Alan Kistler's History of Superman - Part 1

This essay is part of my Superman Files and covers Superman's history from 1938 up to the mid 1950's. This is continued from my introduction, where I discuss how he was created and some of the earlier draft versions of his origin.

ACTION COMICS #1 - THE DEBUT

Seventeen rejections from various publishers over the course of four years. Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel had every reason to give up on their character, yet kept trying to think of ways to tweak him and make him more interesting as a pitch.

Finally, hope came in 1938. National Periodicals (which would later become DC Comics) publisher Harry Donenfeld called around, saying he needed material to fill up space for his new title Action Comics. He was sent the Superman strip. Siegel and Shuster had to quickly re-write and recut the newspaper strips they'd done into full blown comic pages. What's more, the full story origin of Superman had to be dumbed down to one page, either because DC felt it would be too complicated for a kids feature or because they didn’t want to waste pages on a character who, for all they knew, was not going to make a second appearance.

Thus, the first issue of Action Comics did not talk about Jor-L, Krypton or the Kents, nor did it reveal Superman's name of Kal-L or who raised him. You were told the basics. A planet had blown up. One survivor had come to earth and apparently spent some time in an orphanage. He had powers because his people were physically more evolved than us. He grew up, called himself Clark Kent, and occasionally donned a costume to help people as "Superman."

Superman's debut in Action Comics #1 included an appearance on the cover, which has since become the most famous and recognized comic book cover in the world. But at the last minute, the editor almost scrapped the image. Why? Well, Shuster drew Superman lifting a whole car and smashing it into a rock as criminals ran in fear. DC felt that the book would never sell with a cover like that, because kids would find it too unrealistic that anyone could do that.

After much convincing, DC let the image slide and it has become the most famous cover in comics history. Within a month, kids at newsstands were not asking their vendors for Action Comics #1 (June, 1938), they asked for "that comic with Superman in it." People immediately latched onto the character.

As a point of interest, ComicBookResources.com (a wonderful site you should all visit regularly) had a very fun article suggesting that the cover to Action Comics #1 was inspired by a painting of Hercules. Feel free to click on this link and read all about it yourselves.

Another interesting note. In this first adventure, Superman was not powerhouse we know him today. Heat-Vision? Super-Hearing? This guy couldn't even fly! That's right, kids. In the first stories, Superman was incredibly strong, had skin that could resist anything under a bursting shell, could run very fast and could leap an 1/8 of a mile. And that was it!

Now, Siegel and Shuster had realized that the biggest complaint time and time again from publishers was that Superman's powers were unrealistic. So they tried to explain his Kryptonian abilities by drawing comparisons to natural phenomenon. On the very first page of Action Comics #1, they talked about how Superman’s strength and leaping ability wasn’t that unbelievable when you considered that mere insects could lift several times their own weight and could leap what were proportionately incredible distances (this logic would later be used by Stan Lee when he explained Spider-Man's powers).

Of course, an insect's body works by vastly different rules than a human's, but you gotta give them credit for going out of their way to explain things on a semi-scientific level when, a year later, no one would explain how the original Human Torch's clothes never burned or how the Sub-Mariner could fly with only little ankle-wings.

A COMMON MAN. A RABBLE ROUSER.

Another thing that made the original Superman different from today? No super-villains. No Brainiac. No Doomsday. No Metallo. Our boy from Krypton had other fish to fry. Corrupt landlords, union leaders on the take, abusive husbands, mad bombers. This was a guy concerned with the common man, taking on politicians who were trying to cheat the little guy.

The early Superman was also a little less nice than he would later be portrayed on film and television. He was not someone who'd be confused with a boy scout. In one issue, when a guy opened machine gun fire on him, Superman actually moved at super-speed to grab the guy and throw him into the path of his own bullets! There was also a story in which a woman of shall we say questionable morals was actually spanked by Superman as punishment.

Superman was also a man who was not satisfied with the status quo (as most people weren't back then). The very first Superman story was a two-parter that continued on into Action Comics #2 and involved our hero being fed up with a war going on in the South American nation of "Santa Monte."

Finding out that a senator who helped promote involvement in the war effort had been secretly involved with a corrupt munitions maker, Superman forced the munitions maker to enlist with the soldiers going to Santa Monte. He then enlisted himself as well, under a cover identity, to keep an eye on the man. As Superman and the munitions maker entered the battle field, the villain had a change of heart and told our hero he would stop making weapons.

Not finished, Superman then captured the two commanders of the opposing armies and put them in a room together, saying that they would now fight each other directly rather than force soldiers to die for them. Faced with each other, the two commanders admitted they were not entirely sure why they feel the need to fight each other. Superman concluded, "Gentlemen, it's obvious you've been fighting only to promote the sales of munitions. Why don't you shake hands and make up?"

So, yeah, Superman stopped an entire war in his very first story. Think that's a bit extreme? In Action Comics #8 (January 1939), Superman encountered two teenage criminals and decided that although they should've known better, they were not wholly to blame for their actions.

SUPERMAN: "It's not entirely your fault you're delinquent. It's these slums, your poor living conditions. If there was only some way I could remedy it."

The neighborhood they lived in was awful, the buildings in poor condition and not maintained by city agencies. After reading about how a town had been rebuilt by the federal government after a tornado had hit it, Superman told everyone in the slums to quickly leave with all their valuables and then went to work destroying the buildings. He caused such a fright that the National Guard and the Air Force were called in to blow him away. But as they dropped bombs in the area, they only wound up helping him demolish the area rather than hurting him.

With the decrepit buildings now destroyed, the government stepped in to rebuild apartments for the people who'd lived there and wound up constructing better homes, thus improving the neighborhood and living conditions. The police commissioner himself said that while he knew he had to now consider Superman a public menace, off the record he thought the man had done a great thing.

Let's take a break here and think about something. Superman is already very different from most vigilante heroes who came before him. The Shadow, the Green Hornet, the Lone Ranger, Zorro ... all these people punished evil. But in his first story, Superman isn't about putting the munitions maker in jail or imprisoning the army captains. He wants them to change their ways. Likewise, he doesn't build new homes in the slums himself.  He forces the government into a position where they have to do it. What we have here is not merely a crime-fighter but someone who is trying to improve how the world works, to make people act in ways that are beneficial for those around them.

