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It is now hard to imagine that there was a time without superheroes. Popular culture worldwide has lately been saturated with colorful, often caped, muscular women and men with fantastic powers and abilities. From comic books to television to movie screens, these action heroes are everywhere, and the public has made them more popular now than ever before.

The world met one of these fantastic characters for the first time on April 18, 1938, with the publication of Action Comics #1 and the introduction of Superman. He was the brainchild of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, two boyhood friends from Cleveland, Ohio. We cannot overestimate their contribution to culture and society, because Superman is the most enduring, famous, and influential American hero. He is such a fixture in our culture that his death in a 1992 story was reported on CBS television by Dan Rather, and in newspaper obituaries around the world.

Before Superman

Jerome Siegel wrote for his high school newspaper when he met Joe Shuster, a budding cartoonist. Sons of Jewish immigrants whose fathers were both garment workers, they were poor with no prospects for college. They were also fans of science fiction and adventure stories like Tarzan and Buck Rogers in the newspapers, and Siegel saw an opportunity for future success when partnered with a like-minded artist. So, they began collaborating on comic strips in the school paper. They even printed their own science fiction magazine on the school’s mimeograph, a machine which reproduced prints from stencils. One of their stories, The Rise of the Super Men, established the earliest form of the super-powered character we have come to know.

The comic book, bound stories illustrated in color under the same cover, was first published in 1933, the same year Siegel and Shuster graduated from high school. The two continued to work on their cartoons in their spare time, sending strips and concepts to newspaper publishers across the country. This was the era of The Great Depression when much of America struggled to find work and put food on the table. For a few extra cents, adults, as well as children, could forget their troubles and lose themselves in exciting stories of bravery and romance in fantastic locations. By 1935 comic books had started to attract the attention of publishing companies in New York City, and they began looking for new talent. Siegel and Shuster abandoned their goal of selling to newspapers and took their talents to the new funny book business.

The Man of Steel

By now Siegel had developed a whole backstory for his character. He is the son of a brilliant scientist, who places his infant boy into a spaceship, which is then launched into space just as their planet Krypton is destroyed by a massive explosion. The ship crash lands in Kansas, where the boy is picked up by the Kents, a childless farm couple. The child exhibits remarkable powers of strength, speed, and the ability to leap great distances. However, he is raised to hide these abilities and to fit into society as an ordinary young American – Clark Kent. It is only when he takes a job at The Daily Planet newspaper in the big city of Metropolis that Clark assumes the double identity of Superman, defender of truth, justice, and the American way of life.

Incredibly, for that first story and the rights to the character, Siegel and Shuster were paid just $130! If it did well, they would be retained for more stories, at $10 a page, to be split between them. The success of their collaboration was instantaneous. More heroes, many of whom were derivative copies, appeared within weeks of that first issue. By October, Detective Comics introduced its own costumed hero – The Batman. Soon, Superman had his own eponymous comic book. Within seven months he had a radio show and finally the long-sought nationally syndicated comic strip in the newspapers, although not drawn by Shuster.

The first few years of Superman in the comics lacked much in imagination or style. He basically threw bad guys around and was not above tossing them to their deaths. He didn’t fly yet, and the backstory that Siegel had devised took many long months to become established. Shuster’s poor eyesight, coupled by with crippling cramps and wrist ailments, forced him to hire other artists to polish his work. These artists, most notably Wayne Boring and later Curt Swan, gave Superman and the other characters the look that is now so familiar.

Years of Obscurity

Siegel worked at an astonishing pace for years to make ends meet, and to maintain some control over his character, but many other writers took over. By the end of World War II, DC Comics (as the publisher was now known) fired Siegel and Shuster to gain complete control over the Superman franchise, and the two partners were effectively ruined. Siegel eventually managed to return to his character for an occasional story, but Shuster could no longer see well enough to draw.

For decades they fought legal battles to gain control over their copyright, without success. Then, in 1975, with the news of a major studio film, Siegel fired off a letter highly critical of DC urging fans to boycott the movie. Desperate to avoid bad publicity, DC reinstated the Siegel/Shuster credit 30 years after it had been removed and gave each an annual $30,000 pension and medical benefits. When the words, Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster appeared on the screen, fans cheered.

The number of stories that feature Superman, in all the many publications and media versions, is uncountable. Eight decades along, though, Clark Kent and his alter-ego show no signs of slowing down.