Superheroes have gone mainstream over the last few years and are as popular as ever. The characters once confined largely to comic books have reached a global audience with a wide variety of products and movies. One of the most recognizable superheroes in the world is Superman with his trademark costume and high moral compass. He has been in all media from comics and TV to motion pictures and animated shows. Although most people are familiar with the Superman of the past couple of decades the beginnings of the character are not commonly known. Superman was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in 1932 and was conceived as a newspaper comic strip character. The guys worked on the character for several years with little success. They authored a variety of short stories for comic books such as “Doctor Occult” and “Radio Squad” but they always loved the Superman character they had created which had been shelved after submitting it to National Comics in New York.

A new magazine titled Action Comics was in the works but the publisher could not decide on a cover story and someone thought of the Superman proposal which showed him lifting a car with one hand. The publisher was skeptical about the idea but decided to use it for the cover story and he requested Siegel and Shuster come up with a 13 page story for Action Comics #1. The duo assembled their newspaper strips into a story and it was published in 1938 in the first issue of Action Comics. Sales were not as high as was hoped but by issue #4 sales had skyrocketed well beyond anyone’s expectations. In 1939 the newspaper comic strip version of Superman went into print and ran until 1966. A radio show was developed which first aired in 1940 and ran for over 8 years and 1600 episodes. Superman had become a household name and the next step was television.

The Adventures of Superman began broadcast in 1952 running for 102 episodes and became a wild success with appeal to the whole family. Over the years Superman was a central character in animated shows such as the 1966 title “The New Adventures of Superman”, “The Super Friends” (1973-84). There have been a number of Superman television shows over the years but the Christopher Reeve movies that began in 1978 are among the best known versions of the character. The Smallville series started in 2001 and represents the teen and young adult life of the Clark Kent/Superman persona. Regardless of the media, Superman has become a worldwide phenomenon and his ideals of truth, justice, and the American way have become ingrained in our society as the ideals to which we should all aspire.

 

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Tags: 1932, 1939, 1940, 1952, 1966, 1978, 2001, Action Comics, American icon, Christopher Reeve, Clark Kent, comic book history, Doctor Occult, history of superman, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Max Fleischer, National Comics, Radio Squad, Smallville, superheroes and history, superman, The New Adventures of Superman, The Super Friends