the prose are a bit puffy for my tastes at times, and Daniels selects out certain key periods but doesn't dwell on others (periods of Superman I happen to love), while he adds no real insights of his own.

Guys like Feiffer, Goulart, and Steranko have opinions and they'll let you know them. They're writers first, researchers second (in Feiffer case perhaps fourth or fifth). Even if you never agree with such writers, you're guaranteed a fun time reading what they have to say.

On page 15 of Goulart's book we see an ad for Popular Comics, The Funnies, & The Comics, with Sheldon Mayer's lovable alter ego "Scribby" appearing in the ad. "America's Leading Comic Magazines" (as the ad copy reads) were packaged for Dell by M.C. Gaines at the McClure Syndicate. George T. Delacorte was the publisher at Dell, but it was actually Gaines who more or less controlled the content of these mags.

Goulart states (p. 16): "To edit Popular [Gaines] hired Sheldon Mayer, a teenage cartoonist. 'I went to work for M.C. Gaines in January of 1936,' Mayer recalls. 'I had been up to see him the previous summer, and half a year later he gave me a call and offered me a few days' pasteup work.' The few days stretched into a few years, and Mayer was eventually editing Popular and The Funnies and The Comics."

In the second issue of The Funnies, Mayer introduced his own strip, called "Scribbly" which was made to look like a Sunday page (to fool readers into thinking it was a genuine reprint from the funny pages).

In 1938, however, Gaines & Mayer ceased to package work for Dell (production was shifted to the Whitman division of the Western Printing & Lithography Company).

But Gaines had his fingers in many pies. While working for McClure, he was also still working at Eastern Color Printing, which was doing the printing for a line of comics published by another curious personage of early comics lore, Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson. More will need to be said about the Major at another time.

Siegel & Shuster themselves had found work with Wheeler-Nicholson. Their "Doctor Occult" was published in New Fun Comics no. 6 (Oct. 1935)--signed by "Leger and Reuths." For the first issue of Detective they created "Slam Bradley" and "Spy."

That they never sold their "Superman" to Wheeler-Nicholson (up to this point), may be because they were good businessmen! The Major's books didn't seem to make a lot of money, and he wasn't always able to pay his contributors. Siegel & Shuster, may have realized even then that their "Superman" was a potential goldmine, and they didn't want to waste it on the Major's failing funny books.

Instead, Jerry and Joe were shopping around their comic strip to various syndicates, which is how it ended up with Gaines at the McClure Syndicate.

Again Goulart's book (p. 86), quoting Mayer, "' It came into the McClure Syndicate, offered as a strip. I went nuts over the thing. It was the answer; it was the thing we were all looking for. It struck me as having the elements that were popular in the movies, all the elements that were popular in novels, and all the elements that I loved, you know.'"

Despite Mayer's persistence, neither Gaines nor the McClure bosses took the strip seriously. Finally Gaines took a look at the strip--"'He took it and looked at it and read it, and he said, "You think this is good?" And I said "Yeah!"'"

Gaines decided instead of trying to persuade the McClure Syndicate to use it as a strip, he would take "Superman" to the comicbooks so Gaines & Mayer could get the printing on it.

At right about this time, Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson was almost ready to give up on the comicbook publishing game--selling his share to his partners, Donenfeld and Liebowitz.

Gaines went up to Harry Donenfeld and showed the strip to him, and convinced him to put it in their new comic magazine, Action Comics. Or at least that's one story. Vin Sullivan was the editor for this new Action[/] mag and he tells a different story which has Gaines showing him the strip.

However it really happened, it seems clear that Gaines was the agent by which "Superman" ended up in [i]Action.

As Goulart tells it (on page 87), the strip was pasted up as comic pages and "the cover was adapted from a panel in the story. 'When Harry Donenfeld first saw that cover of Superman holding that car in the air,' Mayer recalls, 'he really got worried. He felt that nobody would believe it, that it was ridiculous...crazy.'"

The covers for the next few issues, in fact, didn't show Superman. No one at Detective Comics, Inc.--other than Siegel, Shuster, and Mayer (all young artist types)--really expected that the strip would do so well as it did!
------

posted August 09, 2002 06:56 AM    

quote:

---

Posted by BruceWayneMan:
In 1940, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster produced a story in which Clark Kent is forced to reveal his secret identity to Lois Lane as only the immediate intervention of Superman can keep her and a group of criminals from suffocating in a mine. Although the gangsters die by the end of the story, Lois from here on in, would be left with the knowledge that Clark Kent is really Superman. The story also introduced kryptonite although it was refered to as k-metal.

---

Well, I've already talked about the story on this thread:

quote:

---

The inspiration for Kryptonite, however, may have come from an unpublished story by Superman's creators, in 1940, about a substance similar to Kryptonite called K-metal. This story never saw print probably because it contained a scene in which Superman revealed his secret identity to Lois. Obviously, "second thoughts" withheld this development from publication.

---

I think, in the daily strip, Lois & Clark were once married. That particular plot development also went by the wayside.

posted August 09, 2002 03:22 PM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by Aldous:
How would you suggest interest be "sustained"? I'd be happy to discuss the K-Metal story, but without the actual comic to read for ourselves, we don't have a lot to go on...

---

Which is entirely the point. The discovery of this story is on a par with the discovery of a lost Beatles album, or of a fifth Gospel, or a new scroll of the old testament. Its historical importance can not be overstated. Its existence is noteworthy (nay, absolutely incredible) for a number of reasons:

Firstly, the story should absolutely be printed. But will DC ever make it available? I certainly hope so. Its inclusion in an upcoming archive would certainly boost the sales of the book, or maybe DC should print it as a one-shot? Or in a "1942 Annual"?

Also, since S&S came up with this story, in a sense, this is the "canonical" version of "how Lois learned Superman's secret ID." Although such a story has been told a few times since, this is the first (and original) version.

But it also raises some questions: What would Superman's continuity look like now if that story had run? What would have happened next? Would Lois have been hit on the head with a rock the next issue and then forgotten the secret? Or would she still have known? Would she have kept it a secret or blabbed it to the world? Would she have been killed? Or would she have eventually married Clark? The 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, etc, Supermen could all have been very different from the way they were.

Which leads into another thought: What if the editors had let S&S tell all the stories they had wanted to tell - with their version of Superboy, Lois knowing the secret ID, "K-Metal" instead of Kryptonite - what what Siegel and Shuster's full-blown vision of Superman have been? I doubt we'll ever know the full picture, but this story is a glimpse of it.

If we know about the existence of their version of Superboy (never published), and if we've just learned about the existence of this story (never published) - what other stories don't we know about? What other ideas did they have which were shot down? How many other Siegel and Shuster Superman stories are sitting lost in the backs of file cabinets, or are collecting dust in the backs of closets?

posted August 09, 2002 04:24 PM    

If I can believe what I've read on the archives board--volume number ones of archives sell better than the following numbers, so a number one of an anthology archive would probably do better in sales (personally though, I think this is because retailers order in more number ones, and not because consumers buy only number ones).

But I see a possible snag in any such project. Since unprinted material has never been printed, there may be all kinds of legal issues that arise when and if DC decides to print this stuff. Material that has already been printed has already been copyrighted, trademarked--the material has been paid for, creators have released their rights, etc. Material that never was printed exists in this kind of no-mans-land. Printing the material may be a way for DC to assert ownership of it, but for this same reason there may be those who might not want this stuff to be printed--at least not without some kind of legal arrangement or big pay-off.

Thinking about the whole Siegel & Shuster mess gives me a headache. Was either party really better served by battling this out in the courts for decades? I think not. If National hadn't been so tight-fisted when Superman started to make huge profits for them--if they had just shared the wealth and handled the boys (telling Siegel & Shuster what they wanted to hear would have cost National nothing)--then it's likely S & S wouldn't have felt compelled to resort to legal means. National may have been legally right, but, recognizing that, they should have seen the bigger picture and tried to mollify the creators.

In the matter of Batman, Bob Kane held some kind of creative rights and stayed with the character for over twenty-five years. In the end, I don't think his creative control amounted to much. National was still able to take Batman wherever they wanted to go with the character. So for all the shocking possibilities that might have arose from the S & S Superboy or a Lois & Clark marriage, I don't really believe we would have ended up in a different place. Shuster with his failing eyesight would have still relinquished control over Superman's image to his assistant, Wayne Boring. Siegel would still have been cowed by his editors into doing what they thought was more commercial.

posted August 09, 2002 06:06 PM    

quote:

---

Firstly, the story should absolutely be printed.

---

posted August 09, 2002 06:18 PM    

quote:

---

Posted by BuddyBlank:
Which leads into another thought: What if the editors had let S&S tell all the stories they had wanted to tell - with their version of Superboy, Lois knowing the secret ID, "K-Metal" instead of Kryptonite - what what Siegel and Shuster's full-blown vision of Superman have been? I doubt we'll ever know the full picture, but this story is a glimpse of it.

---

It's fun to speculate...

Jerry & Joe needed editorial direction, it could be argued. In the first newspaper strip, Superman tore the wings off a plane full of baddies and let it crash in flames. Censorship problems had to be avoided. Whitney Ellsworth imposed editorial controls on Jerry, and, again, it could be argued this was necessary to take Superman to the heights he attained.

In hindsight (and only with hindsight), it would seem a mistake to let Lois in on "the secret" in the early days. (My opinion.)

posted August 09, 2002 07:35 PM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by India Ink:
bludevil, my guess is that the facsimile edition you mean is the one on the GCD index link below--
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219003408/http://www.comics.org/browse.lasso?SeriesID=6003

If you click that link, you will see several stories listed. Both Swan and Boring.

---

Curt Swan says, from http://web.archive.org/web/20050219003408/http://www.stta.nu/swan.html :

"It was around this time that I started filling in occasionally for Wayne Boring, the artist who had taken over Superman from Joe Shuster. But it wasn't until around 1955 that I became the primary Superman artist. The first 3-D comics were making their appearances around that time, because of the success of 3-D movies, I guess, and DC wanted to get a 3-D Superman book out in a hurry. So Boring and Al Pastino and I were all brought on to the project. We only put out one 3-D Superman, but Weisinger was quite happy with my work on it, and soon after that he put me on Superman steady."

So if Curt's memory is to be believed, that question mark next to Al Plastino's name should be removed. He made no mention of Stan Kaye, either...

posted August 12, 2002 01:36 AM    

quote:

---

Posted by India Ink:
Thinking about the whole Siegel & Shuster mess gives me a headache. Was either party really better served by battling this out in the courts for decades? I think not. If National hadn't been so tight-fisted when Superman started to make huge profits for them--if they had just shared the wealth and handled the boys (telling Siegel & Shuster what they wanted to hear would have cost National nothing)--then it's likely S & S wouldn't have felt compelled to resort to legal means. National may have been legally right, but, recognizing that, they should have seen the bigger picture and tried to mollify the creators.

---

But was National so "tight-fisted"? We've discussed this before... I'm leaning more towards the view that Siegel & Shuster hadn't done so badly, and perhaps they should've left well enough alone. I don't believe at all that National gave the creators a raw deal. It bugs me that this is how the situation is summed up by latterday commentators.

It's just too easy and lazy to always see the corporation as the bad guy. (I'm not talking about you, India.)

posted August 12, 2002 01:37 PM    

Of course, Goulart is repeating facts from other sources--it may be that S & S spun the facts for their own purposes. But if we can accept that some of this true, it's possible there was a kind of snowball effect. Where the creators realized they were being lied to and in turn reacted with anger (perhaps without due thought), which caused the publishers to become defensive, which challenged the creators even more and caused them to assert their rights, which caused the publishers to assert their rights, and so on.

In other words, this thing may have begun as a bit of petulance, but it continued to escalate to such an extreme where each side became intractable (and Shuster & Siegel overstated the facts). It's a muddle--like in E.M. Forester's A Passage to India where a muddle, a confusion of understandings, erupts into a big legal mess.

posted August 12, 2002 01:50 PM       

quote:

---

Originally posted by India Ink:

I'd be interested in some kind of anthology--The Superman Anthology--which would go about gathering together material that either hasn't been printed before, or material that was printed in hard to find publications (giveaways, promotional comics).

---

I would buy something like that in a heartbeat!

Does anyone know what DC's next steps are regarding the Archive editions starring Superman? There's been a good 3 or 4 years since the last Superman Archives came out and I was wondering when we might see another one (if at all). They keep printing new editions of All-Star Archives year after year....obviously making money, so does that mean the Superman Archives aren't doing so well? That's quite a sobering thought if that's the case.

------------------
Mark Engblom
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

"HA! What Halloween fun we have with my super-dog, Krypto! Us Bizarros scare him with horrible masks of Earth people like President Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe and Jerry Lewis!"

posted September 19, 2002 02:38 PM    

Like Batman in the Fifties this one was top heavy with material from the end of the fifties. Whereas, I'd prefer either a more even spread of stories from all the years OR material from the early fifties. Yes the late 50s (especially 1959) set up the whole Weisinger era of Superman--but that's really 60s Superman. Shouldn't a book about the fifties get at what made the fifties Superman tick?

Another problem is that these slim volumes carry so much weight (and this is one of the slimmest). Back in the days of Giants and Super-Specs, tabloid editions and digest editions, individual collections didn't carry so much weight because you always knew there'd be others. What was lacking in one issue could be made up for in another.

It just happens by some coincidence that on Tuesday past I was in a comics store looking through their readable sixties comics and I pulled out a few to buy, including Superman 217 (G-60), June-July, 1969--a 64 page Giant that reprints "The Outlaws from Krypton" from Action 194, July, 1954 (by Finger/Boring/Kaye).