DC Comics got very afraid of these kinds of stories and began making sure that Superman fought more over-the-top, obviously fictional villains such as mad scientists. The first such super-foe was an evil bald scientist who called himself the Ultra-Humanite, who would fight many other heroes over the years  and would also develop a habit of constantly transplanting his brain into different bodies.

Superman later met a red-haired villain called "Luthor, the mad scientist", a technological genius who wanted to rule the world. After meeting the Man of Steel and growing jealous of his reputation, Luthor also became obsessed with proving that his intellect actually made him Superman's better and that he was the kind of person normal human beings should strive to be like, whereas Superman was an alien freak whose powers no one else would be born with.

Despite his hatred of Superman, Luthor often tried to portray himself as an honorable gentleman and would often make wagers with the Man of Tomorrow as he proposed competitions to prove that his machines could outdo the hero's powers. Likewise, he was perfectly fine with giving Superman ample warning that he was gunning for our hero rather than just lurking in the shadows to strike.

When he appeared again in 1940, Luthor was shown as now being bald because the fill-in artist had confused Luthor with the Ultra-Humanite. But rather than fix it, Luthor's bald appearance was kept for all succeeding stories.

Strange how Siegel and Shuster kept reusing the idea of evil bald scientists all the way back to their original "Reign of the Super-Man" story. Also a mite odd was the constant use of the initials L.L. by various Superman writers. I don't just mean Lois Lane and Lex Luthor. Over the years of Superman stories, we also eventually met Lana Lang (high school sweetheart), Lori Lemaris (college girlfriend) and even a brief love named Luma Lynai.

After less than a year of being featured in stories in Action Comics, Superman actually got his own self-titled monthly comic. Now he wasn't just a co-star sharing a book with several unrelated characters and stories. This magazine was chock-full of the Man of Tomorrow facing various threats and enemies, doing his best to fight for "the weak and oppressed." Our boy was well on his way to becoming a star. 

CRUSADING JOURNALISTS

In his secret identity, Clark Kent was mild-mannered perhaps but he was not a wimp by any means. As early as the first issue, Clark showed he was a dedicated journalist, always eager to jump at the chance to cover a story where he could expose corruption or bring attention to someone who needed help. We saw that he was clearly known for this altruistic attitude and was respected in this regard, since the very first issue had a co-worker inform Kent directly of a report of a man beating his wife, something the reporter jumped on so that he could then arrive on the scene first as Superman.

In fact, Clark was so respected for his attitudes and workmanship that his editor personally put the reporter in charge of chasing any and all leaders the newspaper got concerning the mysterious Superman that people were whispering about.

The only thing that Clark seemed to back down from was physically fighting. He was eager to expose criminals and very forthright in his opinions towards certain people, but if someone challenged him to a brawl he dismissed such a display of force as savage and not worth his time. And it was because of this that his fellow reporter Lois Lane regarded him as a coward who was beneath her notice. Even though he was a pretty good guy in all other respects, Clark's seemingly pacifistic behavior was unacceptable to her and so she constantly criticized him for it.

Despite this attitude, Clark often asked Lois out on dates and never stopped treating her as a friend and equal, refusing to respond to her with hostility, which only seemed to anger the her more since she believed he was doing this out of fear of confrontation and not because he could actually be that patient and understanding. The fact that Clark was very good at his job and sometimes scooped her on stories also added to the feeling of resentment Lane felt towards him.

When Lane later met Superman, she believed that this was the kind of physical and heroic man that Clark Kent could never be and she later openly declared that she held a torch for the costumed hero (at which point Clark had to leave the room before he laughed out loud over the irony).

This relationship between Clark and Lois was something many comic readers could relate to. It spoke to the idea that the dream girl would love a nerdy guy back if she could just see that underneath the glasses and seemingly meek manner there was indeed the ideal man she wished to be with. If she'd only give him a chance instead of being distracted by more obvious displays or things that were on the surface, all would be well and happy.

Jerry Siegel later wound up marrying the model for Lois Lane, a woman named Joanne Carter. As Siegel explained to Time Magazine, "My wife Joanne was Joe's original art model for Superman's girlfriend Lois Lane back in the 1930s. Our heroine was, of course, a working girl whose priority was grabbing scoops. What inspired me in the creation was Glenda Farrell, the movie star who portrayed Torchy Blane, a gutsy, beautiful headline-hunting reporter, in a series of exciting motion pictures. Because the name of the actress Lola Lane (who also played Torchy) appealed to me, I called my character Lois Lane. Strangely, the characterization of Lois is amazingly like the real-life personality of my lovely wife."

Although he may have focused less on fighting corrupt politicians and the like, Superman didn't lose a connection with the common man. A lot of crime-fighters and mystery-men at the time were independently wealthy or at least upper class enough to not really worry about money. The Phantom had chests full of gold and treasure he'd inherited from the previous heroes of his family. The Green Hornet was the owner and editor of a very successful newspaper. The Shadow had Lamont Cranston's fortune at his disposal.

But Clark Kent was different. He was a working stiff. He didn't own a newspaper, he was just one of its many reporters. And whereas the Green Hornet and the Shadow were often recognized in their identities of newspaper owner Britt Reid and wealthy Lamont Cranston due to their money and status, Clark was someone who blended in with the crowd.

If Britt Reid came to the office late or left early, who was going to stop him? But if Clark screwed up on a deadline or wasn't seen at the office enough, he'd get Hell from his editor, especially when he'd be hard-pressed to explain his absence without revealing his secret identity. This idea of Superman living among us as a common man was another way Siegel and Shuster were giving us a hero whom more readers could identify with.

Clark Kent didn't work for a newspaper just to pay the bills. No, sir, there was strategy behind his career choice. By working in the offices of a "major metropolitan newspaper", Clark ensured he would be among the first to know when disaster struck and when crimes were happening. It was the best thing next to having a police scanner and this aided him in knowing where and when Superman was needed.

Quite canny of our hero, don't you think? By being a reporter, he also had a job that gave him the ability to have long unexpected absences without being fired.

A journalist as a hero was something Jerry Siegel had always been attracted to. In high school, he'd written a one-act play "The Crusading Journalist." Along with Shuster, he was very much interested in people who exposed corrupt officials and authority figures and brought true justice to the common man.

