They acknowledge that a book entitled Gladiator by Phillip Wylie was a huge inspiration on Superman. Siegal and Shuster were both readers and fans of Pulp fiction and the burgeoning Science Fiction and Fantasy genres that were a part of it. Though Superman arrived as the proverbial bolt out of the blue he was not without his literary and mythic precedents. The form changes over time, as I’ll address in great detail later, but the basic form endures. Siegal and Shuster had created a brand new, never-before-seen genre, one that would explode in very short order and successfully continue, with occasional dips in popularity, to the present day, with no signs of it ever ending. I want to stress something here before Action Comics #1 there simply was no such thing as a superhero in the way we think of it today. Anecdotal stories came into the National offices that kids everywhere were asking specifically for “that comic with Superman in it.” Beginning with issue #19 he appeared on the cover of every issue. Superman didn’t appear on the cover of Action again for several issues, and then only sporadically. The powers that be thought he looked silly next to the more traditional detectives and Pulp heroes.
Remember, this was at a time when no one had ever seen a super-powered hero in bright tights and a cape before. The editors and publishers at National Publications didn’t have very much faith in Superman. At this point in my story I want to teach you the Superman. We would all have been poorer if that were the case.īut I’m not here to discuss the moral and legal complexities of this issue (though I’ll certainly touch on it in the context of creator’s rights later). For good or ill, if they hadn’t taken that $120 the world may never have seen Superman and the subsequent growth of the comics industry. But at the time, this sort of deal, fair or not, was the industry standard (and stayed that way for a very long time). It is a complicated issue and without a doubt they were mistreated and ripped off. Much has been said and written about Siegal and Shuster’s legal wrangling with DC Comics over the rights to Superman over the years. They sold the rights to National for $120 and the rest is history. After being rejected by the newspaper syndicates they took their creation to National Publications where they were working as writer and artist for the comics features Federal Men and Dr. They were two young men of Jewish descent from Cleveland, Ohio who wanted to create a comic strip of their new character. The story of his creation by Siegal and Shuster is well known. Superman first appeared in Action Comics #1 in 1938, wearing bright primary colors and creating the tropes of the superhero genre and archetypal imagery we will forever associate with it. It’s a great quote, and fits the themes of superheroes incredibly well. Grant Morrison used it as the opening quote of his 2011 book, Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human. Alan Moore used it in his 1980s deconstructionist superhero work Marvelman (published in the United States by Eclipse Publishing as Miracleman for trademark reasons that I’ll get into in a later section of the book).
#Superman sigil generator full#
The full quote is “Behold, I teach you the superman! He is this lightning! He is this madness!” It has been used before in relation to comics of course.
The title of this section is part of a quote from the philosopher Friederich Nietzsche, from his seminal book, Thus Spake Zarathustra.
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