So imagine my surprise, the next day--yesterday, when I thumbed through my newly bought copy of Superman in the Fifties to find the first story in that edition is "Three Supermen from Krypton!" (Superman 65, July-August, 1960, by Woolfolk and Plastino (?)). "The Outlaws from Krypton" is actually a sequel to "Three Supermen..." with Mala being the primary character in the story. Returning to Earth and taking on the identity of Clark Kent--not knowing that CK is really Superman--and by some elaborate scheme putting Superman and Lois on a fake Earth that they believe to be the real one, with no people on it but them. What's curious is how Mala so easily becomes Clark Kent--does he really look like Superman or is he a master of disguise? it's not clear.

In my newly found copy of Superman 217 there's also "The Super-Duel in Space" (from Action 242, July, 1958)--and I was quite happy to have that since it's the introduction of Brainiac which I've never read. But then I find the same story in this new fifties collection.

Likewise there are lots of other stories in this volume which I've read in other reprint books ("The Supergirl from Krypton" is no longer a novelty for me).

posted September 19, 2002 06:32 PM    

But I felt sorry for Beppo. The shot of him on the back cover was misleading, since no Beppo story was provided inside.

As for the cover, it continued the tradition maintained by all the others (Superman and Batman) of being very poorly designed.

I like the Wayne Boring Superman on the cover, but like Neal Adams' Superman on the seventies volume, the background art does nothing to enhance the central image. It's like they don't really want to sell these things off the shelves.

The one good thing was the return of the classic Superman logo.

This logo should have appeared on both the sixties and the seventies collections, but instead DC decided to go with the updated logo (I think the update was done in the late seventies).

posted September 19, 2002 11:02 PM    

1) Actually, the logo was changed in 1983 or '84 because it was decided by whoever was in charge of licensing design that it would "reduce" better and somehow look better at all different sizes if it were streamlined--and if the weird drop-shadow on the "E" were fixed. I disagreed and still prefer the old logo--not for nostalgia, but because it's not so "soft"--but some fights, you can't win.

And, technically, the "Silver Age" logo DC's been using here and there (on this book and on some recent statue packaging) ISN'T the actual original logo, it's some weird hybrid. The letters are thicker and the dropshadows are different. Check it out.

2) As the guy who actually picked out most of the stories for this volume (and even moreso the '60s volume), I agree that it'd be nicer to see more material from the early '50s, but it's a budgetary matter. Stats (or, technically, negatives from which stats can be shot) of material from before about 1954 are rare to nonexistent across the DC line. In this volume, both "The Three Supermen" and (I believe) "Superman's Super-Magic Show" had to be reconstructed digitally, which is an expensive and royally tedious process. (Believe me, I know. That panel of "Big Boy" in the intro? Took me two hours, at least, to Photoshop it into b&w from a Sunday page. Granted, I'm untrained, but I got a taste of how hard it is to do.)

We'd have loved to have done more reconstruction. In a perfect world, we'd have run both the debut of Lana Lang and the two-parter from ACTION #141-142, the second appearance of kryptonite and the first Superman continued story since ACTION #1-2--but there was just no budget. Still, I count four never-before-reprinted stories and several others that haven't seen print for over thirty years, so trust me, an effort was made. Hey--if I'm pickin' the stories, I'm gonna put together a book *I* want to read.

posted September 20, 2002 02:03 AM       

I was quite pleased with the collection of stories included in the new TPB. Except for a couple of stories, they were all new to me. Overall, this is a fine collection�good choices all around.

By the way, I know this is off topic, but would you ever consider becoming editor of Supergirl and The Legion? Sure, McAvennie�s shoes are going to hard to fill, but I think you could pull it off.

posted September 20, 2002 05:39 PM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by Patrick Gerard in the "What is Clark's middle name?" thread:

http://web.archive.org/web/20050219003408/http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/files/Forum30/HTML/010179.html

Naturally, both 'Joseph' and 'Jerome' are homages to Superman's creators although 'Joseph' was probably chosen in the revamp since it is also the name of a famous Golem in Jewish folklore and there is a thematic undercurrent in Superman that some writers have chosen to pursue that casts Superman as a sort of literary golem created by Siegel and Shuster to cast light on real world social injustice.

It's been primarily a topic of essay but I suspect that writers like Waid and Maggin have and will continue to play with the theme of Superman as golem.

Also:

...a golem is a human-like creature of mighty strength, brought to life to bring about justice for the oppressed.

The comparison has been made before that in two people of Jewish faith creating a mythical hero who guards the oppressed, Superman is a sort of literary golem.

It's a sort of stretch but I think it has often been speculated that Siegel and Shuster may have created Superman in part because they grew up on stories of golems.

I do tend to think that their ethnic heritage may have played a role in Superman's origins.

Consider that in the face of ethnic oppression of Jews worldwide, they chose to cast Superman as the lone survivor of his race. Then, after Israel was founded and Jewish people worldwide slowly emerged out from under the thumb of oppression, we saw more Kryptonian survivors.

I suppose that's one thing that doesn't jive for me with the "lone survivor" status that Byrne reimposed; I see Krypton's destruction as a literary metaphor for the Final Solution of the Third Reich and the revival of the Kryptonians as a metaphor for the renewed, yet guarded, hope of Jewish people in the wake of tragedy.

---

This thread seems to be the place where Siegel & Shuster and Superman's origins are discussed -- so I hope Patrick doesn't mind if I quote him here. This stuff is too interesting to just die out in another thread because it's off-topic. I don't personally agree with these (interesting) views, but maybe the regulars of the '30s to the 50s' thread would like to discuss them.

posted September 22, 2002 05:29 PM    

Mark Waid's intro for Superman in the 50s does touch on the Golem as social justice hero of the people myth in Siegel & Shuster (to put it in more cumbersome words than I ought to). And Waid seems to suggest that this function was somewhat abandoned in the fifties (and sixties)--to be recovered in the seventies (and later).

And great to have Mark Waid posting on this thread.

I never compared the logos, but I kinda guessed that the drop shadows and such were not quite right for the true classic logo. But I thought that would be really picky to point out--and at least this mock version of the original is tons better than the presumably mock version of the classic Batman logo on the fifties Batman collection.

And I kinda suspected that it would probably take too much work to try and reconstruct a lot of the early fifties stories--so DC mostly stuck with the already reprinted before stuff. But as a fan I took it upon myself to express my desire for the earlier stuff--just to put that out there.

It's striking that Mr. Waid should be so honest in letting us know that there's virtually no budget for these books. A sad--painful--reality.

I only hope that the archives might do a bit better. If DC archives Superman material first (and gets us old timers to fund these projects by charging high prices on those hardcover volumes), then printing cheaper TPBs should not be so expensive. I imagine it didn't cost near as much to publish Crisis on Multiple Earths since all the material for that softcover had already been reconstructed for the JLA archives.

posted September 22, 2002 06:06 PM    

Luckily, years later, I was able to purchase my own copy.

quote:

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I would like to see these volumes re-released in full colour. Or am I dreaming?

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posted September 22, 2002 09:11 PM       

And about Crisis on Multiple Earths....

I know both Crisis on Earth-1, and the Earth-3 story have been reprinted before. The last two might not have, but still, I believe anything from the 60s can be reprinted with minimal effort.

What is the budget for such s book anyway.

I think the fans should vote on the stories, like Marvel did. The votes were alot more diverse.

posted September 22, 2002 09:41 PM       

quote:

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Originally posted by Mark Waid:

3) I wrote the intro and the chapter breaks, but not the paragraph about Lori Lemaris. : )

---

Sure you didn't.

That's okay though, it's a very understandable typo. After all, both stories (the one from Showcase #9, and the one from Superman #129) were named �The Girl in Superman's Past,� and they are both from the Fifties.

posted September 23, 2002 08:29 PM    

As I understand it, there are several problems with restoration. If you photocopy a page from a comic book you wind up with either a B&W white copy with several shades of grey or a color copy with several dots of color. With the B&W those shades of grey are made of many little dots of black--that black overlaps with the actual black inks so trying to make a B&W copy of just the actual inked lines without the grey involves somehow trying to get those little black dots out without also removing the inked lines.

With a color copy, the photocopy tends to fade the black lines and you have to get rid of all those color dots while at the same time retaining the inked black lines (which might actually look brown on a color photocopy).

Now you could just use the photographed pages and print those--and this has been done. Marvel has done it a lot and the recent Art Spiegelman Jack Cole's Plastic Man also does it. But you wind up with pages that look like photographs of comic pages--and the qualitative aesthetics of that are debatable.

As I understand it the usual practice these days has someone re-inking the entire page. The page is blown up to a larger size and the new inker tries to trace the exact lines of the original inker. This takes a lot of time, and you have to pay the guy doing the re-inking.

The Theakston process seems to have been some kind of process that bleached out all the color dots from an original comic book page, leaving only the black ink. This process, of course, destroyed the original comic book. Thus it was preferable to use comics that reprinted older comics (since the older comics tend to be higher priced collector's items). So if you have an eighty-page Giant from the sixties that reprints stories from the fifties, it's preferable to capture the images from that Giant rather than destroying more collectable fifties comics.

With the Superman archives, they Theakstonized a lot of the first volume because the original issues of Superman reprinted stories from Action. If one issue of Superman contains Superman stories from four issues of Action then you only have to destroy one issue of Superman rather than destroying four issues of Action. But as I understand it, most of the archives that have followed since then have not used the Theakston process as it is too costly.

In the sixties, most Giants didn't reprint forties material because DC didn't have the plates (or photostats) for those stories. They did reprint fifties stories because they had those plates (what happened to those plates in later decades? I don't know). In the late sixties (around when Carmine Infantino was promoted to an executive position), DC tried reprinting some older material. In these cases they had to re-ink the pages (Infantino himself re-inked a "Here Comes Alfred" story).

But only a few of these stories were done. As E. Nelson Bridwell explained it in a Superman letter column (I posted on this several months ago in the "Superman in the Seventies" thread), Carmine Infantino asked Jack Adler, National Periodical's production ace at the time, to come up with a process that would allow them to reprint older stories without laborious re-inking. Adler was an inventive genius (he had come up with his own 3-D viewer that was actually better than the later ViewMaster invention but he couldn't secure a patend, and when ViewMaster came along he was done out of a fortune), he did all kinds of production tricks that should have been impossible at the time given the printing processes for comics in those days--in the early seventies there were covers and even inside stories that used photographs, all thanks to Adler who often took the photos himself.

Accepting Infantino's challenge, Adler came up with a process that allowed National to reprint loads of vintage stories (and the early seventies comics of those days are full of these). Actually ENB says that Adler came up with two processes, one being more expensive than the other. I gather the cheaper process was the one that was mostly used on DC comics (although the Famous First Editions are quite good and maybe used the more expensive process).

Judging by the quality of some stories, though (eg. Lou Fine stories in the 100 Page Super-Specs, where Fine's delicates lines don't always reproduce) this cheaper process probably wasn't the greatest, but it did the job. Just what these two processes were I don't know. I expect, given Adler's genius for photographic processes, he may have used some fancy photographic techniques, perhaps using different color filters to filter out all the color dots on a comic page to render just the black inked image.

Why these processes aren't used now--what drawbacks make them unusable--I don't know.

I have both the Superman and the Batman From the 30s to the 70s, but not the Shazam! From the 40s to the 70s. I remember finding these Bonanza hardcover books in the early seventies--probably at Coles--reduced for sale. I think each book cost me about a dollar (I also got the Ms. paperback publication, Wonder Woman, which reprints 40s WW exclusively, at around the same time, probably at the same store, for about the same obscenely low price).

My Bonanza books are still in pretty good shape--that white paper has hardly aged at all--even though I've done nothing to preserve them and they sat for many years in my musty basement apartment, back when I lived in a basement suite. Consequently they do have a bit of a musty smell, but not as pungent as some books that I kept in boxes on the floor in that suite. I would prefer to have new-ink smelling editions to peruse, though.

I guess such huge volumes would have to be priced even higher than the archives--about the price of DC slipcover volumes. But such boutique items could probably be sold to old timers who tend to salivate over such things, and render DC a small profit.

posted September 24, 2002 12:07 AM    

All the years Australia (and NZ) were issuing reprint comic books -- the exact same comics as in America, except they were just nicely clean black and white, ie. all you got, basically, was the "inking" -- how were those comics (and this involves just about any and every DC comic) delivered to the Aussie publishers? Plates? What -- metal plates? I don't think there were photostats or photocopies or anything like that till the early 70s were there (I'm not sure about that)... And the Aussie reprints go wayyyy back. Anyway: you know what I'm asking.

posted September 26, 2002 03:35 PM    

While it might seem that I know a lot, I really don't. In my last post, I had to do a lot of guess work, and it's quite possible I was wrong on some things.

I've relied mainly on my memory--and my memory relies on things I've read in comics, magazines, books, and on these message boards.

Maybe I should have another look at the Metropolis Edition of The Amazing World of Superman--that was the book that first taught me about how comic books are made (and since there were lots of changes in this process after its publications, I'm overdue for a refresher course).

From that book, as I recall, National sent their pages to a company that did the separations, making negatives for the different four colours (a black negative, a blue negative, a yellow negative, and a magenta negative--which would each generate a corresponding positive lead plate), and then there was the company that actually printed the comic. So there were two companies involved in the process of printing the comic after it was produced at the National offices.

So it seems possible that either black and white pages were sent to foreign locations, and these were made into negatives there, which generated plates, OR the actual black negatives themselves were shipped to these foreign locations. I doubt they would have sent color negatives since this would have been an added cost--when they could just as easily have mailed notes on what colours should be used for each page.

All of this was done through the mails of course (I imagine they had to pay insurance on these shipments, since if these were lost or destroyed in transit it would cost them a lot in lost production).

What are separations? As I understand it (I have to use that phrase a lot here), someone takes the colors of the colorist as suggested colors for the page, but actually these are translated into numbers. The numbers reflect a ratio of different colors. For red, you have so much magenta (so many dots of magenta) for so much yellow to create an illusion of red. To create different browns or greys you have a certain balance of magenta, yellow, and blue to create the illusion of those shades. So someone creates a page of magenta reflecting those percentages, and likewise a page of blue and a page of yellow, in addition to the page of black (provided by the black inked page). When all these four colours overlap onto one printed page--voila--you get a full colour comic.