In Action Comics #2, it was said that the newspaper Clark worked for was the Cleveland News. Yep. Siegel and Shuster lived in Cleveland and, in their minds, so did Superman. As the comics went on, the fictional city of Metropolis became a larger and larger place and later writers identified it more with an east coast environment such as New York rather than a place that would be located in the mid-west. The Cleveland News was soon renamed The Daily Star.

SUPERMAN VS. HITLER

Even after Action Comics #8, Superman wasn't done delving into political arenas. In Superman #10 (1941), a story featured "the Dukalia-American Sports Festival." Dukalian leader Karl Wolff spoke of the biological superiority of his people, saying, "You have seen them perform physical feats, which no other human can. Proof, I tell you, that we Dukalians are superior to any other race or nation. Proof that we are entitled to be the masters of America."

Our boy of red and blue proved this claim to be flat out wrong as he represented America and the story certainly struck a chord. It seemed like a retelling of Hitler’s claims before the 1936 Olympics that Germans were supermen above all others, a claim destroyed when Jesse Owens kicked ass. And considering what was going on with Hitler in 1941, mere months before America would decide to join the war, surely he was on the minds of many people and many Jews, Siegel and Shuster included.

Interesting, isn't it? Hitler’s idea of a super-man was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed guy and he hated the dark haired Jews who, among others, he blamed for his people’s problems. And how interesting that Siegel and Shuster, both Jewish men, created a an escapist fantasy who was called literally "Superman" but was dark haired, whose origin is paralleled with Moses (last survivor, sent to a place where he can live and thrive among people who are not his own) and whose name Kal-L sounds quite Hebraic. And yet, Superman seemed to mimic the ways of facism since, like them, he solved his problems through force.

Some historians have said that Superman's S-shield is a reply to the Nazi swastika. Hitler's banner symbolized the strong running over the weak and defenseless whereas Superman's shield is meant to symbolize that there is someone strong who will defend the weak and fight for them (an idea that seems even stronger when you see the original version was shaped as a literal shield).

Something to think about. As the war went on, Superman found himself often tackling Nazis and protecting soldiers. He became identified not just as a hero but specifically as an American hero. With World War II now happening, Superman began facing enemies such as fascist spies and Nazi troops. He went from the sarcastic, troubled rabble rouser to a man who defended the American ideal and the status quo of U.S. democracy.

In a special story done outside of the mainstream comics, Superman actually decided he'd had enough of the war in Europe. He went to Europe, flew down and kidnapped Adolf Hiter and Josef Stalin (by this point, he was able to fly in the comics) and deposited both of them in Geneva, Switzerland before either of the men could properly react. An immediate war crimes trial was held and both were declared guilty. And just like that, Superman had ended World War II.  Germany found out about this and the SS made public statements that Superman was clearly a Jew and that his creators were no doubt "mentally circumcized."

In the mainstream comics, Clark Kent tried to enlist in the army as an ordinary human soldier after America entered the war. But he screwed up his eye-chart exam by accidentally viewing the eye chart in the next room via X-ray vision (oops!). So while Kent was stuck reporting on things in the states, Superman alone was allowed to focus his efforts on fighting Axis powers.

BECOMING A STAR. LEARNING TO FLY.

Superman's popularity also had to do with marketing. Unlike Green Lantern, the Human Torch and Dr. Fate, the Man of Steel was also appearing outside of comic books. In 1939, a Superman strip began to be published in various newspapers across the nation. And it was in this medium that the full origin Siegel finally saw print. At last, readers learned the names "Krypton", "Jor-L" and "Kal-L." Finally, people saw the Kents find the baby Kal-L in his rocket ship. It was revealed that the Kents had originally taken the baby to an orphanage where the staff quickly found this super-strong, high-leaping tot to be too much to handle. When the Kents returned to adopt him a day later, they were only too happy to get rid of the kid and forget he'd ever been there.

The opening words to this expanded origin were: “Krypton. A distant planet so far advanced in evolution that it bears a civilization of supermen – beings which represent the human race at its ultimate peak of perfect development." It was here then that Superman began to be identified not only as the “man of steel” but as the “man of tomorrow.” He wasn't just an alien now, he represented what humans could achieve at the height of evolution.

It was shown that when the Kents died (just as Clark was entering his twenties), our hero realized the essence of mortality and the need to help others. Because the newspapers were afraid of infringing of the copyright of the real Cleaveland News, the daily comic strips said instead that he worked at The Daily Planet and the comic books adopted this afterward.

By this time, Superman's powers had noticeably increased. After his debut, more and super-powered heroes were showing up in comics and Siegel and Shuster decided that their boy needed to stay ahead of the game. Stories began depicting Superman with heightened senses, such as enhanced hearing and telescopic and microscopic sight. He soon developed X-ray vision and later found that by focusing these x-rays he could create beams of heat (that's right, folks, every time he used his X-ray vision in those days he was also irradiating people).

Later on, Siegel and Shuster decided to introduce a fatal weakness for their character, an Achille's Heel that would affect be unique to him. They scripted and drew a story in which Superman would encounter a deadly element called "k-metal" which could kill him. In this same story, Lois Lane would discover his dual identity. This has been attributed to the fact that by this time, Siegel and Shuster had met women they were ready to settle down with and so they wanted their creation to do the same. The story would end with Lois and Superman agreeing that she would now operate as his partner, helping him out when he needed it and aiding in the protection of his secret identity (and to keep the drama up, Lois was actually quite annoyed at Superman now for having deceived her for so long).

DC looked at the script and said "no", believing it changed the status quo too much, and the story was put aside. But part of it would later show up in a different medium.

A radio program called The Adventures of Superman first broadcast on February 12, 1940. The show began each episode with people shouting "Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's SUPERMAN!" The introduction also stated that Superman was dedicated to fighting for "truth and justice."

The show starred actor Bud Collyer in the role and he would play it for many years, both on radio and in the later cartoon series originally produced by the Fleischer brothers. The radio show was also the introduction of editor Perry White and young Jimmy Olsen. Some time later, Perry White would be introduced into the comics as Clark's new editor, replacing George Taylor, and Jimmy Olsen would show up as "Superman's Pal" and a photographer at the Daily Planet.

