Superman: Bibliography
Creators
Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster with later additions by Jack Burnley, Curt Swan, Mort Weisigner and many others. Re-created by John Byrne, Marv Wolfman and Jerry Ordway.
First Appearance
(historical) ACTION COMICS #1 (June, 1938); (current) THE MAN OF STEEL #1 (mini-series) (June, 1986)
Main appearances.
SUPERMAN (series two), ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, ACTIONS COMICS, SUPERMAN: THE MAN OF STEEL and JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA (third series)
Secert Origin
Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegal were two young comic creators working during the thirties for what was then National Periodicals (later DC Comics). They had seen print with characters like detective Sam Bradley, but kept one revolutionary character back after he was rejected by several publishers. Superman first appeared in ACTION COMICS #1 when DC needed 13 pages of new material immediately. Shuster and Siegal had come up with the character of Superman some time before. The overall physical look was based on Douglas Fairbanks Sr. while Clark Kent was based on Harold Lloyd. The name Clark Kent also came from movie stars in the form of CLARK Cable and KENT Taylor. As for the "S" shield on the chest, that was because something artistically had to occupy the space.
For a time Zatara the Magician vied with Superman for the cover of Action Comics, but sales quickly made it clear who was the star. From that point onwards Superman never looked back and he gained his own comic in mid-1939. DC was very protective of their flag ship hero. They even used the courts to stop the publication of a rival character who they argued was copied from Superman, it was strange that later DC would publish that character in the form of Captain Marvel. However for Shuster and Siegal things were not so easy, it took them years of court battles for DC to recognise their right to recognition as the creators and a share of the profits from their creation.
Superman went from strength to strength, spinning off into film serials and a hit radio series that marked the first team up with the Batman and the first appearance of Kryptonite (so that the main actor could take a holiday while a stand in grunted and groaned for a week). Surviving the transition of the Silver Age relatively unscathed Superman grew from strength to strength. His series gave birth of a number of spin off characters and books including Supergirl, Superboy, the various Superpets, the Legion of Superheroes and even Lois and Jimmy got their own comics for a while featuring work from such legends as Jack Kirby.
With the coming of the Crisis nearly fifty years of established continuity and fiction were swept aside. It was not that Superman had lost anything, or that the stories were weak (actually some of the best Superman stories came out in the last few years of Earth-One), but he simply was not in the high profile position that the character deserved. In the minds of many fans Superman was old news and standing still against more modern characters. Under editor Andy Helfer DC choose a radical submission from John Byrne, one of Marvel's hottest writers.
John Byrne as an artist/writer brought an entirely different dynamic to Superman turning almost every aspect on its head. This Superman was an entirely different character than his Earth-One counterpart and he had more in common with the original Siegel and Shuster conception rather than the Weisigner demi-god. The core of the character now lay with his roots in Smallville. He was never Superboy (due to the fact that his powers did not develop until he was older) and this combined with the genius of keeping Ma and Pa Kent alive made Clark Kent one of the most balanced people in comics. Superman was merely a costume that allowed Clark Kent to operate in public.
The new Superman was launched in the MAN OF STEEL mini series (June 1986) and was closely followed by a relaunch of the ongoing comic titles. SUPERMAN (first series) became the ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN (after the old TV series) allowing for a new SUPERMAN (second series) to be launched from issue one. The visual appearance changed as well. Curt Swan's old model sheets were replaced by Byrne's distinctive style which was based on Christopher Revee after Byrne found that he could not quite capture the Swan look. The reaction to the launch was amazing with more than one national newspaper dubbing him "Yuppie Superman." After a few years a fourth title (after ACTION COMICS) was added to the line called SUPERMAN: THE MAN OF STEEL and a system of "triangle numbers" were introduced to make the four monthly titles into a single entity (effectively a single weekly plotline).
After a number of years the writing crew (after a few changes) made plans to move the story forward by having Superman and Lois Lane marry. The story elements were in place, Clark and Lois were engaged and he had just revealed his secret identity to her. However in 1993 the TV series "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman" appeared. Because the TV series writers were planning to build up to the wedding themselves (over a couple of years) it meant that for both weddings to occur at the same time the comic wedding would have to be put on hold. With a massive plot vacuum the writers of the comics came up with a radical new direction for Superman. They were going to kill him.
What began as a simple old fashion storyline, the apparent death of the main character, quickly gained a momentum all of its own as the US media innocently believed that he would never return. The storyline introduced both Steel and the modern Superboy and started a cycle where for the next five years the Superman comics would be dominated by seasonal "events" such as Superman turning into an energy being or the eventual wedding. It was becoming increasingly clear that the Superman line had become tired and many felt it had become stuck in a rut. While not unfounded these feelings were mainly generated by comparisons between the ongoing series and the treatment of Superman in KINGDOM COME and JLA.
The brave decision was mode to do a mini-relaunch with almost an entirely new writing team. Jeph Loeb took over SUPERMAN, J.M DeMatteis took over ADVENTURERS OF SUPERMAN, Joe Kelly took over ACTION COMICS and Mark Schultz was on SUPERMAN: THE MAN OF STEEL. The new teams refocused the books on a "back to basics" track, they reintroduced the Daily Planet, spiced up the relationship between Lois and Clark, and introduced several elements from the popular Superman cartoon (including a new look for Metropolis). Their combined efforts have turned the titles around on a critical level and have created a character ready for the twenty-first century.
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