How the character of Superman arrived on Earth has been subject to many revisions yet the basic story has remained unchanged and well known. For the first of my posts we look to the real people behind the characters creation. Such a long history has meant that many people have been associated with the Man of Steel and their mixed life stories have even lead to the suggestion of the ‘Curse of Superman’, most notbaly associated with the actors George Reeves and Christopher Reeve. The suggestion is that the injutices felt by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Superman’s creators, lead them to curse the character.

ur story begins with Siegel and Shuster as teenagers, both living in Cleveland, Ohio who on forming a friendship and mutual interests devised a bald headed villain set on world domination, star of a self-published story they created entitled ‘The Reign of the Superman’ in 1932. It would be 6 years later and a leap of faith on the part of the company to become DC Comics before Superman, in a version far more familiar made his debut in Action Comics No. 1. The release offered by the character from Depression era misery meant the comic and its fantastical stories were a huge success, quickly selling out the limited publishing order agreed by a sceptical DC. Continued high sales lead to a solo magazine in 1939, the first for a super hero character.

In April 1938, the fledgling National Periodical Publications (now DC Comics) took a leap of faith and introduced the world to a character unlike anything anyone had ever seen before. On the cover of Action Comics No. 1 was a circus-like strongman in blue tights, lifting a car over his head. The pictures inside the book were just as astonishing, showing a man bouncing bullets off his chest, running on rooftops and leaping over buildings, all the while dragging criminals by their feet. That comic went on to become iconic, and copies of Action Comics No. 1 sell for more than $500,000 U.S. today.

The Great Depression provided all the inspiration needed for the villains Superman would take on -Cleveland as much as any other city was in economic squalor, and so too a hero to tackle these ills tapped into a public desire for escape. Unlike other figures such as Shirley Temple or Seabiscuit who would inevitably have a sell by date, the character and world of Superman evolved and expanded to take on world wide recognition.

While Shuster and Siegel became celebrities within the industry, practice was that the publishing house bought ownership rights of their characters and indeed DC bought the rights to Superman for €200. His creators continued to work for DC, however they sued unsuccessfully for more money in 1947 feeling their income did not match the spiralling success of the character and entry into other forms of media. They were subsequently fired.

It was also after this settlement that the Siegel and Shuster byline, which had appeared on every story since 1938, was summarily dropped. As such, other than in a historical or creative context, their names had not appeared in conjunction with Superman, until the 1980s when DC reinstated the byline.

They never wrote or drew the Superman comic books (or indeed any other) again and were reported near poverty in the 1970s when the first of major new series of Superman films were released. After a protest by comic book artists around the US, Warner, which owned DC Comics at this point in 1978, put the two men on a pension which rose into the six figures over the years. Siegel and Shuster have both passed on, however until as recently as last week the character of Superman has been subject to litigation and copyright claims, with a federal judge in the US ruling the mens families are entitled to claim a share of the United States copyright to the character. The implications of this ruling, backdated to 1999, are as yet uncertain however there could be bearing on both the proposed ‘Superman Returns’ sequel and the in-production ‘Justice League’ movie.