Inexplicably, Superman was able to fly in the radio show (hence people initially mistaking him for an avian creature or a flying machine). He would shout "Up, up and away!" and then fans would hear the sound of rushing wind as he soared high above. It's possible that this ability was added to help allow the radio incarnation to act more clandestinely than his comic book counterpart, giving him the ability to spy on friends and enemies from high above, narrating the events to the audience while also staying out of sight. 

After several episodes, the radio program gave the world "Kryptonite" for the first time, based on the concept of "K-metal" that Siegel and Shuster had shelved. Superman discovered that this ore was poisonous to him and that is was a remnant from his home world, a meteorite from the planet Krypton (hence the name). Tracing it back, he was able to learn about his home planet for the first time (he'd been too young to remember it since he'd left as a baby). But Kryptonite would still not appear in the comic books until Superman #61, published in December, 1949.

Let me make sure that got through your head. In the Superman comics, the Man of Steel did not encounter or even know about kryptonite until eleven years after his first appearance!

Two months after kryptonite made its debut in the comics, the scientist Luthor figured out how to synthesize it, making him once again a serious threat to Kal. Synthetic kryptonite was a lot less effective on Kal and had a more limited range, but it got the job done well enough and could come in a variety of forms (such as synthetic kryptonite bullets and synthetic kryptonite liquid which could be sprayed on Superman, soaking his clothing).

For more about kryptonite, see my essay on Superman's Weaknesses.

In 1941, Superman began appearing in the now-famous Fleischer cartoons by Paramount, watched by kids in various theaters. These cartoons were animated in a very professional style and its stories were quite dark at times. The cartoon helped make Superman more of a champion of the status quo rather than a man who questioned the government. And like the radio show, the cartoon depicted Superman as being able to fly. It's been said that the animators had asked DC for permission to give him this ability.

This may seem like an unusual request, but the fact was that Superman artists were actually having a similar problem in the comics. He was supposed to have great leaping ability, yes, but there were times when the angles at which he leaped and landed seemed impossible. And in the early days, it seemed like every other story involved Superman falling and the story implying that there was danger involved, only to find that he could land quite harmlessly by absorbing the impact into his legs or grabbing onto a building ledge, etc.

So DC decided, why bother having such a sequence every single time their boy was fighting a villain in an airplane? The radio had Superman flying. And now so did the cartoon series. Maybe it was time the comic book that had inspired them both finally followed suit.

So it became official. In Superman #10 (May-June 1941), readers Superman hover in mid-air for the first time ever. And just in case anyone doubted their eyes or believed this to be an artistic error, Superman #11 featured our boy not only change direction entirely while traveling through the air but also accomplish a cork-screw flight pattern. So because it was cool and was easier to draw, the man had made a habit of hanging from window ledges in nearly every issue was now able to defy gravity by sheer force of will.

How did he propel himself? How was he able to hover? No one explained that and no one else seemed to mind. He was an alien, why shouldn't he be able to fly? Are you an expert on aliens and whether or not they can fly? Yeah, that's what I thought, so there! Besides, later writers would come up with explanations eventually.

With the success of the radio show and the cartoon series, Superman made his move to the silver screen. The character was adapted into live-action movie serials starring Kirk Alyn. Several years later in the 1950's, a television series entitled The Adventures of Superman began, starring George Reeves in the title role. This occasionally tongue-in-cheek adventure program entertained viewers of all ages and ensured that there would be no one left in the U.S. who wouldn't be able to recognize the man in red and blue or his reporter alter ego. Since it was the time of the red scare in the U.S., this new TV series changed Superman's mission from "truth and justice" to "truth, justice and the American way!"

If you'd like to learn more about the radio show, movie serials and TV show, check out the essay on Superman in Media.

 

In 1942, George Lowther did a Superman novel that, once again, gave us the extended origin first presented in the newspapers but this time there were a couple of changes. First, the Kents were given first names now, "Eben" and "Sarah." In later years, it would change to "John" and "Mary" and years later it would finally become "Jonathan" and "Martha", which it remains to this day. What's more, Jor-L was now spelled "Jor-El" and Kal-L became "Kal-El." This new spelling would become the standard for the comics as well.

So thanks to comics, in newspapers, in movie theaters, on the air-waves and a full prose novel, Superman had become truly ingrained in the hearts and minds of America. Throughout much of the Golden Age of comics (1938-1951 roughly), most masked heroes were called "mystery-men" or simply "crime-fighters." On rare occasion, some of the pulp heroes of the early 30's such as the Shadow had been advertised as a "super-hero." But it wasn't until after Superman's debut that this term became the standard for describing costumed/masked heroes, so much so that he is sometimes erroneously credited with being the direct inspiration for the word "super-hero."

AN ANGEL FROM THE STARS 

By the mid-1940s, Superman was becoming a parallel for a modern-day angel. The addition of flight to his array of powers was a strong reason for this. It became his most popular and envied power and seemed so fitting for a man who was more concerned with changing the world and inspiring others to do the same rather than simply punishing evil and meting out vengeance. As the years went on, it seemed impossible that there would have been a time when he hadn't been able to fly. As comic book writer/Superman historian Mark Waid said during my interview with him, Superman's ability to fly strikes an immediate visual chord with us and emphasizes that this hero "is an angel come from above to save us."

Along with the ability to rise above the Earth and its boundaries, our hero has the name of Kal-El. In old scripture, it was a mark of their connection with God that angels were supposed to have the letters "el" at the end of their names (Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, Uriel, etc.). And some have pointed out that in comics, Kal-El sounds very close kol el which would be Hebrew for "all god" or "all that is god." Coincidence? Sure, it definitely could be. But it's an interesting coincidence, isn't it?

Richard Donner definitely picked up on the religious/angelic tones of Superman when he filmed the 1978 Superman movie and emphasized the hero as a Christ-like figure. This is evidenced by the messages Jor-El imparts to his child, both before he sends the boy to Earth and later via holographic recordings.

"Live as one of them, Kal-El, to discover where your strength and your power are needed. But always hold in your heart the pride of your special heritage.

"They can be a great people, Kal-El. They wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you ... my only son."