And man am I having a hard time as a Canadian deciding how to spell "colour." Since we're talking about American processes, do I use their spelling for these processes? or do I use the proper word, which for Canadians is "colour?"

posted October 06, 2002 06:56 PM    

circa 2000 BC--the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh, legendary hero of Babylon.

2000 - 1400 BC--Minoan civilization on Crete.

1600 - 1100 BC--Mycenaean civilization in Greece.

over 3000 years ago
--Hebrew texts--Torah, Neviim, & Ketuvim (the 24 books of the Jewish bible)--tell of Samson (super-strong champion of his people), Moses (found in the bullrushes by an Egyptian princess) and others.
--Greek legends of Prometheus, Perseus, Herakles, Theseus, and others. Many Greek legends tell of super-strong heroes who were abandoned as infants and raised to manhood in foreign lands and humans with divine powers.

circa 700 BC--the Iliad & Odyssey by "Homer" recount in epic poetry the oral stories of the Trojan War handed down through many generations in Ancient Greece.

29 - 19 BC--until his death, Vergil writes the Aeneid, the Latin epic poem about the mythic founding of Rome.

1500 - 500 years ago--Celtic tales give rise to Arthurian legends of knightly heroes possessing great courage and strength.

8th century AD--the Old English poem of Beowulf (a dragon-slaying hero) is written down.

circa 1200 AD--the Elder Edda collection of Icelandic poems is written down.

13th century AD--in Iceland, Snorri Sturlusson (1179 - 1241) writes down the Prose Edda.

1468 - 1471 AD--Sir Thomas Malory imprisoned in Newgate prison in England until his death writes Le Morte d'Arthur, which is published on July 31, 1485.

16th - 17th century AD--legend has it that Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague (1525 - 1609) knew how to arrange the secret names of God in such a way as to create a Golem, a man brought to life out of clay, to serve his bidding and protect the Jewish people (the rabbi's name means Lion of Judah, by the way). When "emet" was written on the Golem's forehead it came to life. When the first letter was erased it left "met" meaning death and the Golem became dust. The Golem is said to have been a champion of the Jewish people in Prague before it crumbled to pieces; its remains are reputed to still exist in the "Golem's room" of an ancient Prague synagogue.

1752--Micromegas by Voltaire (Steranko offers this as one of the first works of speculative fiction about life on other planets).

1816--nineteen year old Mary Wolstonecraft--along with her lover, the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley--spends a summer of poor weather as guest of George Gordon, Lord Byron (another reknowned Romantic), in his Swiss villa, along with Byron's doctor, John William Polidori. Given their imprisonment indoors, due to the weather, Byron proposes that the four of them each come up with a horror story. This gives rise to Mary's fantasy of a modern-day Prometheus (the Titan Prometheus stole fire from heaven and gave it to man, for which he was punished by the gods). Mary Shelley creates Victor von Frankenstein, a scentist who sparks human life in a dead form (like the Golem myth). This novel is completed in 1817 and then published in 1818 as Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus. Wolstonecraft and Shelley were married in 1817 after the unfortunate death of his first wife.

1865--De la Terre a la Lune (From the Earth to the Moon) by Jules Verne.

1876--August 13 - 17, at Bayreuth, Germany "Der Ring des Niebelungen" ("The Ring of the Nibelung") is performed for the first time in its entirety (over a four day period). Originally conceived by composer Richard Wagner in 1848 as an allegorical response to the revolutions throughout Europe in that year, this operatic cycle took decades to complete and ultimately bring to the stage. The cycle was drawn from the Nibelungenlied, an old German epic, and several Scandinavian sources including the Prose Edda and Elder Edda. The four operas in the cycle are: "Das Rheingold," "Die Walkure," "Siegfried," & "Gotterdamerung" ("The Rhinegold," "The Valkyrie," "Siegfried," & "Twilight of the Gods").

1883 - 85 --philosopher Friedrich Nietsche writes Also Sprach Zarathrustra (Thus Spake Zarathrustra) which announces the doctrine of the Ubermensch (Superman).

1898--The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.

1901--The First Men in the Moon by H.G. Wells.

1903--"Man and Superman" by George Bernard Shaw is first performed on stage.

1905
--June 5, Wayne Boring born in Minnesota, USA.
--The Scarlet Pimpernel[i] by the Baroness Orczy is first published, several years after being written and after being performed on stage.

1912--"Under the Moons of Mars," by Norman Bean (aka Edgar Rice Burroughs), published in six parts from February to July in [i]All-Story Magazine (later in 1917 published as the novel A Princess of Mars); "Tarzan of the Apes", by Burroughs, published in October, also in All-Story.

1914
--June 28, the murders in Sarajevo of the Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife by a Serb assasin provide a pretext for "The Great War," now known as the First World War--a battle of European nationalist powers and their colonies around the world.
--July 10, Joseph Shuster born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
--October 17, Jerome Siegel born in Cleveland, Ohio, USA.

1915
--April 25, Mort Weisinger born in New York, NY, USA.
--June, Julius Schwartz also born in New York, NY, USA (in the Bronx).

1917
--March, Tsar Nicholas of Russia is forced to abdicate.
--November, the Bolshevik Revolution gives Lenin ultimate power over Russia.

1918--The allied powers defeat Germany and Austria, the Great War ends with a loss of ten million souls.

1919
--January - June, the Versailles conference, and the resulting Versailles Treaty, redraws the map of Europe and imposes heavy reparations and demilitarization upon Germany.
--Adolf Hitler joins the German Workers' Party.

1920
--February 17, Douglas Curt Swan born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, although his parents had previously moved from Saskatchewan, Canada (in a former generation the family name was shortened from Swanson to Swan).
--"The Mark of Zorro" (silent movie), directed by Fred Nildo, starring Douglas Fairbanks, Marguritte de la Motte, Noah Berry.
--December 15, Kurt Schaffenberger born in Germany.

1923
--the Shuster family moves from Toronto, Canada, to Cleveland, USA.
--November, Hitler leads unsuccessful putsch in Munich and is imprisoned.

1924 - 25 --Hitler writes Mein Kampf in prison.

1926--"Metropolis" (silent) directed by Fritz Lang, an example of German Expressionist film-making, tells the futuristic story, with certain religious overtones, of a struggle between the rich upper class (who live in the towers above the city) and the poor working class (who live and work below the city).

1927--May 20 - 21, Charles Lindberg makes first solo non-stop trans-Atlantic flight from New York to Paris.

1928--August, "Armageddon--2419 AD," a short story by Francis Philip Nowlan, is published in Amazing Stories, and then in 1929 is adapted as a comic strip, "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century."

1929
--January 7, "Tarzan" by Hal Foster and "Buck Rogers" by Dick Calkin first appear in newspapers.
--January 29, Thursday, Popeye first appears in the "Thimble Theatre" comic strip by Elzie Chrisler Segar.
--George Delacorte publishes The Funnies a weekly tabloid sized book of original comics pages that copied the format of the Sunday funny papers.
--"Black Tuesday," October 29th, the stock market collapses, bringing on the Great Depression.

1930
--The Gladiator by Philip Wylie introduces the modern-day superman, Hugo Danner.
--July 31, Thursday, beginning as a "host" of a pulp anthology radio show, The Shadow makes his first appearance on the "Detective Story Hour." Maxwell Grant (aka Walter Gibson) writes the first Shadow dime novel, "The Living Shadow," published in March, 1931.

circa 1931--Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster first meet at Glenville High School in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, and find a common interest in science fiction.

1932
--January, in the Bronx, Mort Weisinger and Julie Schwartz begin a mimeograph fanzine called The Time Traveller.
--Hitler consolidates his power in the German parliament.
--February 4 - 15, Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, USA.
--July 30 - August 14, Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, USA. A young Jack Cole bicycles 7000 miles from his home in New Castle, Pennsylvania, to Los Angles, California, to see the Summer Olympics, but doesn't have enough money for admittance when he gets there (the story of this youthful adventure appears, in Cole's own words, in the Steranko History of Comics, vol. 2--one should note that born December 14, 1914, Jack Cole (creator of Plastic Man) was of the same age as Siegel & Shuster--Bill Finger, co-creator of Batman and Green Lantern, was also born in 1914).
--summer, in the Bronx, Mort Weisinger and Julie Schwartz's fanzine (The Time Traveller) becomes a journal, Science Fiction Digest.
--October, in Cleveland, Siegel and Shuster launch their mimeograph fanzine, Science Fiction.

1933
--January, Siegel and Shuster publish in Science Fiction "The Reign of the Superman," written by Siegel, with illustrations by Shuster.
--January 30, the German chancellor refuses to cooperate with the Nazi party in the parliament and resigns; Paul von Hindenburg (president of the German republic) invites Hitler to become chancellor.
--"The Man of Bronze" by Lester Dent appears in the first issue of Doc Savage Magazine, cover-date March, 1933.
--March 4, in his inaugural address, the new US president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt states, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
--in Germany, Jews are forced out of the civil service; Jews are sent to concentration camps.
--at Eastern Color Printing, Harry Wildenberg, M.C. Gaines, and Leverett Gleason invent the modern comic book, producing Funnies on Parade, then Famous Funnies.

1934
--January 7, the "Flash Gordon" comic strip by Alex Raymond debuts.
--January, Hitler signs non-aggression pact with Poland.
--Hindenburg (over 85 years old) dies. Hitler combines the offices of president and chancellor, assuming the title, "Der Fuhrer" (the leader). Members of the German government and army are required to swear an oath of loyalty to Der Fuhrer. Hitler targets for death all those he sees as enemies--including military leaders, political opponents, communists, and Jews.
--June 11, "Mandrake the Magician" by Lee Falk first appears in newspapers.
--one summer night, Jerry Siegel dreams up his new idea of "Superman." He races to his friend Joe Shuster's house the next morning, where they brainstorm concepts for the character. Steranko's History of Comics states these seminal events happened in 1933, but Roger Stern (in his introduction to Superman: The Sunday Classics 1939 - 1943[i], published 1998) states they happened in the summer of 1934--since Stern's work is more up-to-date, I've accepted his dates over Steranko.
--"The Mightiest Machine," a story by John W. Campbell (aka Don A. Stuart), is published in [i]Astounding Science Fiction. The story features a superman named Aarn Munro.
--"The Scarlet Pimpernel" (talking movie) directed by Harold Young. Leslie Howard, stars as the Pimpernel, who is a weak fop as Sir Percy Blakenay. The incomparable Merle Oberon plays his wife, Lady Blakenay who scorns her husband's seeming lack of bravado. While Raymond Massey is cast in the role of the French villain who seeks to prevent the Pimpernel's tactics in saving many unfortunates from the guillotine. Raymond Massey had a long and distinguished acting career in the United States (he even played Abraham Lincoln), but he was the son of a wealthy and influential family in Toronto, Canada. It was said in Toronto there are two kinds of people, the masses and the Masseys. Raymond's brother, Vincent, distinguished himself as a commanding officer of the Royal Canadian Armed Forces in the Great War. In 1930, the politically active Vincent Massey became the first Canadian ambassador to the United States. By 1935, Vincent was in London, England, serving as Canada's High Commissioner to Great Britain. In this influential position, Vincent Massey was able to affect Canadian (and international) policy on the immigration of Jewish refugees then suffering under the brutal Nazi regime in Europe, but the high commissioner was no Pimpernel. The anti-semitic sentiments of Vincent Massey encouraged the Canadian government to close their doors to Jewish refugees. Vincent Massey's services to the Dominion were rewarded in 1952 when he was appointed as the first Canadian-born Governor General of Canada, a position he held until relinquishing it in 1959.

1935
--Germany resumes conscription and repudiates the Versailles Treaty. The Nuremburg Law strips Jews of German citizenship.
--Major Malcolm Wheeler Nicholson's National Allied Publications begins with New Fun Comics no. 1, cover-date February, 1935 (New Fun would be re-titled as More Fun Comics with issue 7); in New Fun Comics no. 6 (cover-dated October, 1935), Siegel and Shuster have their first comic book work, "Henri Duval of France, Famed Soldier of Fortune" & "Dr. Occult, the Ghost Detective"--both black & white one-page features. They offer "Superman" to Wheeler Nicholson, but this feature is declined. Later that same year, the Major launches another title, New Comics, cover-dated December, 1935 (eventually re-titled New Adventure and then Adventure Comics).

1936
--January, Sheldon Mayer comes to work for M.C. Gaines, where he sees the Siegel & Shuster "Superman" and urges its publication.
--February 6 - 16, Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.
--February 17, "The Phantom" by Lee Falk first appears in newspapers.
--the Spanish civil war begins, Nazi Germany supports the fascists in Spain.
--Hitler takes the Rhineland and signs the Rome-Berlin Axis pact with Mussolini (fascist dictator of Italy).
--August 1 - 16, Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany.

1937
--Siegel & Shuster create "Slam Bradley" and "Spy" for Detective Comics no. 1, cover-dated March, 1937, while they continue to shop around "Superman" with no luck.
--July 2, Amelia Earhart Putnam and her co-pilot Fred Noonan lost near Howland Island in the Pacific.
--Jewish passports are revoked in Germany (and German held lands).
--Major Wheeler Nicholson sells off his comic book company to his business partner, Harry Donenfeld.

