by Larry Tye
32 THEY EXCHANGED: Letter from Jerry Siegel to Russell Keaton, July 12, 1934.
33 KEATON TOLD HIM: Siegel, Creation of a Superhero, 3: 18.
34 SAYS THE ILLUSTRATOR: Author interview with Denis Kitchen.
35 HIS MOST CONSIDERED: Siegel, Creation of a Superhero, 3: 18–20. One detail that Jerry could not recall, or at least didn’t include in his memoir, was the date of this restless night of writing. Judging from dates he did specify, it did not happen on a hot summer night as he would later dramatically recount, but at the end of 1934 or the early months of 1935, which in Cleveland probably were chilly and wintery.
36 “THIS WENT ON”: Siegel, Creation of a Superhero, 1: 18.
37 “I CONCEIVED”: Bishoff and Light, “ ‘Superman’ Grew out of Our Personal Feelings About Life,” Alter Ego No. 56, 6.
38 JERRY BEGGED: Siegel, Creation of a Superhero, 1: 20.
39 LOIS WAS HARDER: “ ‘Superman’ Grew,” Alter Ego No. 56, 8.
40 JERRY REMEMBERED: Siegel, Creation of a Superhero, 1: 21. Jerry’s son, Michael, among others, suspected that Joanne made up the modeling story, and that Jerry and Joe played along. Drafts of the earliest comic, with Lois included, already had been drawn by the time the modeling session supposedly happened in 1935, skeptics point out, and Joanne would have been just eighteen then—or twelve, according to the white lie she told about her age on her certificate of marriage to Jerry. And why would she have bothered lying to Jerry about her age if he knew her as early as 1935? But Joanne, Jerry, and Joe insisted until their dying days that the story was true. And it might have been: Joanne could have been hired to help Joe better visualize a character that he already had sketched out and Jerry had written about.
41 “I HAVE A FEELING”: Siegel, Creation of a Superhero, 1: 23
42 WHEELER-NICHOLSON’S BIOGRAPHY: Author interviews with and emails from Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson Brown; Brown, “He Was Going to Go for the Big Idea,” Alter Ego No. 88, 39–51; and Brown, “Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, Cartoon Character or Real Life Hero,” International Journal of Comic Art 10, No. 2, 242–53.
43 UNLIKE ITS PROGENITORS: Historians point to a long line of “firsts” in the evolution of the modern American comic book, starting with a collection of newspaper strips published in 1897. Over time they shrank to look more like magazines and less like tabloids, soft covers replaced hard and color pages supplanted black-and-white, newsstands began offering the publications for general sale and publishers stopped relying on special orders from companies like Procter & Gamble, and comic books attracted devoted readers who may or may not also have read newspaper comic strips. Benton, Superhero Comics of the Golden Age, 14–20.
44 “DOCTOR OCCULT”: For their “Doctor Occult” stories, Jerry and Joe used the pen names Leger and Reuths, which Jerry said were anagrams of their real names.
45 THE BELL SYNDICATE: Siegel, Creation of a Superhero, 4: 5.
46 WHEELER-NICHOLSON WROTE: Letter from Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson to Jerry Siegel, October 4, 1935.
47 THIS POSTSCRIPT: Letter from Wheeler-Nicholson to Siegel, May 13, 1936.
48 BUT THE BOYS: Jerry explained in his memoir that he and Joe didn’t get the 15 percent of profits or 50 percent of chain store sales for the first comics they sold to Wheeler-Nicholson. “Joe and I were not sold on Wheeler-Nicholson,” he added, “and hoped to place ‘Superman’ with what we hoped would be a more responsible organization” (Siegel, Creation of a Superhero, 4: 7–8).
49 THAT IS WHAT: Douglas Wheeler-Nicholson, “His Goal Was the Graphic Novel,” Alter Ego No. 88, 29.
50 PULSATING STREETS: Jones, Men of Tomorrow, 8.
51 “HE COULD SELL”: Author interview with Jack Adams.
52 HERBIE SIEGEL: Younger workers at DC would speculate over the years on just what Herbie did. Was he Harry’s bodyguard or friend, gofer or babysitter? The truth is that he was all those things. As for Harry’s misdeeds, he testified in April 1939 that he was never convicted of a crime but “I pleaded guilty in General Sessions for publishing magazines and paid a fine.” Detective Comics Against Bruns Publications.