In recent years, another story element was introduced to cement this aspect of Superman. In the story SUPERMAN: BIrthright, writer Mark Waid revised Superman's continuity in a few respects and established that the S-shield is actually an ancient Kryptonian symbol meaning "hope." What would be more fitting for an angel incarnate to wear as his symbol?

NEW COMPETITION, EVEN MORE NEW POWERS

Artist Jack Burnley, who would later co-create the original Starman and who I had the fortune of knowing, came onto DC Comics. One of those artists who never got enough credit, Burnley was normally a sports illustrator and so was quite adept at anatomy in a day and age where that wasn't the concern of most comic artists (come to think about it, I'm not sure it's a huge concern for many of them today either).

Hired to do Superman and later the Batman Dailies (though he was not credited in the actual artwork), Burnley was told to make Superman "more heroic." With Burnley on board, Kal-El went from being a guy with a better-than-average build to being the chiseled, Olympic-level all-around athlete. Later artists such as Wayne Boring would take this a step further, making Superman have exaggerated he-man proportions with a barrel-chest and very broad shoulders.

 

Some of my favorite covers by my old buddy Jack Burnley. Nazis beware! 

By this time, Superman had already started inspiring a wave of new heroes. But while imitation is supposed to be the sincerest form of flattery, one guy may have taken it a bit too far. Victor A. Fox, the boss of Fox Features Syndicate, told his people he wanted his own version of Superman so he could also have a high-selling comic book. So, in May, 1939, Wonder Comics #1 was published and featured the new character Wonderman! Wonderman was a mild-mannered reporter named Fred Carson who worked at a broadcasting company. Fred later went to Tibet (like many other heroes and pulp vigilantes) and got himself a magic ring that made him incredibly strong, invulnerable to small arms fire, and allowed him to leap great distances. Fred's boss thought very little of him, as did his boss's daughter Brenda who was in love with the heroic Wonderman who'd saved the hospital where she worked as a nurse.

DC saw this first issue and immediately went to court before a second issue could even come out. The judge ruled the Wonderman was essentially Superman but paraphrased and thus was an infringement on the copyright. I find it faintly amusing that today there are many characters who are direct homages and joking reproductions of Superman who are left alone by the courts. Either way, Wonderman was sentenced to comic book limbo and when Wonder Comics #2 came out he was mysteriously absent from its pages. That would turn ou to be the title's final issue as well.

In 1939, a character called Captain Marvel was created by Fawcett Comics. Captain Marvel was really a boy named Billy Batson, a radio reporter who could transform into an adult super-hero by yelling the word “Shazam!” He was strong, highly resistant to injury, able to fly, very fast, and dressed in a costume of primary colors (in this case, red, gold and white). Very soon, he was getting higher sales marks than Superman and not long afterwards even acquired a supporting cast of marketable characters such as Mary Marvel and Capt. Marvel, Jr.

Just as with Wonderman, DC again screamed "rip-off!" and a court case ensued. DC pointed out that Captain Marvel bore many similarities to Superman. Their faces and costumes were similar in basic design and look. Both were tall, broad-shouldered heroes with square jaws, black hair, a gold chest symbol, a cape and a body suit. Both were reporters in their different identities. Both were gifted with the same array of abilities. Superman was "the most powerful man on Earth", whereas Captain Marvel was described as "the world's mightiest mortal." And both had a serious enemy who was a bald scientist.

The court case went on for a few years, with the judge never fully convinced it was a rip-off. In their defense, Fawcett Comics pointed out that Superman was an alien who only pretended to be human and that this theme was very different from their character of a young boy living out his heroic fantasy by being able to transform into a super-powered adult.

As mentioned before, other heroes had appeared in comics as well. Flash. Starman. Hawkman. A couple of these characters, such as Green Lantern and the Spectre, seemed to be Superman’s equal or superior in terms of power. Perhaps because of this, and because of a desire to make their character now seem cooler than his competition at Fawcett comics, Superman got a power boost. His strength, speed and invulnerability increased. Whereas just a few years before there had been a story where Superman exclaimed that being hit by an oncoming train could possibly kill him, he was now able to shrug off tank fire and falling safes as if they were mere nuisances. When the A-bomb was later introduced to the world, the Last Son of Krypton was featured in a story where he survived not one but two atomic blasts without long-term injury.

This increased as the years went by. By the end of the forties, he was even able to create diamond by compressing a lump of coal between his hands. He could travel cross-country in a matter of minutes by flying at several times the speed of sound. He developed "super-ventriloquism", which allowed him to throw his voice with great skill to distract foes. And he had super-lungs that could cool off a hunk of lava.

Finally, it was said that Superman also had "super-muscle control", allowing him to completely alter his voice and even change the appearance of his face so that his two identities actually looked and sounded like too different people. The idea of a shape-shifting face power was dropped after 1947, but writers to this day continue to latch onto the idea that Superman had enough control of his muscles to make his Clark-voice sound totally different. The idea of such muscle control makes sense if you realize that without it, Clark would crush the hands of every human he ever shook hands with.

Explanations for these added abilities came years later. In 1953, Superman said that the intense atmospheric density of Krypton's atmosphere caused its people to evolve with X-ray eyes (or "see-through vision", which is really a more accurate description when you think about it).

Possibly the most ridiculous power was featured in a story where Clark Kent actually used a “super-kiss” on Lois, causing her to nearly faint. Literally, he said he was going to kiss her as only a Superman could. Think about that, kids.

With all these extra powers, Superman had adapted and once again was the man, not to be shown up by his other costumed colleagues.

SILLY TIMES AND SUPERBOY

Now, we start coming across a couple problems. Since he was becoming so damn powerful and had, still, no real super-villains to fight, Superman’s stories steadily became less about the fight for truth and justice and more about our hero being placed in odd sitcom-style situations. He was constantly trying to prevent people from finding out his real identity or teaming up with Santa to make sure Christmas went all right or trying to outwit childish tricks by folks like the Prankster and the Toyman.

Superman also had to deal with magical imps like the extra-dimensional trickster imp named Mr. Mxyzptlk (originally named Mr. Mxyztplk, his name was changed after a typo). And then of course there were the stories of Superman dealing with having to be a Super-Homemaker for a day or trying to beat a guy who cheated at chess (he was called the Puzzler) or whatever. It was during these adventures that it was said Superman was still susceptible to magic, which made folks like Mr. Mxyzptlk especially annoying for him (by the way, that's pronounced "Mix-yez-pittle-ick").

