Superman

Superman is a superhero who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, and debuted in the comic book ''Action Comics'' #1 (cover-dated June 1938 and published April 18, 1938).The copyright date of ''Action Comics'' #1 was registered as April 18, 1938.
See Superman has been adapted to a number of other media, including radio serials, novels, films, television shows, theater productions, and video games.

Superman was born on the fictional planet Krypton and was named Kal-El. When he was a baby, his parents sent him to Earth in a small spaceship moments before Krypton was destroyed in a natural cataclysm. His ship landed in the American countryside, near the fictional town of Smallville. He was found and adopted by farmers Jonathan and Martha Kent, who named him Clark Kent. Clark developed various superhuman abilities, such as incredible strength and impervious skin. His adoptive parents advised him to use his abilities for the benefit of humanity, and he decided to fight crime. To protect his personal life, he changes into a colorful costume and uses the alias "Superman" when fighting crime. Clark resides in the fictional American city of Metropolis, where he works as a journalist for the ''Daily Planet''. Superman's supporting characters include his love interest and fellow journalist Lois Lane, ''Daily Planet'' photographer Jimmy Olsen and editor-in-chief Perry White, and enemies such as Brainiac, Darkseid, General Zod, and his archenemy Lex Luthor.

Superman is the archetype of the superhero: he wears an outlandish costume, uses a codename, and fights evil with the aid of extraordinary abilities. Although there are earlier characters who arguably fit this definition, it was Superman who popularized the superhero genre and established its conventions. He was the best-selling superhero in American comic books until the 1980s. Dallas et al. (2013), ''American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1980s'', p. 208

Creation and conception

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster met in 1932 while attending Glenville High School in Cleveland and bonded over their admiration of fiction. Siegel aspired to become a writer and Shuster aspired to become an illustrator. Siegel wrote amateur science fiction stories, which he self-published as a magazine called ''Science Fiction: The Advance Guard of Future Civilization''. His friend Shuster often provided illustrations for his work. In January 1933, Siegel published a short story in his magazine titled "The Reign of the Superman". The titular character is a homeless man named Bill Dunn who is tricked by an evil scientist into consuming an experimental drug. The drug gives Dunn the powers of mind-reading, mind-control, and clairvoyance. He uses these powers maliciously for profit and amusement, but then the drug wears off, leaving him a powerless vagrant again. Shuster provided illustrations, depicting Dunn as a bald man.

Siegel and Shuster shifted to making comic strips, with a focus on adventure and comedy. They wanted to become syndicated newspaper strip authors, so they showed their ideas to various newspaper editors. However, the newspaper editors told them that their ideas were insufficiently sensational. If they wanted to make a successful comic strip, it had to be something more sensational than anything else on the market. This prompted Siegel to revisit Superman as a comic strip character. Siegel modified Superman's powers to make him even more sensational: Like Bill Dunn, the second prototype of Superman is given powers against his will by an unscrupulous scientist, but instead of psychic abilities, he acquires superhuman strength and bullet-proof skin. Additionally, this new Superman was a crime-fighting hero instead of a villain, because Siegel noted that comic strips with heroic protagonists tended to be more successful. In later years, Siegel once recalled that this Superman wore a "bat-like" cape in some panels, but typically he and Shuster agreed there was no costume yet, and there is none apparent in the surviving artwork.

Siegel and Shuster showed this second concept of Superman to Consolidated Book Publishers, based in Chicago. In May 1933, Consolidated had published a proto-comic book titled ''Detective Dan: Secret Operative 48''.The copyright date of ''Detective Dan Secret Operative 48'' was registered as May 12, 1933.
See It contained all-original stories as opposed to reprints of newspaper strips, which was a novelty at the time. Siegel and Shuster put together a comic book in a similar format called ''The Superman''. A delegation from Consolidated visited Cleveland that summer on a business trip and Siegel and Shuster took the opportunity to present their work in person. Although Consolidated expressed interest, they later pulled out of the comics business without ever offering a book deal because the sales of ''Detective Dan'' were disappointing. ''Super Boys''

Siegel believed publishers kept rejecting them because he and Shuster were young and unknown, so he looked for an established artist to replace Shuster. ''Super Boys'': "Jerry was convinced, just as he was in those early pulp days, that you had to align yourself with someone famous to be famous yourself. ..Over the next year, Jerry contacted several major artists, including Mel Graff, J. Allen St. John, and even Bernie Schmittke .. When Siegel told Shuster what he was doing, Shuster reacted by burning their rejected Superman comic, sparing only the cover. They continued collaborating on other projects, but for the time being Shuster was through with Superman.

Siegel wrote to numerous artists. The first response came in July 1933 from Leo O'Mealia, who drew the ''Fu Manchu'' strip for the Bell Syndicate. In the script that Siegel sent to O'Mealia, Superman's origin story changes: He is a "scientist-adventurer" from the far future when humanity has naturally evolved "superpowers". Just before the Earth explodes, he escapes in a time-machine to the modern era, whereupon he immediately begins using his superpowers to fight crime. O'Mealia produced a few strips and showed them to his newspaper syndicate, but they were rejected. O'Mealia did not send to Siegel any copies of his strips, and they have been lost.