1938
--the Anschluss proclaims Austria as part of Greater Germany. Hitler claims the Sudetenland in Czechoslavakia as a part of Greater Germany. Jews are required to carry identity cards. Jewish doctors and lawyers lose their licenses. Jews are banned from universities, kicked out of German schools.
--Action Comics no. 1, cover-dated June, 1938, featuring "Superman" by Siegel and Shuster.
--September 29, Mussolini, Hitler, Chamberlain (prime minister of Great Britain), and Edouard Daladier (prime minister of France) meet in Munich and sign an agreement allowing German occupation of the Sudetenland. Britain and Germany sign a pledge never to go to war against each other. Chamberlain returns to Britain and proclaims, "Peace in our time," brandishing the paper Hitler had signed.
--October 30, from New York Orson Welles broadcasts a radio adaptation of H.G. Well's The War of the Worlds; listeners tuning in late believe Martians have invaded the Earth and panic ensues.
--November 9, Kritstallnacht. On the orders of the German government, and organized by the Nazi Party, the homes, businesses, and synagogues of Jews are attacked, windows broken (breaking glass--Kristallnacht, "crystal night" was named for the breaking of glass); people are wrenched from their homes and businesses, beaten, shot or dragged off to concentration camps. Scores are killed, hundreds injured, thousands arrested.

posted October 06, 2002 07:44 PM    

quote:

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India Ink:
comprehensive chronology of precursors and context for the creation of Superman by Siegel & Shuster

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That is superb. A neat piece of work.

quote:

---

--September 29, Mussolini, Hitler, Chamberlain (prime minister of Great Britain), and Edouard Daladier (prime minister of France) meet in Munich and sign an agreement allowing German occupation of the Sudetenland. Britain and Germany sign a pledge never to go to war against each other. Chamberlain returns to Britain and proclaims, "Peace in our time," brandishing the paper Hitler had signed.

---

Yes, there was a hell of a lot going on in the world, never mind the debut of Superman comics.

posted October 06, 2002 08:53 PM    

So far, I couldn't track down the exact date of Julius Schwartz's birth, just that it was in June of 1915. Schwartz and Weisinger were born in the exact same year. I could only track down that Mort was born in New York, but not if he was born in the Bronx. In any case at some time in his childhood he was in the Bronx, and went to high school there--although I don't know if Julie and Mort went to the same high school in the Bronx. But they became part of the same science fiction club in the Bronx.

Although one year younger than Siegel & Shuster, Weisinger & Schwartz in the Bronx seemed to have led the way ahead of the Cleveland boys, as they put out their mimeo fanzine before Jerry & Joe. Not that it's likely the two pairs of teens knew anything about the other.

It's also interesting to find that both Boring and Swan were born in Minnesota, albeit fifteen years apart. I couldn't determine where Boring was born in Minnesota, although it seems he had some art school training in Minneapolis (where Swan was born).

I could rationalize including birth-dates for Boring, Weisinger, Schwartz, & Swan because they have some indirect relationship to the early Superman, and they are of later importance to the whole legend. But including Schaffenberger was possibly just a personal desire to include a favourite artist. Schaffenberger was at Fawcett mainly in the 40s, and didn't come to the Superman books until later in the 50s. And if I included Kurt--then why not Al Plastino, John Forte, Pete Costanza, Stan Kaye, Jack Burnley, et al? Well, because the date and place of Kurt's birth seemed significant--that he was born in Germany in 1920 brings a certain connection to the history that makes it more compelling.

I was also indulgent in including some info about Canada, but it's my home and I feel connected to Superman through all those Canadian connections. My indictment of Vincent Massey might have been too much for the purposes of this thread--although the irony of "The Scarlet Pimpernel" is one of those things that amuses me in a pessimistic way. I think that the movie on some level was meant as an allegory for the times. And there was a second movie (but I don't know. if it was with the same cast) which was about the Pimpernel during WWII, made in Britain to boost British morale during the war--where the allegory stops being an allegory and becomes a literal truth.

The Baroness Orczy's book (her name was Emmuska Magdalena Rosalia Marie Josepha Barbara, the Baroness Orczy) was one of those that I read as a teen which had a profound influence on me. The strange relationship between Percy and his wife is amazing. He's virtually masochistic, allowing his wife to verbally abuse him, all the while knowing the real truth. One evening after she denounces him, after she leaves, he kisses the ground at each place where her footsteps fell as she left him.

The attitude and look of Lois Lane in the stories from Action no. 1 and the reprinted version in Superman no. 1 have Lois looking a lot like Merle Oberon, and reflect that haughty Lady Blakenay personality (especially in the scene at the night club where Lois gives Clark a tongue-lashing). On the CBC, in Canada, they often play late night movies of old British classics, especially those Korda movies starring Merle Oberon. They did when I was a teen and they still do now. Ah, what a lady that Merle Oberon!

I goofed up on the italics with the [/i] a couple of times--but I always seem to goof up with those.

When they were in their teens Schwartz, Weisinger, and another science fiction fellow were crossing a street and hit by a truck which put Weisinger in hospital and this is when Weisinger became productive about writing science fiction. That's a rough encapsulation of something I read on a website--I'll see if I can track down the exact details later. Anyhow, this reminds me of Jim Shooter who started writing and drawing comic book from his sick-bed--and maybe that was a connection between the editor and the young writer. Confinement seems to bring about great ideas (or not so great in the case of Hitler).

Like Siegel & Shuster, Mary Wolstonecraft was a teenager when she created Frankenstein. And she was confined (by weather). But she probably was also depressed--her mother died in childbirth, she and Percy Bysshe Shelley had a tortured relationship, she had lost one child by him and was probably pregnant with another at that time in Switzerland at Lord Byron's villa. An important element of creation seems to be depression--but not depression the extent of an inability to act. Friedrich Nietsche was a very depressed man, and his philosophy was born from that.

posted October 06, 2002 09:05 PM    

quote:

---

Early Inspirations

Mort Weisinger attended high school in the Bronx. Born around 1914-1916, Weisinger belonged to a generation that included his friend Julius Schwartz, Jerry Siegel, Jerome Shuster and, chronologically, Jack Kirby. The comics talents born in the teens of the twentieth century would lay the foundations for the explosion of the medium made possible by talents born in the twenties (a Who's Who of Silver Age talent would mainly contain those names).

Weisinger came to comics indirectly through fandom. However, he came through science fiction fandom, rather than comics fandom. Not only had comics fandom not yet appeared in his youth; Superman, the archetype of the superhero, and the clay that Weisinger would eventually mold, would not appear until Weisinger grew up.

He formed a fan club that would ultimately generate (arguably) the first fanzine. He solicited memberships for his science fiction fan club, the Sciencers, through one of the pulp magazines of the day (probably Amazing Stories), a club through which Weisinger would encounter (as members) Julius Schwartz,

Weisinger and Schwartz began accumulating information about the authors of science fiction stories, generally through mail, and ultimately had a body of material that they decided to publish in a mimeographed newsletter titled The Time Traveller in 1932. The Time Traveller listed Weisinger, Schwartz, Forrest J. Ackerman, and Allen Glasser as editors.

The Sciencers understood networking. They solicited subscriptions to The Time Traveller by sending subscription notices to the addresses on fan letters in science fiction magazines like Amazing Stories; while the newsletter probably attracted under fifty original subscribers, it did become an early nationally distributed fan publication. Julius Schwartz names it as the first.

Soon after its inception, the Time Traveller began to include stories. It changed its name to Science Fiction Digest in 1933 and again to Fantasy Magazine in 1934. By the latter year, the piece had begun carrying stories by A. A. Merritt, John Campbell, and E. E. "Doc" Smith, all of whom became names in science fiction, and Otto Binder, whose work would also connect him in later decades to comic books.

The Solar Sales Service

According to Julius Schwartz, in 1934 an auto struck Weisinger, Schwartz himself, and Otto Binder while the three hiked in Palisades Park. While in the hospital, Weisinger thought about the connections he had made while researching authors and interviewing editors, and decided to turn the Sciencers' hobby into a livelihood. Schwartz and Weisinger thus solicited themselves as agents of the Solar Sales Service, promoting themselves as facilitators who, owing to their personal familiarity with a number of central editors in the science fiction field, could connect more directly to these editors than authors relying on mailed manuscripts that might wait indefinitely on an editor's desk.

Weisinger defined the essence of the editor's problem: Writers did not know what editors wanted, when they wanted it. A contact like Weisinger, however, did, and could direct manuscripts to where they had the best chance of filling a hole in a particular issue of a science fiction magazine.

Solar Sales Service attracted Edmond Hamilton as an early client, later hustling the likes of Stanley Weinbaum as well.

---

posted October 12, 2002 06:43 PM    

Owen Cardiff Darcy
Member posted October 11, 2002 06:15 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SIEGEL AND SHUSTER ARCHIVES VOL. 1 (228 pages)
DR. OCCULT, RADIO SQUAD AND OTHER FEATURES
NEW FUN THE BIG COMIC MAGAZINE #1, 2 and 6; MORE FUN THE BIG COMIC MAGAZINE #7 and 8; MORE FUN COMICS #9-50; and THE COMICS MAGAZINE Vol. 1 #1
JIGGER AND GINGER (2 pages)

New Fun The Big Comic Magazine #1
"Jigger and Ginger" (1 page)

New Fun The Big Comic Magazine #2
Jigger and Ginger in "The Escaped Convicts: Part 1" (1 page)

HENRI DUVAL (6 pages)

New Fun The Big Comic Magazine #6
"Henri Duval" (1 page)

More Fun The Big Comic Magazine #7
Henri Duval in "Rescuing the King: Part 2" (1 page)

More Fun The Big Comic Magazine #8
Henri Duval in "Rescuing the King: Part 3" (1 page)

More Fun Comics #9
"Henri Duval" (1 page)

More Fun Comics #10
Henri Duval in "The Capture of Duval" (2 pages)

DR. OCCULT (72 pages)

New Fun The Big Comic Magazine #6
"Introducing Dr. Occult" (1 page)

More Fun The Big Comic Magazine #7
Dr. Occult in "The Vampire Master: Part 2" (1 page)

More Fun The Big Comic Magazine #8
Dr. Occult in "The Vampire Master: Part 3" (1 page)

More Fun Comics #9
"Dr. Occult" (1 page)

More Fun Comics #10
Dr. Occult in "The Metheuselah Murders" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #11
Dr. Occult in "The Werewolf: Part 1" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #12
Dr. Occult in "The Werewolf: Part 2" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #13
Dr. Occult in "The Werewolf: Part 3" (2 pages)

The Comics Magazine vol. 1 #1
"Dr. Mystic" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #14
Dr. Occult in "Koth and the Seven: Part 1" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #15
Dr. Occult in "Koth and the Seven: Part 2" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #16
Dr. Occult in "Koth and the Seven: Part 3" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #17
Dr. Occult in "Koth and the Seven: Part 4" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #18
Dr. Occult in "The Life Ray: Part 1" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #19
Dr. Occult in "The Life Ray: Part 2" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #20
Dr. Occult in "The Lord of Life: Part 1" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #21
Dr. Occult in "The Lord of Life: Part 2" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #22
Dr. Occult in "The Lord of Life: Part 3" (4 pages)

More Fun Comics #23
Dr. Occult in "The Lord of Life: Part 4" (4 pages)

More Fun Comics #24
Dr. Occult in "The HD Murders" (4 pages)

More Fun Comics #25
Dr. Occult in "The Shrinking Doom" (4 pages)

More Fun Comics #26
"Dr. Occult" (4 pages)

More Fun Comics #27
"Dr. Occult" (4 pages)

More Fun Comics #28
"Dr. Occult" (4 pages)

More Fun Comics #29
"Dr. Occult" (4 pages)

More Fun Comics #30
"Dr. Occult" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #31
"Dr. Occult" (4 pages)

More Fun Comics #32
"Dr. Occult" (4 pages)

RADIO SQUAD/CALLING ALL CARS (148 pages)

More Fun Comics #11
Calling All Cars in "The Purple Tiger: Part 1" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #12
Calling All Cars in "The Purple Tiger: Part 2" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #13
Calling All Cars in "The Purple Tiger: Part 3" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #14
"Calling All Cars" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #15
"Calling All Cars" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #16
Calling All Cars in "The Maniac and the Cameraman" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #17
Calling All Cars in "The Dan Bowers Case: Part 1" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #18
Calling All Cars in "The Dan Bowers Case: Part 2" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #19
Radio Squad in "The Dan Bowers Case: Part 3" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #20
Radio Squad in "The Dan Bowers Case: Part 4" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #21
Radio Squad in "The Dan Bowers Case: Part 5" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #22
Radio Squad in "The Dan Bowers Case: Part 6" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #23
Radio Squad in "The Radio-Controlled Armored Car" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #24
Radio Squad in "Harry Owens Makes the Grade" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #25
Radio Squad in "The Booze Trucker" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #27
"Radio Squad" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #28
"Radio Squad" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #29
"Radio Squad" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #30
"Radio Squad" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #31
"Radio Squad" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #32
"Radio Squad" (2 pages)

More Fun Comics #33
"Radio Squad" (6 pages)

More Fun Comics #34
"Radio Squad" (6 pages)

More Fun Comics #35
"Radio Squad" (4 pages)

More Fun Comics #36
"Radio Squad" (6 pages)

More Fun Comics #37
"Radio Squad" (6 pages)

More Fun Comics #38
"Radio Squad" (6 pages)

More Fun Comics #39
"Radio Squad" (6 pages)

More Fun Comics #40
"Radio Squad" (6 pages)

More Fun Comics #41
Radio Squad in "Death On the Telephone" (6 pages)

More Fun Comics #42
Radio Squad in "The Gyp Conroy Case" (6 pages)

More Fun Comics #43
Radio Squad in "The Purse Snatcher" (6 pages)

More Fun Comics #44
Radio Squad in "The Invisible Terror" (6 pages)

More Fun Comics #45
Radio Squad in "Framed For Murder" (6 pages)

More Fun Comics #46
Radio Squad in "The Snipers" (6 pages)

More Fun Comics #47
Radio Squad in "Terrorism Must Cease" 6 pages)

More Fun Comics #48
Radio Squad in "The Colossal Jewelry Store Robbery" (6 pages)

More Fun Comics #49
Radio Squad in "The Guerney Brothers" (6 pages)

More Fun Comics #50
Radio Squad in "Car Stealing On Increase" (6 pages)