Superman's relationship with Lois Lane also changed during the late forties and the fifties. For one thing, the alter ego of Clark Kent became more and more a complete disguise that was opposite in nature to Superman's personality. Whereas the original version of Clark was an outspoken, confident, witty man who simply disliked violence, the new take on the reporter was that he was cowardly, apologetic and weak-willed. Before, if Clark saw a situation that required his superhuman abilities, he'd come up with an excuse such as "I better phone this in" or "hey, I just remembered a lead I was supposed to check out, be back later." Now it seemed that his default excuse was to complain about a stomach ache or feeling light-headed before then claiming that he had to run to the bathroom or retreat home.

Lois became a much more simplistic character. Over the years she'd gone from a co-worker of Clark's who occasionally needed his help to a simple damsel in distress who was constantly being kidnapped by Superman's enemies. And now she was an antagonist in her own way. Lois repeatedly tried to trick Superman into marrying her or scheming ways to get the Man of Steel to admit that she and Clark Kent were actually the same person (a truth she suspected but was never able to directly prove).

Of course, all these plans ended in failure, so often that Lois herself would often doubt her conclusion about the Man of Tomorrow's secret identity and his feelings for her, only to later decide she'd been tricked and that she would triumph over our hero even if it killed her.

Along with this, Lois Lane also did her best to sabotage any other dates Superman had, would occasionally attempt to gain super-powers in order to force the Last Son of Krypton to accept her as a partner, or would even focus on changing her image in order to impress the Man of Steel, such as when she confronted him with the question of what hair color he preferred she'd have.

So Lois went from being a crusading journalist to someone who obviously had a lot of time on her hands. And although she believed (usually) that Clark and Superman were one and the same, she still gave Clark a hard time on the off-chance that he was indeed as cowardly as she believed him to be (and possibly because she resented the possibility he was lying to her this whole time).

  

Another problem came concerning Krypton. Thanks to newspapers, the radio show and now the novel, we had three accounts saying everyone on Krypton was a superman too. Fine. But see, Superman was now quite the power-house. So kids wondered, if Superman could fly cross-country in a few minutes and escape Earth’s atmosphere without damage and such, then presumably Kryptonians could have as well. So … why hadn’t they all just flown away before it blew up?

The first solution to this was brought about in 1945 with the creation of Superboy in More Fun Comics #101. In this story, we found an alternate version of Superman who gained powers much earlier in life. It was shown that he grew up in a small mid-western town, the first time that such an idea had been expressed in the comics. As far as previous readers had known, the Kents had raised Clark Kent in Metropolis. There had never been any mention of the mid-west. Later on, the town was called Smallville and was said to be in Kansas. Also, the Superboy story mentioned that the reason Kal-El had powers was primarily due to Earth’s lesser gravity, because although Kryptonians were born with super-senses, their flight, strength, durability and speed were all dependent on Earth.

Another marked difference was that while the adult Superman was pursued by Lois Lane, this young version of Clark Kent was pursued by his neighbor, the red-headed Lana Lang. Lana suspected that Superboy and Clark Kent were one and the same and many times did her best to prove this point.

Notice I said this was an alternate version. This story was not considered to be stories of the real Kal-El "when he was a boy." The mainstream Superman titles still made no references to any Superboy stories and in an issue in 1947 it was said that Clark Kent went to high school in Metropolis, not Smallville.

THE COURT CASE

A change in the guard occurred. Although other writers and artists had certainly joined in on Superman in the past years, Siegel and Shuster had remained fixed in the center of Superman's universe. But 1946 saw them finally leave DC Comics when they sued the company over Superman.

Years ago, Siegel and Shuster had sold the rights to Superman to DC for $ 130 and a contract to supply material. In 1941, the creative duo was being paid $ 75,000 each per year, a hefty sum considering the time but they still considered it just a fraction of the Superman profits. At this point, although they were both being credited still, Shuster was drawing less and less due to losing his eyesight. In 1946, DC fired Siegel and Shuster once they brought a lawsuit against the company for rights and higher profits.

The case went on until 1948 when the artist and writer accepted a settlement of $ 200,000 in exchange for waving any further claim to Superman or any character created as a link to him (Lois Lane, Luthor, Jimmy Olsen, Brainiac and Bizarro in later years, etc.). In a true example of how insane the American justice system can be, they did get the rights to Superboy since the courts decided that Superboy was a separate and independent character. Let me say that again. They said "no" to them owning Superman and his cast of characters, but "yes" to them owning Superboy, who is just Superman but younger ... yeah.

After their departure, DC soon took Siegel and Shuster's names off the byline of Superman comics. Shuster later returned and in 1951 DC integrated the Superboy stories into mainstream continuity, now marking them as canon (which means basically that Shuster gave up the rights to him too since they were no longer separate characters). We'll talk more about in the next section.

After the Superman movie starring Christopher Reeve in 1978, Warner Bros. (who now owned DC Comics) publicly announced that they would being awarding $35,000 annually (complete with health benefits) to both Siegel and Shuster for the rest of their lives. At the time, they were under no legal obligation to do so but stated that they felt it was wrong to treat the creators of Superman otherwise. Likewise, it was agreed that from then on, any Superman movie, show, novel or comic would credit Siegel and Shuster as the original creators.

MUTATIONS, DUPLICATES AND A NEW CLUBHOUSE

When Siegel and Shuster left, editor Mort Weisinger became the man behind the curtain where Superman was concerned. He wanted to make Superman more about sci-fi adventures again. First move, re-establish who he was. It was now 1948 and it occurred to him that although it had been related in the radio and the newspapers, the origin story had not been published in the comics yet, not counting the one page description from Action Comics #1. Think about that, readers. In this world where there’s a flashback to Superman’s backstory every year or so, this was a time when literally a full decade had passed between the first appearance of Superman and the publishing of his full origin in a comic book.

In Superman #53 (July 1948), which was the tenth anniversary issue, the whole story of Superman's arrival was told.  No reference to Superboy. Kryptonians were once again shown to have powers on Krypton and nothing is mentioned about Earth’s gravity affecting Superman in the slightest. For the first time in the comics (as opposed to the Lowther novel), Clark Kent's foster parents were given names: John and Mary.

