The Chronological Superman: 1938 (June)
Chronicling every appearance of Superman- from comic to newspaper, cartoon to film, and more - in the order it originally happened (Original source: The Chronological Superman on Tumblr):
Action Comics vol.1 #1
Cover Date: June 1938
The Cover
(w/Jerry Siegel, a/Joe Shuster)
Superman debuts on the cover of Action Comics #1, a dynamic mise-en-scene plucked from the interior art (credited to although probably not drawn by Shuster) depicting a strangely garbed figure smashing a massive car into a rock. Lesser men pivot and flee, providing their courage holds out and they don't simply crumble in submission. As if also overwhelmed with the urge to flee, a single white tire rolls to across the foreground.
Inside, it's further explained that the car is the property of racketeer Butch Matson, who finds himself publically humiliated by an irate Lois Lane. He and his men abduct the girl reporter, only to be forcefully chastised by the Man of Steel, busily introducing car to rock.
In 1938, at the tail of the Great Depression, the choice of car carried with it some now-antiquated context. It's not just any old bucket, you'll notice -- not the family flivver, not some jitney bus. It's a luxury sedan, painted a an indulgent green, with white tires. This is a flashy and expensive car, and the readers of 1938 could have reliably put together a decent mental image of the kind of person who'd own one, given the economic realities of the era (i.e. a crook).
The cover to Action Comics was hard to miss. Among the other sixteen comics released with a cover date of June, 1938, twelve of them mostly contained reprinted material from newspaper comic strips -- largely comedy strips, at that. Funny pages celebrities like Li'l Abner, Popeye, Joe Palooka and the Katzenjammer Kids occupied the majority of cover slots, acting out corny gags or appearing as little more than clip art. Bucking the trend, Dell's all-original Mickey Mouse Magazine #33 sported on its cover Dopey of the Seven Dwarves cooking a hot dog on a fork with a match.
So, if your juvenile tastes ran more towards thrills, you had limited options (and they were all from National Allied Publications!). A high-speed shootout between crooks and a motorcycle cop graces the cover of Detective Comics #16, while over on New Adventure Comics #37, a diver is tackled a-midsection by a vicious shark -- rather ordinary fare, really. The pulps had done it to death. It's only Action Comics #1 that promises to show the reader something they hadn't seen before.
Superman's Origin
(w/Jerry Siegel, a/Joe Shuster)
Before the adventure truly begins, Superman's origin -- for the first time ever -- is briefly recounted.
Beyond the cover, this is the audience's first introduction to Superman and, above all else, it is economical. Only the high notes are addressed. Page count is of the essence, and there's no space to linger.
The one-pager covers the bullet points: A dying world, a desperate scientist, a rickety rocketship and its sole occupant. By panel three, baby Kal-El is hoisting orphanage furniture above his head like a half-pint Hercules. The remainder of the introductory feature explains Superman's amazing powers and a quick summary of his mission against wrongdoing.
"Early, Clark decided he must turn his titanic strength into channels that would benefit mankind -- and so was created -- Superman! Champion of the oppressed. The physical marvel who had sworn to devote his existence to helping those in need!"
-Action Comics #1 (June, 1938)
Superman (as Clark) is further shown leaping tall buildings, racing a speeding locomotive, and performing tremendous acts of strength. The familiar introduction to the Adventures of Superman radio show -- "Look, up in the sky," and so on -- clearly borrows much from this one page alone.
The last two panels present a supposed "Scientific Explanation of Clark Kent's Strength." In brief, bugs are very small, but also very strong (for their size), so it's just like that but for a full-size man. As science goes, it's good blarney.
In a lovely piece of certainly unintentional continuity, the final image of the origin page depicts a grasshopper jumping into the air, towards the right, in a graceful and confident arc -- and the first panel of the next page reveals Superman at the apex of his own mighty leap, bounding in the same direction, as if completing the journey...
The Coming of Superman
(w/Jerry Siegel, a/Joe Shuster)
In his remarkable memoir of the early days of comic books (The Great Comic Book Heroes, 1965), Jules Feiffer makes the suggestion that Superman's exceptional, overnight popularity had only so much to do with his colorful costume and amazing powers. It wasn't Superman's superiority as a world-beater that enthralled the young Feiffer and friends, but his choice of worlds to beat.
The villains of the pulps, comics and the radio shows that preceded Superman tended towards the exotic. Bad guys were typically foreign, often savage. There was little effort to catch the adolescent imagination with quotidian criminals -- not when there were, as Feiffer put it, "oriental spies, primordial monsters [and] cattle rustlers" to be had.
But Superman was different. His foes were mundane, if no less malevolent. The crooked politician, the lobbyist, the war profiteer, generals and their armies, lynch mobs, the cops, wardens and jailers, the bosses, the gamblers, sharpies and racketeers -- opportunists of every familiar variety, as common on the ground as weeds.
They were the foes of every woman and man alive, so they were the foes of Superman as well. He wasn't waiting around for glamorous, foreign villains to show up and make a problem -- he was taking the fight straight to the homegrown heels.
"Villains, whatever fate befell them in the obligatory last panel, were infinitely better equipped than those silly, hapless heroes. Not only comics, but life taught us that."Those of us raised in ghetto neighborhoods were being asked to believe that crime didn't pay? Tell that to the butcher! Nice guys finished last; landlords first. Villains by their simple appointment to the role were miles ahead. It was not to be believed that any ordinary human could combat them. More was required. Someone with a call. When Superman at last appeared, he brought with him the deep satisfaction of all underground truths: our reaction was less "How original!" than "But, of course!"-Jules FeifferThe Great Comic Book Heroes, 1965
The pacing of Action Comics #1 is breathless. Superman leaps through the air, busts through a metal door, saves an innocent man from the electric chair, throws a racketeer around, smashes a car, deflects bullets, races to Washington and nearly terrifies a lobbyist to death. All in all, a life well-lived, and that's only in the first twelve pages.
Comments
Post a Comment