SIEGEL AND SHUSTER ARCHIVES VOL. 2 (201 pages)
FEDERAL MEN AND EARLY WORK
SIEGEL AND SHUSTER: DATELINE 1930s #1 and 2; NEW COMICS #2-11; NEW ADVENTURE COMICS #12-14 and 16-31; and ADVENTURE COMICS #32-41

EARLY WORK (51 pages; originally collected in SIEGEL AND SHUSTER: DATELINE 1930s)

Cover Illustration (1 page)
"The Strangest Story Ever Told" (1 page)
Untitled (1 page)
"The orchestra rises to a smashing climax" (1 page)
"Introducing... the Waif" (1 page)
"What'sa matter, Spuds?" (1 page)
"How To Become a Mental Marvel Overnight" (1 page)
"How could you, Smiley" (1 page)
"On invitation, the Tarrytown dramatic club" (1 page)
"Yippee! I've struck oil!" (1 page)
"What's the matter, Mommy?" (1 page)
"Two thousand years hence!" (5 pages)
"Good morning, Inko" (1 page)
"Deadly rays blaze! (1 page)
"Today we're going to have a lesson in self-restraint" (1 page)
"Open, you mugs! (1 page)
"Death Rides the Rails: Chapter 1" (1 page)
"Jerry has graduated from his high school paper" (1 page)
"So that's why he took my newspaper!" (1 page)
"Ouch! Is this soup hot!" (1 page)
"A pistol barks and the first half of the big game is ended" (1 page)
"My car, Jason!" (1 page)
"Cease all merrymaking" (1 page)
"And remember--" (1 page)
Cover Illustration (1 page)
"P-s-st! Try an' look innocent, Snoopy!" (12 pages)
"World In Future -- 1980" (2 pages)
"A car stops before the hospital" (1 page)
"Inko! I've an idea that'll knock you out!" (1 page)
"Bruce and Lieut. Macy hurry" (2 pages)
"Aha! He's up to something!" (1 page)
"Luke Foster, a romantically inclined citizen of Lone Peak" (2 pages)
"Straighten up, son!" (1 page)

FEDERAL MEN (150 pages)

New Comics #2
Federal Men in "The Manning Baby Kidnapping" (4 pages)

New Comics #3
Federal Men in "Airborne Revenge" (4 pages)

New Comics #4
Federal Men in "Submarine Terror: Part 1" (2 pages)

New Comics #5
Federal Men in "Submarine Terror: Part 2" (2 pages)

The Comics Magazine Funny pages) vol. 1 #2
"Federal Agent" (4 pages)

New Comics #6
Federal Men in "Attack On Washington: Part 1" (2 pages)

New Comics #7
Federal Men in "Attack on Washington: Part 2" (4 pages)

New Comics #8
Federal Men in "The Unknown Enemy: Part 1" (4 pages)

New Comics #9
Federal Men in "The Unknown Enemy: Part 2" (4 pages)

New Comics #10
Federal Men in "The Unknown Enemy: Part 3" (4 pages)

New Comics #11
Federal Men in "Nate Devlin Crashes the Movies" (4 pages)

New Adventure Comics #12
Federal Men in "Federal Men of Tomorrow" (4 pages)

New Adventure Comics #13
Federal Men in "Mad Knife-Killer Spreads Terror" (4 pages)

New Adventure Comics #14
Federal Men in "Junior Federal Men Vs. Blackie Flint" (4 pages)

New Adventure Comics #16
Federal Men in "The Chinatown Smuggler" (4 pages)

New Adventure Comics #17
Federal Men in "The Case of the Clueless Crime" (4 pages)

New Adventure Comics #18
Federal Men in "Torpedo On Wheels" (4 pages)

New Adventure Comics #19
Federal Men in "The Case of the Cinema Killing" (4 pages)

New Adventure Comics #20
Federal Men in "Junior Federal Men Vs. the Bank Robbers" (4 pages)

New Adventure Comics #21
Federal Men in "Junior Federal Men Vs. the Counterfeiters" (4 pages)

New Adventure Comics #22
Federal Men in "The Stolen Stamp" (4 pages)

New Adventure Comics #23
Federal Men in "The Junior G-Girls" (4 pages)

New Adventure Comics #24
Federal Men in "The Kid and the Waterfront Gang" (4 pages)

New Adventure Comics #25
Federal Men in "Junior Federal Men of the Future" (4 pages)

New Adventure Comics #26
Federal Men in "The Safety Patrol" (4 pages)

New Adventure Comics #27
Federal Men in "The Cobra: Part 1" (4 pages)

New Adventure Comics #28
Federal Men in "The Cobra: Part 2" (4 pages)

New Adventure Comics #29
Federal Men in "The Plot Against America: Part 1" (4 pages)

New Adventure Comics #30
Federal Men in "The Plot Against America: Part 2" (4 pages)

New Adventure Comics #31
Federal Men in "The Kidnapping of Peter Hazelton" (4 pages)

Adventure Comics #32
Federal Men in "On the Wrong Side of the Law: Part 1" (4 pages)

Adventure Comics #33
Federal Men in "On the Wrong Side of the Law: Part 2" (4 pages)

Adventure Comics #34
Federal Men in "On the Wrong Side of the Law: Part 3" (4 pages)

Adventure Comics #35
Federal Men in "On the Wrong Side of the Law: Part 4" (4 pages)

Adventure Comics #36
Federal Men in "On the Wrong Side of the Law: Part 5" (4 pages)

Adventure Comics #37
Federal Men in "On the Wrong Side of the Law: Part 6" (4 pages)

Adventure Comics #38
Federal Men in "The Killing of Judge Thompson" (4 pages)

Adventure Comics #39
Federal Men in "Reefer Madness" (4 pages)

Adventure Comics #40
Federal Men in "The Tarryville Counterfeiters" (4 pages)

Adventure Comics #41
Federal Men in "The Deadly Snowfall" (4 pages)

SIEGEL AND SHUSTER ARCHIVES VOL. 3 (190 pages)
SPY AND SLAM BRADLEY
DETECTIVE COMICS #1-28

SPY (151 pages)

Detective Comics #1
Spy in "The Balinoff Case: Part 1" (4 pages)

Detective Comics #2
Spy in "The Balinoff Case: Part 2" (4 pages)

Detective Comics #3
Spy in "The Nearly-Weds" (4 pages)

Detective Comics #4
Spy in "The Balinoff Case: Part 4" (4 pages)

Detective Comics #5
Spy in "The Balinoff Case: Part 5" (4 pages)

Detective Comics #6
Spy in "The Investigation of Captain Hanley" (4 pages)

Detective Comics #7
Spy in "The COLOSSUS Disaster" (4 pages)

Detective Comics #8
Spy in "The Phony Pierre Blanc" (4 pages)

Detective Comics #9
Spy in "The Vanishing of R-42" (4 pages)

Detective Comics #10
Spy in "To Sink the ATLANTIS" (4 pages)

Detective Comics #11
Spy in "The ATLANTIS Aftermath" (4 pages)

Detective Comics #12
Spy in "Assassins in the Rue Molin" (4 pages)

Detective Comics #13
Spy in "The Peter Rawley Case" (4 pages)

Detective Comics #14
Spy in "The Golden Ray" (4 pages)

Detective Comics #15
Spy in "Mr. Death" (4 pages)

Detective Comics #16
Spy in "A Traitor In Our Midst" (8 pages)

Detective Comics #17
Spy in "The Hooded Hordes" (8 pages)

Detective Comics #18
Spy in "Death's Ruby" (8 pages)

Detective Comics #19
Spy in "Mirror of Doom" (8 pages)

Detective Comics #20
Spy in "Saving Senator Barkley" (8 pages)

Detective Comics #21
Spy in "The Affair of Baron Von Muldorf" (8 pages)

Detective Comics #22
Spy in "Break-In at the Bartilian Embassy" (5 pages)

Detective Comics #23
Spy in "The Celebrity Deaths" (8 pages)

Detective Comics #24
Spy in "Subterfuge At Sea" (6 pages)

Detective Comics #25
Spy in "The President's Assignment" (6 pages)

Detective Comics #26
Spy in "The Man Who Torpedoed Congress" (6 pages)

Detective Comics #27
Spy in "The Mysterious Murders" (6 pages)

Detective Comics #28
Spy in "Saboteurs Bob Steamer" (6 pages)

SLAM BRADLEY (39 pages)

Detective Comics #1
Slam Bradley in "The Streets of Chinatown" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #2
Slam Bradley in "Skyscraper Death" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #3
Slam Bradley in "Slam Delivers the Message" (13 pages)

SIEGEL AND SHUSTER ARCHIVES VOL. 4 (194 pages)
SLAM BRADLEY
DETECTIVE COMICS #4-18

Detective Comics #4
"The Hollywood Murders" (12 pages)

Detective Comics #5
"Undercover In Grade School" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #6
"Slam Bradley In Mexico" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #7
"In Atlantic City" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #8
"The Hillbillies" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #9
"The Human Fly" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #10
"In the Ring" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #11
"The Flying Circus" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #12
"The Lumberjacks" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #13
"At Sea" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #14
"Up North" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #15
"The Lady-Killer" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #16
"The Broadway Bandit" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #17
"Slam Bradley Gets the Air" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #18
"In the Stratosphere" (13 pages)

SIEGEL AND SHUSTER ARCHIVES VOL. 5 (191 pages)
SLAM BRADLEY
DETECTIVE COMICS #19-32 and NEW YORK WORLD'S FAIR #1

Detective Comics #19
"In Africa" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #20
"The Magician" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #21
"Seth and the Slave Ring" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #22
"The Return of Fui Onyui" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #23
"In Two Billion A.D.: Part 1" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #24
"In Two Billion A.D.: Part 2" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #25
"The Merrivale Mystery" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #26
"Artists of Death" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #27
"The Murderer on Vacation" (9 pages)

Detective Comics #28
"The Whitethorne Inheritance" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #29
"Slam Bradley" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #30
"The Granville Insane Asylum" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #31
"Slam Bradley" (13 pages)

Detective Comics #32
"Slam Bradley" (13 pages)

New York World's Fair #1
"Slam Bradley at the World's Fair" (12 pages)

posted October 12, 2002 06:46 PM    

The material in Vol. 2 from NEW COMICS #2-11, NEW ADVENTURE COMICS #12-14 and 16-31 (numbering continued from NEW COMICS) and ADVENTURE COMICS #32-41(numbering continued from NEW ADVENTURE COMICS) is cover dated Jan. 1936 - Aug. 1939.

The material in Vol. 3-5 from DETECTIVE COMICS #1-32 is cover dated March, 1937 - Nov. 1939.

The story in Vol. 5 from NEW YORK WORLD'S FAIR #1 was published in 1939 (no month given).

posted October 15, 2002 12:34 AM    

I was just looking at a reproduction of the cover to Superman #1, and it occurs to me that the logo ("Superman") must be hand-drawn.

posted October 22, 2002 05:08 PM       

Inside, there's an intriguing glimpse of a very early Superboy story. I was surprised to see young Clark Kent strutting around without glasses! And no Ma and Pa Kent in sight - at least in this short story, or much of a supporting cast at all, for that matter.

Apparently, it was a long journey to Smallville! (the Weisinger setting, not the TV show)

Here's the link:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219003758/http://dcindexes.com/

posted October 26, 2002 07:29 PM    

The Boltinoff (Clover and Dover) and Meskin (Johnny Quick) art is the best.

It seems like the influence of Simon & Kirby was being felt in those days (on Green Arrow and Aquaman).

posted October 27, 2002 05:59 AM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by India Ink:
The Superboy story has a certain Captain Marvel, Jr. feeling. I wonder who did the art--Fred Ray?

---

posted October 27, 2002 09:24 PM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by Steven Utley:
. . . I cannot perpend these early Superboy stories without thinking that several factors were at work here and, indeed, often in conflict with one another.

First, someone (almost certainly Harry Donenfeld, National's big kahuna) evidently was dissatisfied with MORE FUN COMICS' sales and wanted something new -- a new feature, a new format -- to attract readers. In consequence of that dissatisfaction, someone (probably Mort Weisinger) brainstormed and precipitated what we nowadays call High Concept. At National in the mid-1940s, what could have been Higher Concept than, "The Adventures of SUPERMAN When He Was A Boy"? What would have been more likely to attract readers than a slice off the Cash Cow of Steel? The impetus of this High Concept impelled someone (again, almost certainly Donenfeld) to the response, "Have it ready to go to the printer by Monday!" But then someone -- again, possibly Donenfeld again, or perhaps his lawyers, perhaps on account of ominous rumblings having been discerned emanating from those malcontents who had only created The Cash Cow of Steel (The Man of Steel [Superman]) (Jerry Seigel and Joe Shuster) -- waxed faint of heart and decided that the new feature (Superboy) should be introduced without fanfare into the middle pages of MORE FUN, which was six issues shy of transforming itself into a book of comical comics (a la those hot new cover-featured sensations, Dover and Clover) and packing off its own line-up of adventure heroes (The Green Arrow, Aquaman, Johnny Quick, The Shining Knight) to, well, ADVENTURE COMICS, whose own line of adventure heroes (Sandman, Starman) was about to be sent packing anyway. (As someone, probably not William Shakespeare, wrote, "You're sacked; get packed.") So why use Superboy to attract readers to Dover and Clover in MORE FUN when he (Superboy) was about to go to ADVENTURE (taking with him The Green Arrow, Aquaman, Johnny Quick, The Shining Knight, and presumably readers who were attracted to him and/or them) and leave MORE FUN to readers who had been attracted by Superboy (and/or et al) Dover and Clover if readers had no way of knowing that the book's (MORE FUN) hot new non-cover-featured feature was Superboy, and why leave MORE FUN to them (Dover and Clover) once having gone to the trouble (which of course no one had done until almost the end of Superboy's run in MORE FUN) of using Superboy to attract readers to them (same two as before) in MORE FUN if those readers were then supposed to follow Superboy and Co. (same four as before) over to ADVENTURE, whose sales, evidently so much worse than MORE FUN's, theoretically would have improved had Superboy been used therein (which he was not) to attract readers?