Having now re-established where Superman had come from, the stories began a new theme of tragedy, the fact that Superman was an orphan, the last of his kind and had never truly come to know his planet. In Superman #61, mentioned before as the first appearance of kryptonite, Superman at last gained what many orphans wish for: a chance to learn about where he came from. After finding the strange red glowing rock (it wasn’t colored green until later), Superman used his powers to travel faster than light, breaking the "time-travel barrier" and following the kryptonite down its own time line until he saw Krypton as it had existed in the past. He saw Jor-El pleading to the Science Council that Krypton would explode soon. He saw how, failing to convince them they needed to build space-arks, Jor-El sent his only son Kal-El (which was later revealed to mean "star-child" in old Kryptonese) to Earth so that he would survive.

"Now I understand why I'm different from Earthmen! I'm not really from Earth at all – I'm from another planet – the planet Jor-El called KRYPTON!"

So as far as the comics were concerned, Superman didn't know where he was from or even that he was necessarily an alien until eleven damn years after his first comic book story. Readers knew it, but unlike them Superman did not have the benefit of reading the first pages of his own comic origin story or hearing it on the radio show.

The next year in 1950, Clark found out that he wasn't alone in the universe. Three Kryptonian criminals who"d been shot into orbit by Jor-El (cuz why put them in prison when you can just let them starve to death in a satellite that doesn't appear to have any bathroom?) had survived and were ready to do some damage. This story reasserted that all people on Krypton had extra strength and "see-through vision."

 

Action Comics #158 (1951) was a turning point in Superman. With this issue, the Superboy stories were now considered canon. Readers were told that the adult Clark they enjoyed every month in the mainstream titles had indeed grown-up in Smallville and enjoyed a career as an adolescent and teenage hero before his adopted parents had died and he'd later moved to Metropolis. This allowed for a romantic triangle of sorts to form when Lana Lang later moved to Metropolis, pursuing the adult Clark Kent with as much vigor as Lois Lane pursued Superman. Our hero was torn between the woman he admired and was attracted to as an adult and the girl who loved him for his human side and who had been his first love.

It also mentioned that his foster parents were named Jonathan and Martha Kent and once again said that Earth’s lesser gravity made him super, that while Kryptonians had super-senses, they didn’t have great strength or flight. But then a couple months later, a comic mentioned that people on Krypton did indeed have all those nifty powers. ARGH! Fortunately, that was pretty much the last time that claim was made.

The Superboy stories also introduced a misguided villain who'd last for decades. Young Clark learned about a machine that fired a beam which could create copies of whatever it hit. Unfortunately, these artificial clones were all imperfect. When Superboy was caught in the beam himself, it created an imperfect duplicate of the Boy of Steel that could only be called "Bizarro." This artificial life form had all Clark's powers but had a strange appearance due to his skin crystallizing. What's more, he possessed the mind of a child and at times seemed to think in a imperfect, sometimes reverse, fashion. He'd say "good-bye" when he meant "hello", he'd sometimes fly backwards, he'd try to help someone only to wind up unknowingly putting them in greater danger than they'd been in before.

Although Bizarro seemed to destroy himself in a heroic act by the end of the story, the character later came back and plagued the adult Superman time and time again, sometimes wishing to destroy the Man of Steel and sometimes simply wishing to find a bit of happiness and love in a world he didn't understand. As an adult, Bizarro oftentimes spoke backwards (saying "hello" when he meant "good-bye") and was dangerous in that he didn't consider nor realize the damage he caused by not being able to control his abilities.

Bizarro later increased his backwards appeal by wearing a reversed S-shield on his chest and suffering a mutation later on that caused him to have some reverse powers as well. Instead of heat-vision, he had ice-vision and instead of arctic breath, he could breathe fire. When Superman discovered that Bizarro was immune to the effects of kryptonite, he used the duplicator ray to create a new form of "blue kryptonite." Although it didn't hurt Superman at all, blue-K was toxic to Bizarro and would immediately weaken him.

   

Eventually, Superman made a home for Bizarro, knowing that his imperfect duplicate wasn't truly an evil creature and just needed a place where his warped logic wouldn't hurt others. So the backwards duplicate got his own imperfect cube-shaped planet. He called it "Bizarro World" and populated it with new imperfect duplicates he created, such as a clumsy version of Batman, a dim-witted "Yellow Lantern", and his own version of the Daily Planet staff. He even worked at the local newspaper (the Daily Htrae) and would disguise himself with lens-less glasses and a loose fitting suit and tie. Still, every now and then Bizarro would leave his world for one reason or another and would cause lots of trouble for Superman and the Earth.

Further menacing Clark was the creation of red kryptonite. Apparently, pieces of normal green kryptonite had passed through a cloud of red dust/gas in space while it was on route to Earth. Somehow the red cloud mutated it, allowing this new red-K to cause a mutation or psychological in Superman that would last anywhere between 24 hours and 48 hours and were always unpredictable. At one point, it gave him an insect-like appearance and personality. Another time, it gave him an enormous brain and skull. A few times, it gave him amnesia or changed his personality. Memorably, it once gave him a lion's head. And once it even split him into two identical beings, the good Superman Blue and the evil Superman Red.

Anytime Superman suffered a mutation, that particular chunk of red kryptonite was rendered powerless immediately and had no effect on our boy anymore.

Sometime the red-K didn't cause a physical mutation. There were a couple of instances when exposure to it rendered Superman with a different personality (such as that of a raving lunatic) or made him a complete amnesiac. Such stories evidently inspired the writers of the TV series Smallville decades later. That show's version of red kryptonite caused Clark to lose all his inhibitions and act more aggressively and on his primal urges. For more about the TV series Smallville, read my essay on Superman in Media.

There were also two other versions of red kryptonite. In the early 1990's, the imp Mxyzptlk created a red stone that temporarily robbed Superman of his powers (in a story called "Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite"). And years later, Batman created a synthetic version of kryptonite that turned red in color (Batman makes it a habit to create weapons to take down super-heroes in case they are later mind-controlled or go rogue). This synthetic kryptonite would cause Superman's skin to become transparent, forcing him to absorb so much excess solar radiation that all his powers went out of control and he was forced to endure great pain.

