History of Superman

Superman, a fictional comic book character has spanned several decades and become a defining superhero archetype.

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster met at Cleveland's Glenville High School. Both shared an affection for science fiction and pulp magazines and soon contributed to the student newspaper, The Glenville Torch. Soon, Siegel and Shuster produced their own science fiction magazine, Science Fiction, a stapled, mimeographed pamphlet containing drawings by Shuster and stories by Siegel under various pseudonyms. Only five issues were produced and they are very rare: one copy sold decades later for $50,000. Siegel's short story "The Reign of the Superman" (with an illustration by Shuster) concerned a bald-headed villain, vaguely reminiscent of Flash Gordon's Ming the Merciless, bent on dominating the world.

Looking to comics as a vehicle for their ideas, they formulated a different take on the concept of the superman, with the character being a physically powerful hero. They pitched this unsuccessfully to newspaper syndicates as a comic strip. Siegel sent it to National Comics in New York where it languished in a drawer. When a publisher had difficulty deciding on an appropriate cover for a new magazine called Action Comics, someone pulled out the Superman proposal, showing him lifting a car with his hands. The publisher allegedly called it "ridiculous", but still decided to later put it on the cover. He wrote Siegel and Shuster and asked them if they could put together a 13-page story for Action Comics #1.

Siegel and Shuster hurriedly cut and pasted their newspaper strip into comic book form and sent it off. In the summer, Action Comics hit the newsstands. Sales figures were not as immediate as today, but when Action #4 hit the stands, sales were off the charts. Astounded by this, the publisher is reported to have gone down to his local newsstand and asked a kid, “Why are you reading this one?” pointing to Action Comics. "Because it's the one that has Superman in it, mister."

The revised Superman first appeared in Action Comics #1, June 1938. Siegel and Shuster sold the rights to the company for $130 and a contract to supply the publisher with material. The Saturday Evening Post reported in 1960 that the pair was being paid $75,000 each per year, still a fraction of DC's Superman profits. In 1964, when Siegel and Shuster sued for more money, DC fired them, prompting a legal battle that ended in 1967, when they accepted $200,000 and signed away any further claim to Superman or any character created from him. DC soon took Siegel's and Shuster's names off the byline. Following the huge financial success of Superman in 1978 and news reports of their pauper-like existences, Warner Communications gave Siegel and Shuster lifetime pensions of $35,000 per year and health care benefits. In addition, any media production which includes the Superman character must include the credit, "Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster".

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