I was going to express this as an equation, but my grasp of mathematics is tenuous, I didn't get any further than High Concept and A Rush Job,

c+h

with c being "concept" and h being "haste," as in what makes waste, and now my head hurts.

---

posted November 06, 2002 05:39 PM       

All 3 stories are illustrated by Wayne Boring (Kurt Schaffenberger started drawing her in LL #1) and to my knowledge, have never been reprinted.

Interesting reading - and even in 1957 there are the sure signs of the painfully convoluted Weisinger plotting - particularly in the second story entitled "The Sightless Lois Lane", wherein Superman takes drastic steps to preserve his dual identity.

Enjoy!
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219003758/http://dcindexes.com/

posted November 23, 2002 05:01 PM    

This part pertains to the early days of Superman...

quote:

---

CBA: Do you think that DC admired him because he was responsible for convincing the editors to publish �Superman�?

Merrily: I always got the idea from him that whenever anybody did anything for people like that, that then you�d have to do more the next time. In other words, if you were wonderful once, and the next time if you weren�t as wonderful, they�d get on your case. I remember him saying things like, �The more you do, the more you have to do!� [laughs] It�s not like they�d say, �Wow, you�re great!� They�d just want more out of you!

CBA: Your dad entered the embryonic comic book field in 1935 by working on Wheeler Nicholson�s New Fun Comics. Did he ever discuss his relationship with Wheeler and his own experiences being a pioneer in the industry?

Merrily: I remember him telling me of instances where he got blamed for doing things that he knew better than to do. But that the person who had done them was afraid of being fired, and felt that my dad, being so young (he was only 18 when he started there) would only get yelled at, and (with the help of the culprit) could talk his way out of it. The guy said, �I told the boss you did this because you�re not going to get fired.� I remember my dad telling me, �It was the stupidest thing. I wouldn�t have even done anything that stupid!� So then, the guy brought him before the big boss and said, �I�ve already spoken to Shelly about this and he doesn�t need to be yelled at twice.� (My dad was thinking to himself, �You�d better not yell at me once�.�)

CBA: In 1936, Max Gaines (who was working in a partnership with the McClure Syndicate) hired a young Sheldon to assist him with his burgeoning line of comic books. Did your father ever speak of his relationship with Gaines and how they worked together?

Merrily: Yes, often. A few things stand out in my mind. I remember him telling me about one particular incident when he was working on a story. It was still in his typewriter and Gaines came by my dad�s desk with a huge pair of scissors, and cut Dad�s article as it was coming out of the typewriter saying, �that�s all we have room for.� Snip! He cut it and made off with the top half. He was laughing about it when he told me, but I�m sure it frustrated him. He didn�t like that. M.C. Gaines was tough to work for. I think they had a good relationship, though. I think M.C. really, truly loved my dad. My dad and Bill [Gaines, M.C.�s son] were very close, also. He loved Bill. I think eventually my dad endeared himself to people, and they really liked him.

One other thing that stands out in my mind, and might have contributed to the fact that my dad tended to be a little superstitious. I have a picture of a really neat (about six inches high) statue that he carved of Max Gaines. One night while on the shelf my dad kept it on, it just cracked and burst into pieces. I was about a year old when this happened and my dad said I got scared and started screaming. (I don�t remember this�it was his account.) Anyway, the next day Gaines died tragically in a boating accident. While in a boat that another boat had crashed into, he was knocked into the water, and being that he couldn�t swim, drowned. My dad worked very closely with Gaines, and I get the idea that he and everyone that knew or worked with Gaines had a love/hate relationship with him. They loved him because they had a job and hated him because he was a pain in the neck (not the term my dad used!) to work for.

At Gaines� funeral, the rabbi was going on and on about what a nice guy he was, and how much he would be missed. According to my dad, this made everybody in the synagogue realize that the rabbi had actually never met Gaines!

CBA: When your father was working at the DC/All-American offices, he was editing Wonder Woman and All-American and he was instrumental in the creation of a number of super-hero characters. Did he ever discuss that with you?

Merrily: A little, but I don�t remember very much about it. He had something to do with the Green Lantern, too, and he did talk about that. He felt that people loved super-heroes.

CBA: But he tended to concentrate on humor a little more.

Merrily: Well� he was so good at it. I don�t know which he enjoyed more. He liked super-heroes, but yeah, he loved being funny. There was no way around that. He loved being ridiculously funny. [laughs]

CBA: Did you father ever talk about DC�s relationship with Siegel and Shuster, who created Superman?

Merrily: If he did, I don�t remember. I do remember that he felt they should rethink their decision not to publish �Superman.� He encouraged Siegel and Shuster and helped them with the original storyboard until it was finally accepted and ultimately published. He helped do something that they would accept so it would get published because he thought they really were on to something. My dad is very good at seeing underlying things, the meta-message, and the way you could change something and the way things could be.

CBA: Instead of pigeon-holing...

Merrily: Yeah, exactly! He never did that. He was very capable of seeing the other side of something and what else could be developed. He was very good at that. He was frustrated with people when they couldn�t do that.

CBA: In the mid-1930s, Sheldon created a character that he was closely associated with: Scribbly, the boy cartoonist.

Merrily: He was Scribbly!

CBA: So Scribbly pretty much reflected your father�s personality?

Merrily: I think so. Pretty much. I read more of those than Sugar & Spike. Mr. O�Hara, of course, was M.C. Gaines. He didn�t make him look anything like him. �O�Hara� was an Irish guy. Not a short, bald Jewish guy, he had a lot of hair. Maybe to make him less recognizable. But that�s who it was. It was his boss. You can look at Mr. O�Hara in a story and you can bet that something Gaines did sparked that! [laughs]

---

The entire interview is well worth a look.

posted November 28, 2002 05:05 PM    

Action Comics #239 (April 1958)
Writer: Edmond Hamilton(?)
Artist: Wayne Boring

At the Daily Planet, Perry White hands out gifts -- and criticism. He gives his reporters, including Lois and Clark, new metal Press identification cards, with their names in cut-out stencil. Perry says, "A pity I can't give these to REAL reporters!" The editor thinks his reporters have been slack lately.

Lois tells Perry she is on the case of a big crime story. Clark tells Perry he is about to get a "swell" story on Dr. Norton, a scientist who claims he can create new elements. As Clark leaves the Planet office for his interview, he mulls over the fact that Norton has talked of creating Kryptonite, something Clark wants to know more about.

A laboratory assistant enters the lab of Dr. Norton with Clark's new Press card in his hand. He tells the doctor that the reporter is waiting outside to see him. The doctor, however, is at a critical stage of an atomic experiment, and tells his assistant to have Kent wait in one of the offices till the experiment is completed. As Clark waits in an outer office for the doctor, he makes a discovery with his X-ray vision. Intending to make a quick check to ensure no Kryptonite is in the lab before he goes in, he finds that Dr. Norton's atom-generator's chain reaction is out of control and is going to explode. Clark switches to Superman and flies into the lab. Dr. Norton says, "There's not time enough to evacuate the area!" But Superman flies upward with the generator, a huge piece of broken floor still attached, and takes it into the stratosphere, far above the surface of the Earth. Superman is confident the explosion cannot hurt him, but as the generator explodes, it creates tiny particles of Kryptonite, just as the explosion of the planet Krypton created Kryptonite.

After the blast, a dazed Man of Steel heads back towards Earth, his hands covering his face. "My face! MY FACE!"

Superman kneels over a river to inspect his reflection. The tiny particles of Kryptonite have been driven into his face -- not enough to paralyse him, but enough to have scarred his face, changing it. The reader is not able to see the change. Superman decides then and there: "I can't let anyone see my face now!"

Superman hastily improvises some bandages to cover his whole face and head, after the fashion of the invisible man from the novel by H.G. Wells. He then returns to the laboratory to make sure there is no lingering radioactive contamination. As he completes his check, police and reporters arrive. Lois is horrified... "You mean, your face was disfigured? Oh, no..."

"It's true," says a bandaged Man of Steel. "I can't let you see what it looks like now!"

Lois is crying while other reporters discuss the situation. "But he doesn't say what his face looks like now!" .... "It must be fearfully scarred and changed, for him to hide it like that!"

Lois is hopeful that something can be done for Superman. "A plastic surgeon..." But Superman tells her no surgeon could possibly use a scalpel against his "impenetrable" skin. Superman tells her he will see what he can do to help himself, however.

Suddenly, Lois remembers that Clark Kent was supposed to be covering a story at this very laboratory, and wonders aloud where he is. Superman makes an exit, and speeds straight home to his civilian apartment. From his telephone, he gives his report on how Superman dealt with the laboratory disaster, but, as he explains to Perry, "...My narrow escape shattered my nerves! I'll have to take a little time off!" Perry thinks Clark is a "softie," yet reluctantly agrees to him taking time off.

When Lois hears of Clark's circumstances, her old suspicions about a Clark-Superman double identity are re-awakened. "That's funny -- Superman's face is disfigured, and now Clark won't show HIS face here!"

In the meantime, Superman is on a desperate quest to remove the facial scars. He sets up a super-chemical laboratory on a mountain-top and creates "powerful chemical solutions." It all ends in failure as Superman, his head bowed, realises no solution can dissolve the Kryptonite scars. "I'll have to try something stronger!"

While this is going on, the citizens of Metropolis are shocked at the news about Superman. A typical family is pictured (father smoking a pipe, pretty wife with nice hair-do, and a little boy complete with striped t-shirt) watching television as the newsman asks of Superman's face, "Is it scarred so terribly he can never show it again?" In an effort to be even more helpful, the TV newsman holds up an artist's impression of what Superman may look like now, under the bandages. At the sight of the hideously disfigured countenance, the little boy bursts into tears... "I don't wanna see Superman look like that...!" His mother consoles him... "He may not look that bad! We -- we must hope for the best!"

Even in the midst of his own worries, the Man of Steel keeps watch over Metropolis. He spots a speeding getaway car, the police in hot pursuit. He flies down and grabs the getaway car right off the road. The criminals are astounded, figuring Superman would have too much on his mind right now to bother with them. "You figured wrong!" Superman tells them. "My face may have changed, but my feeling toward thieves is UNchanged!"

Outside police headquarters, reporters corner Superman, holding up the drawing from the TV news item. They ask him if this is what his face now looks like. Superman tells them he cannot give a statement. "But," asks a reporter, "will we ever see your face again?" Superman tells him... "I can't promise that!"

Increasingly desperate, Superman unwraps the bandages as he approaches an erupting volcano. Perhaps, he thinks, the terrific heat of an active volcano might burn off the Kryptonite scars. But after a dive into flaming lava, the scars remain. "It'll have to be something stronger than fire -- "

Night falls, and the Man of Steel zooms homeward to his city. A storm is approaching Metropolis, which gives him another idea. As terrific bolts of lightning are generated by the storm, Superman takes them full in the face, but even this force cannot affect the Kryptonite scars.

The strongest force in nature having failed him, Superman wraps his head in bandages once again, and, as he is doing so, from his high vantage point he sees a lightning bolt strike a river tanker, setting it ablaze. The crew manage to escape using lifeboats, but the Man of Steel, in order to prevent a gasoline explosion, dips the ship underwater. Unfortunately, the fire has burned away the bandages, and his face, which the reader still has not seen, is once again exposed. He searches the river bottom and finds an iron plate from an old shipwreck. He bends the iron plate into a full-face mask, secured in place by a piece of chain around the back of his head.

He tows the fire-damaged tanker back to shore where reporters have gathered, and by the time they see his new mask, it has eye-slits cut into it, presumably made using heat-vision. A reporter assures Superman that no matter how badly marred his face is, he'll always be the city's hero... "Can't you show your face?"

"No," says Superman, "not the way it is! Never!"

A reporter tries a new angle. "What if this isn't Superman at all? It could be an alien being from another planet with super-powers who's taken his place..."

Superman doesn't reply to this ridiculous piece of speculation, but Lois is horrified... "You're just trying to make a sensational scoop! It isn't true!"

Later, Superman sits in a secluded area of what looks like a city park, brooding over his terrible problem. "No natural force is stronger than lightning, yet there must be SOMETHING that would do it..." While the Man of Tomorrow is deep in thought, Lois Lane has snuck up behind him, intending to snatch off the iron mask and prove the "alien" story untrue. Superman is so preoccupied, he doesn't even detect her presence. But, at the last moment, her hands reaching out, Lois balks. "No," she thinks, "I can't do it! Superman has done so much for us all -- I can't disobey him and expose his poor disfigured face!"

Soon a sensational newspaper "extra" hits the night-time streets, with a ghastly alien visage under the headline: "Is an alien impersonating Superman? Is this his new face?" At the office of the Daily Planet, Perry explodes. "We'll put out an extra denying this wild story! Get everyone on the job, including Clark Kent, nerves or no nerves!"

(In an interesting continuity gaff, an editorial slip-up perhaps, the sensationalist paper Perry is holding up and railing against is a Daily Planet edition!)

Superman, in his civilian apartment, his face in shadow, takes the call from Lois that he must return to work at the Planet. He knows he must go, for her suspicion is plain, and other people will eventually suspect also. Superman changes to his Clark Kent clothes and attends to his face at a mirror. "Only one way I can do it, and that's to hide my scars..." Now the reader has their first glimpse of the Man of Steel's face since the accident. He looks like Clark should usually look, except that he has affixed a small strip of adhesive tape to his forehead. "It'll look like a band-aid and hide the scars I cannot permit anyone on Earth to see!"

Clark arrives at the office to begin work on the night-time "extra". Lois seems disappointed that Clark's face is unchanged, "except for that adhesive tape!" Clark explains he got an accidental bump today, undoubtedly due to his jumpy nerves. Lois figures she must have been wrong, for "no small scar on his forehead would make Superman hide his face so desperately."