53 JACK LIEBOWITZ WAS: Jack S. Liebowitz, 1993, 1–23. This unpublished memoir consisted of his transcribed responses to a series of questions posed by his daughter, Linda Stillman. One effect of having to share a bed when he was growing, Jack said, was that “when I married I refused to have [a] double bed. I wanted my own bed.”
54 JACK WORKED OUT: Liebowitz memoir, 25–26, 40.
55 PAUL SAMPLINER: He apparently owned 25 percent of Harry Donenfeld’s publishing operation and 75 percent of the distribution company, with Harry owning the remainder of both.
56 WALLET EMPTY: Comics historian Michael Uslan says that in 1973, he saw evidence in the DC archives that the Major received a payment of $19,703, in addition to having his debts canceled (Superman: The Action Comics Archives, Vol. 3, 6). Neither the Major’s family nor DC can find evidence of a payout, although the company acknowledges that many of its files have been lost over the years.
57 ABSOLUTELY, ACCORDING: Liebowitz memoir, 47.
58 HARRY HAD ORCHESTRATED: Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, agreements with Donny Press, Inc., World Color Printing Co., and Photochrome, Inc. Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson Brown, the Major’s granddaughter, is assembling evidence that she says will raise further questions about the bankruptcy’s legitimacy (author interview with Brown).
59 “SHE HATED THEM”: Amash, “His Goal Was,” Alter Ego No. 88, 33.
60 UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE: Siegel, Creation of a Superhero, 4: 12.
61 LEDGER SYNDICATE: Siegel, Creation of a Superhero, 4: 13.
62 AS JACK WROTE: Liebowitz memoir, 48.
63 CHARLIE AND JACK: Detective Comics Against Bruns, 131–36.
64 IT WAS THE QUESTION: Siegel, Creation of a Superhero, 4: 21.
65 A SWINDLE: In fairness to Harry and Jack, most investments for them and other publishers didn’t pay off and theirs was fair within the dealings of the times. Were Jerry and Joe as naïve as the natives who were handed trinkets by the Dutch West India Company? Not entirely, since they spoke the language and were aware of what they were doing. But they were naïve, and desperate to make a sale and a living. So while Harry and Jack had lawyers covering their backs and knew they could drive as hard a bargain as they chose, Jerry and Joe had barely any clout or clue.
66 WERE BUYING NOT: Letter from Donenfeld to Siegel and Shuster, September 22, 1938. There is disagreement among relatives and others familiar with the case as to whether Jerry and Joe sought legal advice before signing that famous contract. Some say the boys did, at the suggestion of Jerry’s mother, and the lawyer said to sign. Others say they got no counsel. In his memoir Jerry writes, with uncharacteristic understatement, “The legal release, which Joe and I signed, caused us much grief later” (Siegel, Creation of a Superhero, 4: 25).
In a comic book world where everything was written concisely, that legal release included one of the longest sentences ever: “In consideration of $130 agreed to be paid me by you, I hereby sell and transfer such work and strip, all goodwill attached thereto and exclusive right to the use of the characters and story, continuity and title of strip contained therein, to you and your assigns to have and hold forever and to be your exclusive property and I agree not to employee said characters or said story in any other strips or sell any like strip or story containing the same characters by their names contained therein or under any other names at any time hereafter to any other person, firm or corporation, or permit the use thereof by said other parties without obtaining your written consent therefor” (release form signed by Siegel and Shuster, March 1, 1938).
68 ARTWORK WAS DESTROYED: While there has been some confusion over what happened to that artwork, Jack Adler says, “Absolutely, it was destroyed.” Adler worked for the engraver of Action No. 1 and later for National Allied Magazines, where it was his job to destroy original art like that. Author interview with Jack Adler.
69 JOSEPH ST
ALIN: Stalin was born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. He adopted the name Stalin, a takeoff on the Russian stal, which means “steel.” He liked the notion that he was a Man of Steel, but the more fitting reference is to the iron fist with which he ruled.
70 “PLEASE CLARK!”: Siegel, Action Comics No. 1.
71 SUPERMAN BUILT ON: Siegel, Creation of a Superhero, 1: 15 and 5: 7.
72 DOC SAVAGE LENT: Author interview with and emails from Murray; and Murray, “The Pulp Connection.”
73 CASE FOR A CONNECTION: Murray, “Gladiator of Iron, Man of Steel,” Alter Ego No. 37, 3–18.
74 “DID YOU EVER”: Wylie, Gladiator, 46.
