This is part of an ongoing series where I review Golden Age Superman, weekly, issue by issue, starting from the very beginning.
The Complete Story of the Daring Exploits of the One and Only Superman
It’s only natural that the first superhero would be the first to get his own book. In mid 1939, a year after his landmark debut in Action Comics #1, the very first issue of Superman hit newsstands. Instead of being padded out but the numerous other features of Action Comics, here was a book that had nothing but Superman for 64 pages. The catch, of course, is that the majority of it is reprinted material, collecting the first four Action Comics stories.
The Origin of Superman
Superman #1 does open with an extended intro to the first story, though, replacing the one-page origin that first introduced Clark Kent to the world. This is also the first mention of Clark’s parents. He was found by an unnamed “passing motorist” in the initial origin, before being dropped at the orphanage. Here, Mary Kent and her husband adopt the alien baby and name him Clark, teaching him to use his abilities for good. Sadly, both of his parents died before he became Superman, so that means Ma and Pa Kent aren’t around to give this iteration of Clark advice. Still, unlike the first origin, most of this has stuck over the years, and it’s a much more recognizable backstory for Superman, even if it’s still a little brief. A lot of the captions are pulled directly from the original, but the added plot elements and expanded art allow the story to breathe a bit more and flesh out Clark’s history. The “scientific explanation of Clark Kent’s strength” is also expanded into a full splash page, giving a bit more detail about Krypton and Superman’s powers, though it’s now moved to the end of the story.
Prelude to Superman, Champion of the Oppressed
Aside from the revamped origin, there’s also a prelude to the first story proper, showing Clark trying to get a job at the Daily Star and ending up hot on the trail of a story, stopping the lynching of an innocent man and interviewing him in order to secure his job as a reporter. It does feel a bit forced that he only got his job seemingly the same day as when Action Comics #1 takes place, though it would explain why he seems somewhat incompetent compared to Lois. Then, we see him catch the real murder and run off to the governor, which is where Action Comics #1 began. This part I could honestly do without. It doesn’t really expand the characters much, and mostly just takes up space for the sake of it. In the issue itself, these three items are all printed in a row before Action Comics #1 began, so it’s relatively smooth if you don’t know the background of it and you were reading these stories for the first time here. The transition to the excessive shading lines of Action #1 does give it a way a bit, as does the move from red boots back to blue-footed pants, but it still flows nicely for the most part. In the reprints, though, where Action #1 is at the start and this is separated later on, it ends up feeling very odd and out of place.
Biff Dugan
This issue features a text story as well. In this era, the US Postal Service required comics to feature a minimum of 2 pages of text to qualify as magazines, which had cheaper postal rates (Beebe). So what did comic publishers do? they put 2-3 pages of prose short stories in each issue in order to save money. In anthology titles, these stories could be about anything, but in a character-focused book like this, they had to actually write something about Superman. These stories would often be reprinted in later comics, in order to hit the minimum prose page count without having to produce new content. Funnily enough, Stanley Lieber’s first published work in the comics world came in this form, as he wrote a Captain America short story for Captain America Comics #3, signing with the pseudonym "Stan Lee" in order to avoid the embarrassment of being associated with the comics industry.
The text story here is actually pretty decent, though there are a few minor grammatical errors which make it obvious it wasn’t a particularly high priority. It’s written by Shuster, and features a banner by Siegel, with another small drawing of Superman stopping a moving car. We enter the story in the wake of a visit from Superman, as we follow Harvey Brown, Patent Attonery, who stole inventions from his clients and was warned to go out of business, or else. There’s some fun purple prose here, with “shining steel fixtures drooping in sad caricature of their former modernistic splendor” in Brown’s wrecked office. The cops are incompetent as ever, and Superman easily escapes.
After describing Superman’s powers, the Sergeant thinks to himself that “these were mere rumors, fantastic fairy tales. Probably SUPERMAN was just an ordinary person whose better than average strength had been immensely exaggerated”. Clark Kent is described as “a slim, nervous figure” with “meek eyes” that “blinked fearfully behind thick-rimmed glasses.” He is “no SUPERMAN… rather a very much frightened young man” (yes, they did write "SUPERMAN" in caps every time in this story). Though this story is largely forgotten because it’s not a comic, it actually gives quite a lot of insight into what life is like in Metropolis. Told from a third-person limited perspective, we see how Superman and Clark come off to outsiders, and how Clark’s body language and mannerisms make him seem awkward and non-threatening.
In an era before cell phones and the internet, when even most cameras were expensive and not-so-portable, the public doesn’t really know much about Superman. Like in Superman’s Phony Manager, he’s dismissed as an urban legend, perhaps with some factual basis that’s been greatly exaggerated. Since he comes in and out of situations so quickly, people rarely have a time to speak with him or learn about him, and many are left puzzled about his true nature. Most of his stories up to this point are relatively low-key, or have him undercover in some way, so it’s pretty believable, although the mayhem of Superman demolishing an entire district and fighting the National Guard in Superman in the Slums does stretch it a bit (although since this issue is primarily around the timeline of the first four issues, perhaps it’s meant to take place earlier).
Though this story does a good job showing how Clark is perceived by others, he does actually become a bit more assertive than usual at points. For example, he blackmails Sergeant Blake in order to get an interview with a murder suspect, and even teases him about his vendetta on Superman at the end. It’s also another one of Siegel & Shuster’s mid-story pivots, as Harvey Brown is forgotten on page 2 and murderer Biff Dugan becomes the center of attention. Dugan escapes, and of course Superman catches him in the end. The description of Clark’s transformation is another bout of extravagant purple prose, almost sounding like a Dr. Seuss passage:
It’s not a perfect tale by any means, but it is a bit of a shame that we moved away from prose superhero stories, since it does show that there’s a lot of potential there. It’s very dialogue driven, often almost feeling like you’re reading a script with some extra flowery descriptions thrown in, which makes for a nice change of pace.
Meet the Creators
The issue ends with a brief bio of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, accompanied with hastily colourised photos of both. Each bio is about 3 sentences long, and doesn’t tell you much about them aside from the fact that they’re from Cleveland and they work together on Superman. It also lists a couple of their other features at the bottom of the page: Slam Bradley and Spy in Detective Comics, Radio Squad in More Fun Comics, and Federal Men in Adventure Comics. There’s also a full page drawing of Superman breaking out of chains around his chest, tying back to his inspirations from circus strongmen. It’s a neat bonus that Marvel would later do with many of its silver age Annuals, though there’s a few details that look a bit off: his shadow appears to be bald, the triangle around the “S” insignia is black with a yellow trim instead of all yellow, and his pants are all black, without the yellow belt. It would become a recurring image on the cover of Action Comics, starting with #14.
Final thoughts
This is a pretty good start for the book. Since it would be published quarterly and had 67 pages, these were closer to Annuals than they are to modern solo books: big, oversized issues that often had multiple stories and lots of neat little extra for hardcore fans and collectors. I’ve already written about the first four issues, so I won’t go into them a ton here, but those combined with the new introductory scenes make for a good starting point for this character. The prose story is some good, over-the-top fun, and we get to learn about Krypton and Ma and Pa Kent for the first time. Overall, it’s stood the test of time quite well.
Sources
Beebe, Reed. "Cobwebs of Death": The Forgotten Text Stories of Golden Age Comics. 2014.
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