Perry wants his reporters to churn out stories re-telling the great things Superman has done for the people to show how silly the "alien" story is. Clark thinks... "I'll have to work fast -- the Kryptonite radiation from my scars will soon burn through the thin adhesive!" As Clark works, he runs out of time, for the radiation starts to burn through. He looks at his reflection in the windowpane to his left... "In a moment they'll all see -- " Desperately, Clark sends "concentrated X-ray vision" to blow the fuses in the office and douse the lights. With the office plunged into darkness, Clark starts changing to Superman. Then, an "amazing apparition" appears in the dark... "Look -- Clark Kent's NAME in glowing letters! And it's moving!" .... "What in the world's causing that?"

An instant later, Superman streaks upward from the Planet building. "The atomic radiation of my Kryptonite scars burned through the adhesive!" As he peels away the strip to reveal the words "Clark Kent" imprinted onto his forehead, the Man of Tomorrow thinks, "Atomic action -- why didn't I think of that? It was that atomic explosion that caused it all in the first place!" Superman thinks back to the accident. The atomic generator exploded, creating Krytonite particles which blasted Superman's face through his own metal stencil Press card which Dr. Norton had laid down on the generator. This branded Superman with his own name. As he looked at his relection in the river for the first time after the accident, he decided, "If anyone sees this, my identity is out -- I've got to hide my face!"

Having hit upon the "atomic action" idea, Superman speeds to a far away region of the universe to find a planetoid of almost pure uranium. Arranging a fuse for detonation, he initiates the mightiest atomic explosion of all time and bathes in the released forces.

Finally, "It worked! The atomic blast didn't harm my invulnerable body but it burned out the Kryptonite particles that scarred me!"

Replacing the adhesive strip while in his Clark Kent identity, the Man of Steel returns as Clark to the Planet with an excuse about having gone for fuses. Lois wants to know the reason for the words "Clark Kent" glowing in the darkness of the office. Clark explains that it was his metal Press card which had been charged with "glowing particles" after being put down on the atomic generator in Norton's laboratory, and which had been returned to him by Superman.

posted November 30, 2002 08:31 PM    

EC is lauded for its subversive slant on 50s Americana. But you don't have to read EC to find this. It's everywhere. All kinds of repressed fears coming to the surface.

One thing that is so charming about many of the classic Superman stories is the way they fit a kind of model of action. Beginning in the Daily Planet. A sort of signal to the reader that this is another routine day, but just wait--soon the routine will be blown apart somehow.

My brain isn't up to developing these ideas much further. But one day maybe I'll revisit this topic.

posted December 04, 2002 03:27 PM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by India Ink:
For future reference, I thought I would post this link that was put up on another thread concerning Earth 2 Superman (not the same as Siegel & Shuster Superman in my view)...
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219003758/http://my.execpc.com/~icicle/SUPERMAN.html

---

I detest origin-interference stories, one example being that "Earth-1 Superboy" trained "Earth-2 Super-boy" in the use of his powers, then when "Earth-2 Super-boy" grew up, he adopted his Superman identity based upon the example of "Earth-1 Superboy."

Honestly, I don't know how writers come up with such garbage.

As a contrast, I've just been re-reading Green Lantern from Showcase #22 through the early issues, and it's so impressive how John Broome continually revisited his initial "sketchy" Green Lantern origin, slowly fleshing out all the details of the deeper significance of Abin Sur passing the Battery to Hal Jordan. He did this carefully, and with great integrity.

posted December 05, 2002 04:15 PM    

But the integrity of the original work remains.

posted December 05, 2002 07:29 PM    

quote:

---

Superman #148
"20th Century Achilles"
[Art by Curt Swan + George Klein]
"Mr Mxyzptlk's Super-Mischief"
[Art by Curt Swan + ?]
"Superman Owes a Billion Dollars"
[Art by Curt Swan + George Klein]

---

That first story could be a re-make of an earlier story.

I have a very, very old comic book album of DC comics (164 pages) compiled by an Australian publisher, and which was left to me by my maternal grandfather.

It contains a simply superb collection of old DC comics. (I have two of these precious albums, called "Colossal Comic".) There are very early comics of Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Superboy, Jimmy Olsen, Captain Comet, Captain Compass, and Green Arrow, complete with Henry Boltinoff gag strips inbetween stories.

The first story of the album is a wonderful adventure called "Achilles versus Superman!" which I have been led to believe is from Superman #63 (1950).

Do you know this story?

The art is great, and has the Boring touch, probably as penciller, but I'm not certain.

posted December 06, 2002 06:20 AM    

quote:

---

The first story of the album is a wonderful adventure called "Achilles versus Superman!" which I have been led to believe is from Superman #63 (1950).

---

I'll do a quick synopsis of this story for you. It won't be as long or as detailed as some other reviews because I'm a bit pressed for time... But the story is worth relating.

***

A man in a suit and hat arrives in Metropolis Harbour, and Lois Lane is there to meet him. He is newsworthy because he wears a steel box on his right foot (where you would normally expect to find a shoe). He is also newsworthy because he is John Achilles, the man who has claimed to be descended from the great ancient Greek hero, Achilles.

John Achilles refuses to speak to Lois, a reporter, because "your newspapers laughed at my claim."

Lois being Lois, she is not put off by this rejection, and decides to secretly follow Achilles in the hope of getting a story.

Achilles attends a meeting of the most notorious crooks in the city and proposes that he become their leader. He also claims he can defy their greatest enemy, Superman. Achilles announces that no weapon can harm him, that he is invulnerable. The criminals decide to test this ridiculous claim, and, to their astonishment, their knives and bullets cannot harm the man with the steel box over his right foot.

Achilles explains that he is a direct descendant of the ancient hero Achilles, who, according to legend, gained invulnerability after being dipped in the river Styx. The modern-day John Achilles found his ancestor's tomb, and learned the ancient Achilles was actually dipped in a chemical of invulnerability, an ancient scientific discovery. (The walls of the tomb are covered in scientific writing.)

John Achilles duplicated the ancient chemical and had himself dipped in it, "and it made me invulnerable, all except my right foot that wasn't dipped, because I didn't want to be different from my great ancestor."

Achilles explains how the steel box is to protect his right foot, his only vulnerable spot.

Achilles dons an ancient Greek helmet as a couple of the thugs usher in Lois Lane, who they caught spying.

With Lois now a prisoner, Achilles assumes leadership over the criminals gathered, and announces he will repeat his great ancestor's exploits: he will crush his enemy Hector with a war-chariot, over-power the Amazons with a bow, and trick the Trojans with a wooden horse.

***

This is going to take longer than I thought. That's only two pages covered so far... I might have to continue this later. Or, I could stop there... maybe it has whetted your appetite to hunt out the comic.

An intriguing villain, to be sure, who is not quite what he claims to be...

posted December 07, 2002 11:56 PM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by dadkrel:
We are still waiting, Aldous. When you going to get back to us.

---

You want the rest of the story...? OK, then!

I'm a bit worried about this old comic. It has yellowed with age, and the pages are literally crumbling.

But, on with the story.

*****

Clark leaves the Planet to look for Lois, who he knows has gone to interview Achilles. Clark, failing to find Achilles, calls in at the museum to see curator Dr. Hector Haley. He figures Dr. Haley may know the whereabouts of John Achilles, for Achilles is an archaeologist by profession. Dr. Haley knows of Achilles all right... "He was a fine archaeologist once, but he's mad now -- claims to be descended from the ancient hero. He hates me, because I disproved his claim!"

Nearby, at a military recruitment display, Achilles and his thugs are in the process of stealing a tank. The men on guard fire at Achilles but the bullets just bounce off him. Achilles and his henchmen take over a tank and drive it through the wall of the museum. It crushes and kills Dr. Hector Haley. Clark, needless to say, finds a convenient spot to remove his outer garments...

As Clark is switching to Superman, Achilles emerges from the tank with an imperious gesture, and announces, "I crushed my enemy Hector with this modern 'war-chariot'."

A museum guard fires his revolver at Achilles, but the madman is unaffected. "My heel is my only vulnerable spot," he tells the guard, "and that's protected!"

The henchmen of Achilles are startled to see Superman appear. The Man of Steel trains his X-ray vision on the steel box enclosing Achilles' foot, but he cannot see through it as it is lead-lined. Superman starts tossing giant-sized replica gems (part of a museum display) at the crooks, causing them to scatter and stumble like tenpins. The henchmen are ready to admit defeat, but John Achilles starts the tank running wild and Superman's super-vision reveals Lois is bound and trapped inside.

Forced to deal with the tank, Superman gives Achilles and his men a chance to escape, and later he discusses the madman with Lois. "It seems incredible this Achilles found an invulnerability chemical -- yet he WAS proof against bullets![sic]"

Lois had thought Achilles' predictions were crazy, but he did crush his enemy "Hector" with a "war-chariot"...

Lois believes Achilles will try to carry out his other boasts, to overpower the Amazons with a bow and trick the Trojans with a wooden horse. Superman gives her a clue: "Amazons! They were athletic warrior women! And say, the champion girls' Olympic team is returning by plane today!"

Lois grabs at the clue and figures Achilles will try to capture the Olympic team and hold it for ransom. She rushes off for the airport. Superman takes off in another direction. He has given Lois a bum steer for his own purposes.

posted December 08, 2002 03:51 PM    

But -- on with the tale of Achilles.

*****

Having sent Lois on what he believes is a wild goose chase (to keep her away from trouble), Superman heads for the Amazons Rubber Company, which gets a big payroll this day every month.

[The Lois in this story is a lot more fetching than later Boring versions. She has a more svelte appearance, fine facial features, and long hair.]

Superman's hunch is correct, for Achilles and his men already have the big rubber company in their sights. They stand along a balcony on a neighbouring building as Achilles raises a bow and arrow. Through the open window of the Amazons Rubber Company and into a vat of melted rubber flies the arrow. "My arrow is of special chemical substance [sic]," explains Achilles with glee, "and when it hits that big vat of melted rubber sulphur it creates sulphur dioxide, a gas that will stupify everyone in the factory!"

Achilles and his men don gas masks and enter the factory to steal the payroll. A guard, who is all but overcome by the fumes, fires on Achilles but the shots have no effect. The crooks start forcing open the office safe as the Man of Steel enters the factory.

Achilles has bet on Superman having to drag all the gas victims to safety, thereby giving the robbers a chance to escape, but Superman has a far quicker method of saving the rubber factory workers: he inhales all the gas and exhales it out through a window.

A hireling tips a huge stack of tyres in Superman's direction. "So," says the Man of Steel, "you want to play games, do you?" He uses a giant strip of rubber tied between two support beams to make a giant slingshot, then he starts pelting the hoods with large bales of rubber, sending them sprawling. Superman notices that Achilles is also affected: "Hmm -- it seems that this Achilles can be hurt after all -- by rubber missiles!"

Suddenly Lois, who has figured out Superman tricked her, enters the factory right in the middle of the action. One of Achilles' men tips over the vat of melted rubber and Superman is forced to fly Lois to safety. Once again, because of this diversion, the crooks escape.

Superman is annoyed with Lois, but Lois tells him, "It's your fault! You deliberately sent me to the airport on that wrong clue!"

"I was only trying to keep you out of trouble," says Superman, "but I guess that's hopeless!"

Lois and Superman now go to work on Achilles' third boast, to "trick the Trojans with a wooden horse". The Man of Steel figures Achilles will make a hit on the Trojan National Bank in Metropolis. This time, instead of trying to get rid of Lois, he takes her with him.

posted December 09, 2002 09:12 PM    

"You don't know this Achilles!" says Superman. "Now listen..."

Elsewhere, John Achilles and his men are in an automobile, preparing to loot the bank. Up the street from the bank, they use the car to start a giant wooden horse (part of an advertising display for a saddlery) sliding downhill. The big horse gathers speed, and the crooks are confident, "It'll bust that bank wide open when it hits!"

A mother and child are frozen with terror in the path of the careering horse, but Superman springs from the bank with wire cable coiled up like a lasso. He lassoes the horse and drags it into the sky, where the sight of the Man of Steel towing a big horse thrills a group of boys.

Achilles' men are losing faith. As the criminals watch Superman fly away with the horse, a hireling says, "But Superman spoiled your trick, Achilles."

"That wooden horse was only to get Superman out of the way!" says Achilles. "My REAL trick was to conceal a bomb inside one of the bank workmen's saw-horses!"

No sooner has Achilles said this than a bomb blast is seen inside the bank. "See, the bomb in the bank just went off! Everyone in the bank will be killed and we can loot it easily!"

Achilles' men are greatly amused: "...You're as great as your ancestor!"

However, when the eager hoods burst into the bank, they find the bank official and the guards alive and well, and waiting for them. The Man of Steel had spotted the hidden bomb in the saw-horse with his X-ray vision and a smoke bomb had been set off in its place to fool the gang.

Although his men are horrified, Achilles is not bothered. "We'll loot the bank anyway," he declares, "...their bullets can't hurt Achilles!"

The guards fire their revolvers and Achilles is wounded. Achilles and his men are in shock as Superman crashes in through a large window. "They're non-metallic bullets," he explains. Superman had figured out, after seeing the rubber bale stagger Achilles, that he wasn't immune to non-metallic missiles. Superman has also deduced that the metal box on Achilles' foot contains a "magnetic repellor" whose magnetic field repels all metal missiles.

Achilles, in a last desperate bid to escape, jumps through the man-sized hole in the window Superman had made. Superman is forced to let him go -- he figures it is more important to disarm Achilles' gang before they injure somebody.

The large windows, unfortunately, are set above the river, and down in the water Achilles is fighting for his life. He cannot swim to safety because the steel box on his foot is too heavy and is dragging him down. He thrashes around, but is drowning.

By the time Superman is in a position to go after him, Achilles is dead. Superman stands beside the river with Lois and a police officer. "And he drowned because of that steel box on his foot," says the Man of Steel. "Like the real Achilles, he died because of his heel!"

