History of Superman - Golden Age

Golden Age

By the time the United States had entered World War II, Superman had inspired a boom in the comic book industry and had engendered the new genre of the "superheroes" (although, controversy still exists over whether Superman can be considered the first superhero), which by then had included Batman, Captain America, Namor the Sub-Mariner, Captain Marvel, Robin, The Flash, The Green Lantern, Wonder Woman.

By this time, the character had also leaped from the comics into other media. In 1939, Superman's adventures were seen in newspaper strips, although they were often reprints of what was already appearing in the comics. Also, The Adventures of Superman radio program was broadcast to the nation with millions of listeners. And while Captain Marvel beat him to live action cinema in The Adventures of Captain Marvel (in a serial originally intended for Superman), a series of lavishly budgeted animated cartoons produced by Max Fleischer hit theaters and continue to astound viewers today.

After the war though, many of Superman's contemporaries found themselves slowly being forgotten after the boom became a bust. Throughout the late 1940s and the duration of the 1950s, Superman was by far the most popular character in comics. By the mid-1950s, there were few characters to challenge him. Only Batman, Wonder Woman and a few other Golden-Agers remained. During this time, Superman's powers became more and more grandiose. They would expand to include heat vision (heat rays emitting from his eyes), the ability to breathe in space, and the power to travel through time. Superman's adversaries also grew more fantastic and mighty, but more and more issues of the comics involved "imaginary stories" which could result in any number of scenarios (either as a cause or an effect) and did not affect the continuity of future issues. These grander powers would be replicated within the Silver Age Superman.

It was also established shortly after World War II that Superman had begun his career years earlier in the town of Smallville, under the name of Superboy. Stories about Superboy tended to be illustrated in an idyllic fashion and has been compared to the Saturday Evening Post. Superman also became a hit in live action. The 1948 self-titled serial and its sequel Atom Man vs. Superman with Kirk Alyn as Clark Kent/Superman were both box-office smashes—the former being the biggest of all time—and his television show Adventures of Superman starring George Reeves, was an integral part of the so-called "Golden Age of Television."

As shown in the original Golden Age comics — including Action Comics #1 (1938), Superman (Vol. 1) #1 (1939), and Superman (Vol. 1) #61 (1949), as well as in later stories such as Secret Origins (Vol. 2) #1 (1986) — noted scientist Jor-L discovers that Krypton is about to explode, yet he cannot convince his fellow Kryptonians to save themselves. However, he manages to construct a spaceship to save his infant son, Kal-L. The ship launches just as the planet explodes, with Kal-L landing on Earth in a farm country town (later identified as Smallville) around the time of World War I. In this version, John and Mary Kent (passing motorists who witness the spaceship landing) take the infant to an orphanage and soon return to adopt the child, naming him Clark. In his 1942 novel, George Lowther changes the names Jor-L, Kal-L and Lora (Superman's birth mother) to the more modern Jor-El and Lara. According to an interview with Joe Shuster shortly before his death, the name "Clark Kent" was chosen as a combination of the names of two movie stars, Clark Gable and Kent Taylor.

Clark grows up on the Kent family farm, slowly discovering that he possesses various superpowers but unaware of his Kryptonian origins. After the deaths of his adoptive parents, Clark decides to use his powers for the benefit of humanity, constructing a stylized costume and moving to the nearby city of Metropolis. Clark begins work as a reporter at the Daily Star newspaper and soon makes his debut as the world's first superhero, Superman.

The earliest Superman stories were written by Siegel, and drawn by Shuster in a style heavily influenced by comic strip artist Roy Crane. According to Jules Feiffer, "Shuster represented the best of old-style comic book drawing. His work was direct, unprettied - crude and vigorous; as easy to read as a diagram.... Slickness, thank God, was beyond his means" (Feiffer,The Great Comic Book Heroes, 1965). In the last interview Shuster gave before his death, he explained that he had modeled the visual appearance of Clark Kent on himself and movie star Harold Lloyd, and that of Superman on Douglas Fairbanks Senior. Lois Lane was modeled after Joanne Carter, who would later marry Jerry Siegel after the comic became a success. The skyscape of Metropolis was inspired by that of the city of Toronto, where Shuster had spent most of his childhood, and the newspaper employing Clark Kent, originally the Daily Star, was named after the Toronto Star for which Shuster had been a paperboy. (Mietkewicz, above)

With Superman's quick success, the demand for Superman stories exceeded the creator's ability to produce them. Although the stories continued to carry the Siegel and Shuster byline, progressively more of the work was done by assistants in the Siegel and Shuster studio (Les Daniels, Comix: A History of Comic Books in America, 1971). But the use of assistants was not always successful. According to Jules Feiffer, Shuster "could not draw well, but he drew single-mindedly -- no one could ghost that style. It was the man. When assistants began 'improving' the appearance of the strip it went downhill. It looked as though it was being drawn in a bank" (Feiffer, above). One story in which Superman encountered a fictional cartoonist provided a tongue-in-cheek look at how such work was delegated. The story, which purported on the title page to tell "how comic strips are written and drawn", showed a studio filled with "artists -- stacks of them -- figure men, background specialists, inkers, letterers" as well as script-writers, all devoted to the production of stories about a Superman-like character, while the original creator of the strip was to Superman's consternation kept busy answering his fan mail ("King of the Comic Books", Superman no. 25, 1943).

In the early stories, Superman is the only science-fiction element. He is described as the champion of the helpless and the oppressed, and he combats real-world social evils: munitions manufacturers, dangerous conditions in mines and a hit-and-run drunk driver (in Superman #1), rigged prize fights and corrupt businessmen (in Superman #2), child abusers and wife beaters (in Superman #3) and crooked cops and politicians (in Superman #7). By 1940, more extraordinary antagonists began to appear in the stories, including giants, mad scientists and dinosaurs. Superman's powers also developed during the 1940s, including vast increases in strength and acquiring the ability to fly — the earliest comics depict Superman able to leap only an eighth of a mile at a time. In Superman (Vol. 1) #61 (1949), Superman finally learns of the existence of Krypton. Superman becomes an honorary member of the Justice Society of America, though he only participates in two capers in the original Golden Age stories (All-Star Comics #8 and #36).

In his earliest adventures, Superman is depicted as being grim, strong-willed, and not afraid to take the life of an evildoer. These include examples of beating a robber to death after the thief tries to shoot him. Like the Batman of that era, he prompted a small controversy over comic characters killing. While Batman was toned down in terms of violence, Superman imposed a moral code that he would never take a life of any adversary he faced. During World War Two, Superman was used as a figure of hope for readers in America and soldiers. This was evident in many of the Superman Fleischer Studios animated shorts of the era, in which Superman is helping the Allies win the war and often shown at odds with Japanese spies and German espionage agents.

Beginning in the 1940s, Superman's life as a boy is gradually fleshed out. The first Superboy story appears in More Fun Comics #101 (February 1945) but the locale is still not clearly specified though it appears to be a Metropolis neighborhood, and the Kents still do not have names. Superboy is not established as a Smallville resident until Superboy (Vol. 1) #2 (May 1949) and his parents' names, Jonathan and Martha Kent, are not mentioned until Superboy (Vol. 1) #12 in January 1951, twelve years after his debut in Action Comics #1. Other developments in the Superman mythos appear as a result of appearances in other media, including radio and newspaper strips. The Daily Star becomes the Daily Planet — possibly because newspapers called The Daily Star already existed — and Perry White replaces original editor George Taylor in the first episode of the radio serial; a young office boy named Jimmy Olsen joins the cast soon afterward.