Supes

I read a lot of comic books when I was a kid. (I didn't buy many, but I had friends and relatives with big collections.) A big battle of the time was Marvel versus DC.  Marvel was hip, with its leading character, Spider-Man, being a troubled teen who fought crime while wisecracking.  DC was square, with its top name, Superman, being a thoroughly decent fellow who fought for truth, justice and the American Way.  I guess I preferred Spidey, but Supes was cool, too.  For one thing, he was invulnerable, with numerous superpowers.  That's fun for a kid, but horrible for the writers.  How do you make trouble for a guy who's invincible?  Well, you put his loved ones in danger. (There was no more dangerous job than being Lois Lane or Jimmy Olsen).  Or you take away his superpowers.  Or give superpowers to others.  Or you have him face magic.  Sometimes you give him amnesia.  Sometimes he just pretends to be in trouble and you find it was all part of the plan.

Superman was the ultimate superhero.  Pretty much every other major superhero in the comics was a variation or reaction to him.  And now Larry Tye's book Superman: The High-Flyinig History Of America's Most Enduring Hero, gives us the full story.

It all started with two shy Jewish teenagers from Cleveland.  Jerry Siegel was mad about science fiction and heroic literature, and his friend Joe Shuster had an artistic bent.  They developed Superman for years before a comic book publisher decided to put the character into print.  There had been heroes with superpowers at least since Homer and the Bible, and the early 1900s saw plenty of pulp characters with great skill and goodness righting wrongs.  But Superman felt fresh, and took off immediately when he first saw the light of day in 1939.  He was the character who kicked off the golden era of superhero comics.  Batman and Wonder Woman would soon follow at DC, but Superman was first, and the most popular.

We're so used the story today we forget how original Superman must have seemed.  A great origin story (which developed over the years)--sent away as a baby from an exploding planet to Earth, growing up with foster parents teaching him decency, putting on a secret identity of the meek reporter Clark Kent while fighting crime in a cape and tights.  Then there was the whole Superman/Lois Lane/Clark Kent dynamic, a love triangle with only two people.

The publishers had Siegel and Shuster sign away all rights for $130, and for many years Siegel has been painted as a martyr, but the book makes clear that throughout the first decade of Superman comics, Siegel and Shuster were quite well paid.  Later they sued Warners, who owned Superman at the time, and received a guaranteed income for the rest of their lives, but it's not as if they made millions for DC comics in those early years while living in poverty.  Siegel did try to create other characters, but never hit the jackpot again.

That's just the beginning, of course.  Superman would be incarnated in almost every medium available, usually with great success--comic books, comic strips, radio, serials, animation, books, Broadway, movies and TV.  And every decade got the Superman it wanted, with whoever was in charge working to catch up Superman to the times (or at least not too far behind the times).

The book devotes chapters to various versions of Superman.  There's the radio show in the 40s where many classic parts of the Superman story were first developed.  There's George Reeves, the Man of Steel on TV in the 50s, who comitteed suicide (though some think he was murdered).  There's the madhouse behind the production of the Superman movie of the 70s, with millions being thrown around with little rhyme or reason, and, amazingly, a huge hit and good movie emerging.  There's the gigantic comic reboot of the 80s where everything was destroyed so the comic could start over again, and the death of Superman in the 90s.  As I write this, there's yet another reboot--an eagerly awaited Superman film to be released next year.

It's pretty clear the Superman myth won't die.  At least not as long as there's money to be made.