SUPERMAN from ACTION COMICS No. 1 - Serio Comics 33

SUPERMAN from ACTION COMICS No. 1 written by Jerry Siegel, drawn by Joe Shuster, published by Detective Comics, later National Comics Publications & National Periodical Publications, now DC Comics

Happy 4th of July weekend!

Thought we’d celebrate with a look back at America’s first Superhero comic.

The red, blue, and…yellow

SUPERMAN

The Origin of the Origin Story

SUPERMAN was originally published on April 18, 1938 (cover dated June 1938) as part of the ACTION COMICS anthology No. 1.

Five years earlier, in January 1933, at the age of 19, Jerry Siegel wrote a short prose story titled "The Reign of the Superman", which was illustrated by his friend and classmate Joe Shuster and self-published in a science fiction magazine.

It told the story of a villain with telepathic powers.

Trying to create a character they could sell to newspaper syndicates, Siegel re-conceived the "superman" character as a powerful hero, sent to Earth from a more advanced society.

He and Shuster developed the idea into a comic strip, which they pitched unsuccessfully.

By 1938, National Publications was looking for a hit to accompany their success with Detective Comics, and did not have time to solicit new material.

Because of a tight deadline, its editor, Vin Sullivan, asked a former coworker Sheldon Mayer if he could help.

Mayer found the rejected Superman comic strips, and Sullivan told Siegel and Shuster that if they could paste them into 13 comic book pages, he would buy them.

Kent Parents?

It was my first time reading this original introduction of the Superman character.

So perhaps many others already know this.

But this version doesn’t have the elderly Kent couple that adopted Clark.

If you look at SUPERMAN Vol. 1 which adds 5 more pages to the story you see their canonical role:

But in Action Comics 1 it’s not there:

First Criminal Is…?

While Superman’s first saved person is a woman, which many associate with his archetype.

Intriguingly enough, his first criminal is also a woman.

Masculinity/Feminity and Doubleness

Themes of masculinity/feminity and the doubleness of Clark Kent’s meekness versus Superman’s heroicness are everywhere in the 13 page comic.

There’s a constant duality at play of hypermasculinity and its collapse.

Lois Lane

Especially with the introduction of Lois Lane.

With a moment that seems a bit charmingly atemporal to our current culture, Clark asks his fellow reporter Lois out on a date.

She’s not very interested in him to start.

Even less so, when Clark doesn’t stand up to a gangster who wants to cut in and dance with her.

But after Lois is captured by the gangsters.

Clark turns into Superman to rescue her.

Which gives us a version of the image that graces the cover.

As well as the irony that Lois is attracted to Superman.

But is still not into Clark at all.

Politics?

I was also surprised to see that for the July 4th enthusiasm the end of issue 1 brings Clark and Superman to Washington, D.C. to deal with a political issue.

Clark attends Congress.

And notices that a Senator is speaking with a lobbyist who is so powerful yet corrupt that no one knows what interests back him.

Which is a bit of a July 4th moment is it not :)

Yet if you look at what the corruption entails, which is that the lobbyist pushes the senator to have America become wrongly embroiled in a war in Europe.

And you think about when this comic was published.

And think about what was happening then.

As well as who was writing and drawing the book.

Jerry Siegel was born on October 17, 1914, in Cleveland, Ohio, to a Jewish family. His parents were both Jewish immigrants who arrived in New York in 1900, having fled antisemitism in their native Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire.

Joseph Shuster was born in Toronto to a Jewish family. His father, Julius Shuster (originally Shusterowich), an immigrant from Rotterdam, had a tailor shop in Toronto's garment district. His mother, Ida (Katharske), had come from Kyiv, Russian Empire (now Ukraine).

We might have our own investigation into Issue 2…

Superman’s fight against the forces that might bring America into the war in Europe.

Is something I had to follow into Issue 2…

Which I was able to find along with Issue 1 via archives.org.

Which was recommended to me by my godson’s (who is a big supehero fan) mother.

archive.org

In Issue 2, the lobbyist gives Superman the information that the man backing him is a munitions magnate named Emil Norvell.

Though Norvell has his men with machine guns shoot Superman.

Of course, bullets do nothing.

Superman has Norvell join an army that he outfits with weapons.

Superman accompanies him so he doesn’t escape having to fight.

And questions Norvell about his role in the warmaking.

In order to show him the consequences of it on so many others.

After a brief interlude of saving Lois again, Superman fully gets the better of Norvell and makes him commit to quitting manufacturing munitions.

Instead Norvell offers to make fireworks 🎆🎆🎆

But Superman instead wants the two leaders of the opposing armies in the war to fight things out instead of their proxy soldiers.

They admit they don’t even know what they are fighting about and that they are having others fight for profits.

So the warmaking ends.

Superman and America

We’re left after the first story with a complex view both of Superman and America in 1938.

Superman’s strength and ingenuity fights and resolves for peace and innocence.

But Americans then and also perhaps now idealize isolationism and fantasize the full effects of fascism?

The balance between interventionism and America’s own effects on others has also been lost at times.

So who can say???

The Death of Superman

It reminded me of the second Superman comic I ever read.

Which was given to me by Father in 1992.

It was called: THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN.

And was a bit shocking even at age 8.

Looking back at it again on archive.org, it includes this iconic line about the necessity of violence.

As well as its potential attendant sacrifices.

Superheroes in SHOULD WE BUY A GUN?

This comic later influenced the character based semiautobiographically on me, especially a dream sequence involving the character and his father.

Excerpt from SHOULD WE BUY A GUN?

With its dark but perhaps realistic themes about masculinity and violence.

Excerpt from SHOULD WE BUY A GUN?

But also showing that there’s room for other ways than escalating weaponization.

Excerpt from SHOULD WE BUY A GUN?

1776-1938-1992-2024

The birth of Superman in 1938 was followed by his death a few times even before 1992.

And even that death in 1992 followed a similar pattern of other deaths.

In that, Superman was reborn.

Similarly, 2024 is not the first time America has feared to be on death’s door.

But as someone said, one of the many last times this happened.

“No matter what happens, the sun will rise in the morning.”

Excerpt from SHOULD WE BUY A GUN?

Have a great July 4th!