[end]

posted January 09, 2003 11:29 PM    

I've yet to read it, but inside is a piece by Edward Zeno, author of Curt Swan: A Life in Comics, plus all kinds of art and stuff. It looks like most of this is excerpted from the book itself, but it's still a good mag to have.

posted January 10, 2003 12:00 AM    

I find "search by era" is the best way to get to the Shuster stuff.

posted January 12, 2003 05:20 PM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by srca1941:
OK, this was brought up in another thread, but I wanted to make sure everyone got a chance to see it. Here's the way to read the archived Superman stories in order (I went ahead and listed the first 100 books). I've also included the World's Fair/Best/Finest stories, since we can assume Superman will follow in Batman's footsteps.

(A)=Action Comics Archives
(S)=Superman Archives
(W)=Superman in World's Finest Comics Archives

001)Action Comics #1 (6/38) (A1) or (S1) *Superman #1 **On the stands in May 1938 according to Jerry Siegel in an interview on the Fred Allen Show.
002)Action Comics #2 (7/38) (A1-cover) (S1) *Superman #1
003)Action Comics #3 (8/38) (A1-cover) (S1) *Superman #1
004)Action Comics #4 (9/38) (A1-cover) (S1) *Superman #1
005)Action Comics #5 (10/38) (A1-cover) (S1) *Superman #3
006)Action Comics #6 (11/38) (A1)
007)Action Comics #7 (12/38) (A1)
008)Action Comics #8 (1/39) (A1)
009)Action Comics #9 (2/39) (A1)
010)Action Comics #10 (3/39) (A1)
011)Action Comics #11 (4/39) (A1)
012)Action Comics #12 (5/39) (A1)
013)World�s Fair Comics 1939 (Released May 11, 1939) (W1)
014)Action Comics #13 (6/39) (A1) *This would be in the same month as World�s Fair, but according to All-Star #3, Action came out toward the end of the month.
015)Superman #1 (Summer 39) (S1) *According to Keltner�s index, this came out about three weeks after World�s Fair which would place it on the stands in early June with the books cover dated July.
016)Action Comics #14 (7/39) (A1)
017)Action Comics #15 (8/39) (A1)
018)Action Comics #16 (9/39) (A1)
019)Superman #2 (Fall 39) (S1) *On sale with October cover dated books(?)
020)Action Comics #17 (10/39) (A1)
021)Action Comics #18 (11/39) (A1)
022)Action Comics #19 (12/39) (A1)
023)Superman #3 (Winter 39) (S1) *On sale with January cover dated books(?)
024)Action Comics #20 (1/40) (A1)
025)Action Comics #21 (2/40) (A2)
026)Action Comics #22 (3/40) (A2)
027)Superman #4 (Spring 40) (S1) *On sale with April cover dated books(?)
028)Action Comics #23 (4/40) (A2)
029)World�s Fair Comics 1940 (W1) *Exact issue date unknown, but Robin was 1 month old at the time according the introduction in Batman in World�s Finest vol.1, placing this with May cover dated books.
030)Action Comics #24 (5/40) (A2)
031)Action Comics #25 (6/40) (A2)
032)Superman #5 (Summer 40) (S2) *On sale with July cover dated books(?)
033)Action Comics #26 (7/40) (A2)
034)Action Comics #27 (8/40) (A2)
035)Superman #6 (9-10/40) (S2)
036)Action Comics #28 (9/40) (A2)
037)Action Comics #29 (10/40) (A2)
038)Superman #7 (11-12/40) (S2)
039)Action Comics #30 (11/40) (A2)
040)Action Comics #31 (12/40) (A2)
041)Superman #8 (1-2/41) (S2)
042)Action Comics #32 (1/41) (A2)
043)Action Comics #33 (2/41) (A2)
044)Superman #9 (3-4/41) (S3)
045)World�s Best Comics #1 (Spring 41) (W1) *According to an ad I have in More Fun Comics #68, issue 2 was on sale May 16 with June cover dated books. Logic dictates that issue 1 was three months earlier, and released about the middle of the month.
046)Action Comics #34 (3/41) (A2)
047)Action Comics #35 (4/41) (A2)
048)Superman #10 (5-6/41) (S3)
049)Action Comics #36 (5/41) (A2)
050)World�s Finest Comics #2 (Summer 41) (W1) *On sale with June cover dated books.
051)Action Comics #37 (6/41) (A3)
052)Superman #11 (7-8/41) (S3)
053)Action Comics #38 (7/41) (A3)
054)Action Comics #39 (8/41) (A3)
055)Superman #12 (9-10/41) (S3)
056)World�s Finest Comics #3 (Fall 41) (W1) *On sale with September cover dated books(?)
057)Action Comics #40 (9/41) (A3)
058)Action Comics #41 (10/41) (A3)
059)Superman #13 (11-12/41) (S4)
060)Action Comics #42 (11/41) (A3)
061)World�s Finest Comics #4 (Winter 41) (W1) *On sale with December cover dated books(?)
062)Action Comics #43 (12/41) (A3)
063)Superman #14 (1-2/42) (S4)
064)Action Comics #44 (1/42) (A3)
065)Action Comics #45 (2/42) (A3)
066)Superman #15 (3-4/42) (S4)
067)World�s Finest Comics #5 (Spring 42) (W1) *On sale with March cover dated books(?)
068)Action Comics #46 (3/42) (A3)
069)Action Comics #47 (4/42) (A3)
070)Superman #16 (5-6/42) (S4)
071)Action Comics #48 (5/42) (A3)
072)World�s Finest Comics #6 (Summer 42) (W1) *On sale with June cover dated books(?)
073)Action Comics #49 (6/42) (A3)
074)Superman #17 (7-8/42) (S5)
075)Action Comics #50 (7/42) (A3)
076)Action Comics #51 (8/42) (A3)
077)Superman #18 (9-10/42) (S5)
078)World�s Finest Comics #7 (Fall 42) (W1) *On sale with September cover dated books(?)
079)Action Comics #52 (9/42) (A3)
080)Action Comics #53 (10/42) (A4)
081)Superman #19 (11-12/42) (S5)
082)Action Comics #54 (11/42) (A4)
083)World�s Finest Comics #8 (Winter 42) (W1) *On sale with December cover dated books(?)
084)Action Comics #55 (12/42) (A4)
085)Superman #20 (1-2/43) (S5)
086)Action Comics #56 (1/43) (A4)
087)Action Comics #57 (2/43) (A4)
088)Superman #21 (3-4/43) (S6)
089)World�s Finest Comics #9 (Spring 43) (W1) *On sale with March cover dated books(?)
090)Action Comics #58 (3/43) (A4)
091)Action Comics #59 (4/43) (A4)
092)Superman #22 (5-6/43) (S6)
093)Action Comics #60 (5/43) (A4)
094)World�s Finest Comics #10 (Summer 43) (W1) *On sale with June cover dated books(?)
095)Action Comics #61 (6/43) (A4)
096)Superman #23 (7-8/43) (S6)
097)Action Comics #62 (7/43) (A4)
098)Action Comics #63 (8/43) (A4)
099)Superman #24 (9-10/43) (S6)
100)World�s Finest Comics #11 (Fall 43) (W1) *On sale with September cover dated books(?)

**Whew!**

-Steve

---

posted March 08, 2003 10:18 PM    

I have a great story drawn by Swan + Klein where Superman and Lana Lang wind up at the "Interplanetary Olympics". I've had the comic forever, but not long ago I came across info on another "Interplanetary Olympics" story that seemed to be an earlier version of the story I had. I can't remember now where I saw it -- I may have actually read the first page on the Mile High website or somewhere similar.

quote:

---

India Ink:

--was the second a re-make of the first?

---

posted March 08, 2003 11:23 PM    

I mentioned it on page 16 of "Superman in the 70s" [as in the index...
ind//: *** &&& SMA 284
(last 100 pager, the perfect comic book)
-- new story (Smallville reunion of Clark, Lana Lang,
Pete Ross, Chief Parker)
-- "The Interplanetary Olympics!"
( from ACT 304, 1963, 1st Borko)
-- { various reprints}
-- "Superman Owes a Billion Dollars"
(from SMA 148, 1961)
-- { "The Death of Clark Kent" 1940s }]

That story was one of the reasons I regard this as the perfect comicbook (not the only perfect comicbook, mind--there have been a few others)--284 was where I read that story and fell in love with it.

From the brief encyclopedia entry there seems to be a more complex plot device in the second story. That one is set on the artificial planet Vorn--the first one is set on the planet Thon.

posted March 09, 2003 12:00 AM       

You can compare and contrast the two here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219003917/http://www.dcindexes.com/indexes/supes/act.htm?x=220
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219003917/http://www.dcindexes.com/indexes/supes/act.htm?x=304

posted March 10, 2003 01:46 PM    

Well, the plot development of one story definitely sounds a lot better than that of the other. And it's pretty obvious which is which.

posted March 10, 2003 04:16 PM    

Action Comics #220
September 1956

Cover Credits

Artist: Al Plastino

FIRST STORY

"The Interplanetary Olympics" (10 pages)

Credits

Editor, plotter: Mort Weisinger
Plotter, scripter:
Artist: Al Plastino
Feature Character

Superman (last seen in the third story of Superman #108; appears next in the first story of World�s Finest Comics #84)

Supporting Character

Lois Lane (last seen in the third story of Superman #108; appears next in the first story of World�s Finest Comics #84)

Villains

Bronno (a super-powered robot) and two crooks (first and only appearance to date)

Other Characters

Varal (a scientist from Thon) and Sharn (an athlete from Iwo; first and only appearance to date)

Synopsis

Superman is drawn to the planet Thon to compete in an Interplanetary Olympics for a power crystal. During the competition against other super-athletes, Superman finds that his powers have strangely deserted him.

The winner of the competition is Bronno from Kor. Superman however exposes Bronno as a robot which disqualifies him. Therefore, Sharn of Iwo, who places second is crowned champion. Superman finally discovers that a Kryptonite stone was used in the construction of the stadium which is why he did poorly. He returns to Earth having placed last in the intergalactic contest.

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

Action Comics #304
September 1963

Cover Credits

Penciller: Curt Swan
Inker: Sheldon Moldoff

FIRST STORY

"The Interplanetary Olympics" (12 pages)

Credits

Editor, plotter: Mort Weisinger
Plotter, scripter: Leo Dorfman
Penciller: Curt Swan
Inker: George Klein
Feature Character

Superman (last seen in the third story of Superman�s Pal Jimmy Olsen #71; appears next in the first story of Superman #164)

Supporting Characters

Lana Lang (last seen in the third story of Superman�s Girl Friend Lois Lane #43; appears next in the first story of Superman�s Girl Friend Lois Lane #44)

Lois Lane (last seen in the third story of Superman�s Pal Jimmy Olsen #71; appears next in the first story of Superman #164)

Villains

Rogan, Boscar, and Borko (interplanetary criminals; first and only appearance to date)

Synopsis

Superman and Lana Lang are transported to a small planetoid, where Superman is asked to compete in an Interplanetary Olympics. Superman reluctantly agrees, but his super powers unexpectedly fail him. Due to his poor showing, Superman is disqualified and returned to Earth. Lana feels sorry for Superman until he tells her that he only faked his weakness. The Olympics was a setup to siphon off his super energy, allowing criminals to power a ship to take them into the future. By not exerting super energy, Superman denied them the necessary power. The authorities are then able to arrest the crooks.

posted March 28, 2003 05:05 AM    

I missed this. It must have disappeared from the first couple of pages of the Superman forum before I got a chance to see it.

posted March 28, 2003 05:15 AM    

I very much doubt that Siegel & Shuster owe much to Lowther at all.

posted March 29, 2003 01:07 AM    

However, it is a favourite >ahem< "thesis" of mine that whenever Superman's origin is recounted it becomes redefined.

The contribution of Lowther might be in that he restated the origin (just as the Superman radio show did--I have the tapes of those early episodes)--gathering together everything that had been stated before about Superman's origin but shaping it in his own way in prose.

Intentionally or not, everytime they do this the chroniclers alter or embellish the origin.

When one of my nephews was just an infant (a year old I think, which would make it 1987) I gave him these little picture books about Superman, they were all in a slipcase kind of box, and each little book was only a few pages. I think the illustrations might have been Al Plastino.

Anyhow these books--which were fairly new, and possibly published after Crisis--recounted different phases of Superman's life. I think one book was about Krypton. The next about Superman's arrival on Earth as a baby. The third about him as Superboy in Smallville. And the fourth about his arriving as Clark Kent at the Daily Planet. Or something like that.

posted March 29, 2003 04:09 AM    

A scientist on another planet places his infant son in a rocketship which escapes the planet's destruction. The infant Kryptonian is found and adopted by a kindly couple, the Kents, who name the boy Clark and raise him according to a simple and strict moral code. The boy grows to maturity and, after the loss of his foster parents, resolves to turn his super-power to the good of mankind and the world. To this end, he becomes two people, the mild-mannered Clark Kent and the spectacular Superman, NEITHER of whom is the complete picture of who this man is.

That's just off the top of my head and may stand some tweaking, but essentially I'm saying Siegel & Shuster made him, and don't mess with what they made. There is ample scope for arguing over details and specifics, when did he do this, how did he do that, who did he love and who hates him and why.....

Repackaging the origin is fine... But if you are going to mess with what Siegel & Shuster made, I say forget it.

posted April 27, 2003 06:42 PM    

If you haven't you might want to check this one out :
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219004211/http://www.goldenapplecomics.com/crypt.html

It covers the following topics :

PART ONE:
THE FIRST SIX DECADES OF SUPERMAN
IN THE BEGINNING
THE '40s
THE '50s
THE '60s
THE '70s
THE '80s: THE END OF THE BEGINNING

PART TWO: THE NEW SUPERMAN
THE '80s: JOHN BYRNE
THE '80s: AFTER BYRNE
THE '90s