Another way to keep fans on their toes were occasional time travel adventures and the publication of "imaginary stories." This was the label DC would use when they published a story that was officially operating outside of continuity and accepted canon, meaning anything could happen there. In an "imaginary story", Superman might die, finally killed by Luthor. Or perhaps Superman would finally marry Lois Lane and raise a super-powered son who would take over for him when he came of age.

One of the most famous "imaginary stories" was when Superman recreated the mutation that had once split him into Supermand Red and Superman Blue, except this time they were both good and both several times more intelligent than the original. Together, the two Supermen freed the world from crime, established a new version of Krypton, gave the mer-people of Atlantis a new home on an aquatic planet, and each married Lois Lane and Lana Lang, thus giving readers two happy endings for the loves of Clark's life.

Because of these stories, DC later wanted to emphasize when a huge event was indeed happening and was operating within continuity. To do this, a cover would proclaim "Not a hoax! Not a dream! Not an imaginary story!" 

One story about love involved an untold tale of Clark Kent's college years. It turned out that during his university days, Clark had courted a girl named Lori Lemaris, an intelligent student who was confined to a wheelchair. Lori was sunny and compassionate and seemed to understand Clark. But she was also quite mysterious and was obviously keeping secrets.

Clark later realized that Lori was actually a mermaid from the undersea nation of Atlantis (later it was revealed that she was specifically from the city of Tritonis, where people have fish-tails, as opposed to Poseidonis, where folks like Aquaman breathe underwater but still have legs). Though he cared very deeply for Lori, Superman knew that her unique nature as a woman of the sea would make any serious relationship just about impossible. The two stayed friends though.

There are a couple of different opinions on the inspiration for the name "Lori Lemaris." Some say that it's a nod to the Lorelei rock in the Rhine river and that Lemaris is a nod to the word "mare", meaning sea. Others say it's meant to sound like the mythical nation of Lemuria, which, like Atlantis, was said to have sunk beneath the waves of the ocean.

The 50's wasn't all about mutations and misguided duplicates and fun "what if" stories though. The Superman mythos became enhanced when he was finally giving a secret lair (something all teenage boys want, truly).  In a few stories, it was shown that Superman had a secret lab somewhere. Originally, this lair (affectionately nicknamed "the secret citadel") had been carved inside a mountain. From the outside, you could only see the entrance, a large golden door with the S-shield decorating the top. Superman claimed to have built the place himself during some unseen adventure.

But after a while, this mountain retreat didn't seem quite cool enough. It would have worked for many other super-heroes, but Superman was an alien and an angelic figure of sorts. He deserved something with a bit more majesty.

A few years later, fans finally got the "Fortress of Solitude" (also cutely referred to as "Fort Superman"). Like Doc Savage’s Fortress of Solitude, this was a base hidden in the arctic. Superman had, apparently during some untold adventure, decided that he needed a place where he could retreat from the world and figured his apartment in Metropolis just wasn’t enough. So he’d carved out an entire fortress inside a mountain near the North Pole. To get inside, he had to lift what was literally a giant key. To disguise the key, it was shaped like an arrow and would seem like a directional marker to guide any planes that flew overhead. Superman would pick up the key, fly it into its enormous lock which was at least 50 feet off the ground, push open the enormous door that only he was strong enough to open, and then, once inside, he would hang the key on an equally enormous key-rack (cuz those airplanes didn’t need a visual marker that much, did they?) and enjoy his home away from home.

     

The Fortress had trophies from several adventures, a giant journal in which he wrote down all his adventures in Kryptonese so no one else could read it (a bit paranoid, no?), an inter-galactic zoo, an armory of weapons he collected from villains, a lab for experiments, and even rooms where he kept treasures to give to his friends in case he died. In the center chamber of the Fortress, there stood two large statues of Jor-El and Lara. The statues each had an arm lifted and together they held the world of Krypton above them. That way, Superman would always remember his heritage and how important it was to make sure his adopted home was never lost as Krypton had been.

 

As the 50’s went on, Superman became more and more knowledgeable of Krypton. He found thought projection discs that gave the whole story on how his parents Jor-El and Lara met (in her first few mentions years before, she’d been called Lora originally). Later, Luthor found several weapons Jor-El had made that had survived the destruction of Krypton. And later, Superman actually got a hold of Jor-El’s journal, lab desk and films (which were conveniently floating in space). Suddenly, the old home didn't seem so far away anymore.

Now, to look at this in a wider perspective, it is important that we realize what comics were like at the time. Thanks to concerned parents groups, fans no longer finding most costumed heroes all that interesting, and jerks like Dr. Frederic Wertham nearly convincing Congress to ban comic books, the industry had taken a turn. Gone were heroes for the most part. Green Lantern? Hawkman? Who were they? Only Wonder Woman, Superman and Batman really trucked on in DC. The market became now full of romance comics, true crime comics, western comics and sci-fi comics. The sci-fi adventure comics were of a sort that Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers obviously had a lot of influence here. It was in these tales that readers met folks like "Captain Comet" and "Adam Strange” and later, "J’Onn J’Onzz, Manhunter from Mars."

So it is only natural that Superman would follow the suit of such heroes by getting involved in stories that emphasized his alien nature. Of course, we still hadn't escaped the silly stories of the 40s. Not only did Superman fight menacing robots and mad scientists, he also took on Atlas, Samson and Hercules (sometimes fighting them all at once!).

And a lot of times he wouldn't be battling evil at all, he'd just be traveling in time to fight in the wild, wild west or had to deal with prankish games such as being a maid for a day or fighting robots that only stole pennies or avoiding Lois's tricks to get him to marry her. Hell, there was even a story where Batman broke into the Fortress of Solitude just to pull a joke on Superman and convince him that there was some super-villain intruder who'd discovered his identity. And then to get back at the Gotham Guardian, Superman tricked Batman into thinking they were both sealed off by a cave-in with kryptonite and would soon die from starvation or lack of oxygen. Hilarious, right? RIGHT?!

Fortunately, the sillier stories seem to give way a bit when the Silver Age of comics began and Superman could once more focus on being a serious super-hero, as well as a sci-fi adventurer.

Continue to Part 2, which covers the Silver Age all the way to the events of The Crisis.

You can also go to Superman in Media or check out the History of the S-Shield.