75 “USED DIALOGUE”: Letter from Philip Wylie to J. Randolph Cox, January 28, 1970.
76 “OUR CONCEPT”: ‘ “Superman’ Grew,” Alter Ego No. 56, 7.
2. A HERO FOR HIS TIMES
1 THERE WERE TWO: Detective Comics Against Bruns, 43–46; and author interviews with Adams and Paul Levitz.
2 ALL THE NUMBERS: Detective Comics Against Bruns, 52. Conventional wisdom says that National Comics printed 200,000 copies of Action No. 1, but Jack Liebowitz testified that it was 202,000.
3 RAN A TEST: Detective Comics Against Bruns, 37–38.
4 DRIVE DEMAND: Liebowitz memoir, 48.
5 CONTINUED TO CLIMB: Uslan figures from DC Archives.
6 LIBRARIES GOT: Seldes, “Preliminary Report on Superman,” Esquire; and Sheridan, Classic Comics, 234–35. Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore was the first to use Superman to attract kids in 1940, and the technique spread.
7 ALL-STAR PITCHER: Cramer, The Hero’s Life, 109.
8 FIRST CHARACTER: Detective Dan appeared in 1933, but as a one-shot deal with the character thereafter appearing as the star of the Dan Dunn comic strip.
9 FIRST PRESS RUN: Uslan figures from DC Archives.
10 THERE WERE A DOZEN: Benton, Superhero Comics of the Golden Age, 23.
11 “WE LIKED IT”: Liebowitz memoir, 48.
12 FRED ALLEN’S RADIO: Transcript by author of Allen’s radio show on October 9, 1940; and “Up in the Sky! Look!” Alter Ego No. 26, 29–33. When “Superman” pretended to lift Donenfeld into the air, the publisher pleaded, “I’ve got a weak stomach and any minute I’m going to lose it. Please take me down!”
13 HARRY WOULD WEAR: Jones, Men of Tomorrow, 159.
14 ACTION 1 REFERRED: Siegel, Action Comics No. 1.
15 SUPERMAN NEWSPAPER COMIC: “The Superman is Born,” Superman: The Dailies, 13.
16 ON DAY FIVE: “Krypton Doomed!” Superman: The Dailies, 15.
17 FIVE INSTALLMENTS: “Speeding Towards Earth,” Superman: The Dailies, 17.
18 FIRST SUPERMAN COMIC: Siegel, Superman No. 1.
19 IN ACTION 1: Siegel, Action Comics No. 1.
20 “AN INSTANT AFTER”: “Speeding Towards Earth,” 17.
21 IN SUPERMAN NO. 1: Siegel, Superman No. 1.
22 FIRST SUPERMAN BOOK: Historians have assumed that Joe, Jerry, and their editors merely stuck back pages cut from Action 1 to fill out Superman 1. But in his memoir, Jerry said that “the additional pages were specifically created for use in Superman Magazine no. 1.” Siegel, Creation of a Superhero, 6: 3.
23 “ARE YOU SURE”: Siegel, Action Comics No. 1.
24 NO TAKE-OFF: His first flying actually was in the Fleischer cartoons, which first aired in 1941.
25 “MILLION-DOLLAR MARATHON”: Siegel, Action Comics No. 65.
26 “TO FLY”: Siegel, Creation of a Superhero, 1: 2.
27 WASN’T THE FIRST: Pinpointing who was the first isn’t so simple, historian John Wells says, since the first widely distributed comic book in which the Sub-Mariner took flight, in October 1939, also featured a flying Human Torch. As for Superman, “the transition from leaping to flying was a gradual, organic process with some subsequent backsliding and emphasizing of the leaping along with other stories where Superman HAD to be flying. To my mind, though, Superman was flying (or at least doing a great imitation) by the end of 1939. That’s important because 1940 saw an explosion of flying heroes, including (in rough chronological order) Hawkman, the Spectre, Black Condor, Bulletman, Doctor Fate, and Green Lantern. Captain Marvel was definitively flying by the latter half of 1940, too.” Email to author from John Wells.
28 FOLLOWING THOSE TWISTS: Helping me follow the twists and turns were Fleisher, The Great Superman Book; Greenberger and Pasko, The Essential Superman Encyclopedia; and Wells emails.
29 “WHICH IS THE”: Siegel, “Superman Joins the Circus,” Action Comics No. 7.
