The Adventures of Superman is a novel by George Lowther. It was first published in 1942 with illustrations by Joe Shuster, the co-creator of Superman. A facsimile edition was released in 1995 by Applewood Books, with a new introduction by Roger Stern.
This book is the first novelization of a comic book character, and also the first Superman story credited to someone other than Jerry Siegel. It was Lowther who first provided many now-familiar details of Superman's birth and early life. The first two chapters provided the first detailed description of the planet Krypton, and renamed Kal-El's parents Jor-El and Lara. (Previously, they had been named Jor-L and Lora.) The next three chapters dealt with Clark Kent's childhood on the farm of his adoptive parents, Eben and Sarah Kent. (In the comics, the Kents suffered through many name changes before settling on Jonathan and Martha in 1952.) In the sixth chapter, Clark arrived in Metropolis and got a job with the Daily Planet, while the remaining eleven chapters deal with a mystery involving ghost ships and Nazi spies.
The book is illustrated with four full-page color illustrations, six full-page black-and-white illustrations, and numerous sketches, all examples of Joe Shuster's work.
Famous quotes containing the words adventures and/or superman:
“We know that their adventures are childish. They themselves are fools. They are ready to kill or be killed over a card-game in which an opponent—or they themselves—was cheating. Yet, thanks to such fellows, tragedies are possible.”
—Jean Genet (1910–1986)
“The superman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the superman is to be the meaning of the earth! I beseech you, my brothers, be true to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! They are poisoners, whether they know it or not.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)