In June 1934, Siegel found another partner: an artist in Chicago named Russell Keaton.. ''Men of Tomorrow'', p. 112-113 Keaton drew the ''Buck Rogers'' and '' Skyroads'' comic strips. In the script that Siegel sent Keaton in June, Superman's origin story further evolved: In the distant future, when Earth is on the verge of exploding due to "giant cataclysms", the last surviving man sends his three-year-old son back in time to the year 1935. The time-machine appears on a road where it is discovered by motorists Sam and Molly Kent. They leave the boy in an orphanage, but the staff struggle to control him because he has superhuman strength and impenetrable skin. The Kents adopt the boy and name him Clark, and teach him that he must use his fantastic natural gifts for the benefit of humanity. In November, Siegel sent Keaton an extension of his script: an adventure where Superman foils a conspiracy to kidnap a star football player. The extended script mentions that Clark puts on a special "uniform" when assuming the identity of Superman, but it is not described. Keaton produced two weeks' worth of strips based on Siegel's script. In November, Keaton showed his strips to a newspaper syndicate, but they too were rejected, and he abandoned the project.

Siegel and Shuster reconciled and resumed developing Superman together. The character became an alien from the planet Krypton. Shuster designed the now-familiar costume: tights with an "S" on the chest, over-shorts, and a cape.. ''Superman: The Complete History'', p. 18 They made Clark Kent a journalist who pretends to be timid, and conceived his colleague Lois Lane, who is attracted to the bold and mighty Superman but does not realize that he and Kent are the same person.

In June 1935 Siegel and Shuster finally found work with National Allied Publications, a comic magazine publishing company in New York owned by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson. Wheeler-Nicholson published two of their strips in ''New Fun Comics'' #6 (1935): "Henri Duval" and " Doctor Occult". Siegel and Shuster also showed him Superman and asked him to market Superman to the newspapers on their behalf. In October, Wheeler-Nicholson offered to publish Superman in one of his own magazines.Letter from Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson to Siegel and Shuster, dated October 4, 1935, quoted in ''Super Boys'': "...you would be much better off doing Superman in full page in four colors for one of our publications." Siegel and Shuster refused his offer because Wheeler-Nicholson had demonstrated himself to be an irresponsible businessman. He had been slow to respond to their letters and hadn't paid them for their work in ''New Fun Comics'' #6. They chose to keep marketing Superman to newspaper syndicates themselves. Despite the erratic pay, Siegel and Shuster kept working for Wheeler-Nicholson because he was the only publisher who was buying their work, and over the years they produced other adventure strips for his magazines.

Wheeler-Nicholson's financial difficulties continued to mount. In 1936, he formed a joint corporation with Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz''. Siegel and Shuster produced stories for ''Detective Comics'' too, such as "Slam Bradley". Wheeler-Nicholson fell into deep debt to Donenfeld and Liebowitz, and in early January 1938, Donenfeld and Liebowitz petitioned Wheeler-Nicholson's company into bankruptcy and seized it.

In early December 1937, Siegel visited Liebowitz in New York, and Liebowitz asked Siegel to produce some comics for an upcoming comic anthology magazine called ''Action Comics''.Siegel, Jerry. Unpublished memoi
"The Story Behind Superman #1"
registered for U.S. copyright in 1978 under later version ''Creation of a Superhero'' as noted by . ''Superman'', p. 309. P. 5. Memoir additionally cited by in ''Super Boys'', and available online at sites including Note: Archive of p. 1 only. Siegel proposed some new stories, but not Superman. Siegel and Shuster were, at the time, negotiating a deal with the McClure Newspaper Syndicate for Superman. In early January 1938, Siegel had a three-way telephone conversation with Liebowitz and an employee of McClure named Max Gaines. Gaines informed Siegel that McClure had rejected Superman, and asked if he could forward their Superman strips to Liebowitz so that Liebowitz could consider them for ''Action Comics''. Siegel agreed. Liebowitz and his colleagues were impressed by the strips, and they asked Siegel and Shuster to develop the strips into 13 pages for ''Action Comics''. Having grown tired of rejections, Siegel and Shuster accepted the offer. At least now they would see Superman published. Siegel and Shuster submitted their work in late February and were paid $130 () for their work ($10 per page). In early March they signed a contract (at Liebowitz's request) in which they gave away the copyright for Superman to Detective Comics, Inc. This was normal practice in the business, and Siegel and Shuster had given away the copyrights to their previous works as well. ''Men of Tomorrow'', p. 125: "They signed a release surrendering all rights to the publisher. They knew that was how the business worked – that's how they'd sold every creation from ''Henri Duval'' to ''Slam Bradley''." (see the Copyright issues section of this article for more details on this matter).

The duo's revised version of Superman appeared in the first issue of ''Action Comics'', which was published on April 18, 1938. The issue was a huge success thanks to Superman's feature.

Influences

Siegel and Shuster read pulp science-fiction and adventure magazines, and many stories featured characters with fantastical abilities such as telepathy, clairvoyance, and superhuman strength. One character in particular was John Carter of Mars from the novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs. John Carter is a human who is transported to Mars, where the lower gravity makes him stronger than the natives and allows him to leap great distances. Another influence was Philip Wylie's 1930 novel ''Gladiator'', featuring a protagonist named Hugo Danner who had similar powers.

Superman's stance and devil-may-care attitude were influenced by the characters of Douglas Fairbanks, who starred in adventure films such as '' The Mark of Zorro'' and ''Robin Hood''. The name of Superman's home city, Metropolis, was taken from the 1927 film of the same name. Popeye