30 EXCLAMATION POINT!: That punctuation was at least partly a function of the metal plates used to print the comics back then. “Someone in the printing process could accidentally clean out a period, thinking it was a speck of dust, because it was so small,” explains Levitz, the former DC publisher. Because exclamation points were bigger they were more likely to survive, which meant that early writers were more likely to use them. “Today, with offset printing,” adds Levitz, “that worry is totally irrelevant and there is very little reliance on the exclamation point in comics. It is used more than in the average literature but mostly for melodrama.”
31 “HIS FIGURE ERECTS”: Siegel, “Superman in the Slums,” Action Comics No. 8.
32 “THE BOYS DON’T”: Siegel, “Superman in the Slums.”
33 WORD LIKE “SARDONIC”: Siegel, “The Million-Dollar Marathon,” 172.
34 “TOUGH IS PUTTING”: Siegel, “Superman, Champion of the Oppressed,” Action Comics No. 1.
35 “THE MOTHER’S RIGHT!”: Siegel, “Superman in the Slums,” 42, 52, 54.
36 “IN THE EYES”: Siegel, Creation of a Superhero, 7: 1.
37 SURPASSED IN POPULARITY: Slater Brown, “The Coming of Superman,” New Republic.
38 “I WROTE, WROTE”: Siegel, Creation of a Superhero, 7: 2.
39 HE STILL DID: Kobler, “Up, Up and Awa-a-y!”
40 AS TIME WENT: The instructions were laid out in a letter from Liebowitz to Siegel on January 23, 1940, and in letters from Whitney Ellsworth to Siegel on January 22, 1940, November 4, 1940, and February 19, 1941. The “Murray” in Ellsworth’s 1941 letter almost surely is Murray Boltinoff, although he wasn’t believed to have started working at National for another two years.
41 “HOW FOOLISH YOU”: Waid, “K-Metal: The ‘Lost’ Superman Tale,” 13.
42 NO ONE KNOWS: Thomas Andrae argues that it was “editorial quibbles” and the story’s length that killed it (Creators of the Superheroes, 54–55). Will Murray says it is more likely that the profound changes the story proposed were too much, too fast, for a superhero as successful as Superman (“The Kryptonite Crisis,” Alter Ego No. 37).
43 THERE WAS MORE: Again, there was a series of letters from Liebowitz to Siegel—on September 28, 1938, January 23, 1940, and January 29, 1940.
44 IT WAS ENOUGH: Kobler, “Up, Up and Awa-a-y!”
45 “HE LOVED SHIKSAS”: Andrae and Gordon, Funnyman, 79.
46 “AFTERWARDS I SAID”: Author interview with Jerry Robinson.
47 DATING BATMAN AND SUPERMAN: There is an old joke that Superman is the guy girls want to marry, but Batman is the one they want to date.
48 WASHINGTON POST: “Superman Rescues His Creator,” Washington Post.
49 NO SURPRISE THERE: Detective Comics Against Bruns, 79–105; and Andelman, Will Eisner: A Spirited Life, 43–45.
50 “A MONGOLOID”: “ ‘Superman’ Grew,” Alter Ego No. 56, 11.
51 RETIRE THE CAPTAIN: Twenty years after the settlement, DC Comics licensed the rights to Captain Marvel, and in 1973 DC brought him back to life in a comic book called Shazam!
52 OTTO BINDER: Emails to author from science fiction writer Richard Lupoff, who was a friend of Binder’s.
53 “IT IS PERFECTLY CLEAR”: Jerome Siegel and Joseph Shuster Against National Comics, June 5, 1947, 17.
54 TOLD A JUDGE: Kane told Will Murray that if it hadn’t been for Siegel and Shuster, “I wouldn’t have created Batman nor woul
d there be a comic book industry” (“Mark of the Bat,” Comic Scene Yearbook No. 1).
55 HOW RICH: Kobler, “Up, Up and Awa-a-y!”
56 WHAT IS CLEAR: Jones, Men of Tomorrow, 159–64.
57 “HE WAS MANY”: Author interview with Sonia “Peachy” Donenfeld.
58 JACK REGULARLY REMINDED: Liebowitz memoir, 47.
59 COMBINED CIRCULATION: “Superman’s Dilemma,” Time. The three comic books he starred in back then were Action, Superman, and World’s Finest, which was launched in 1941 and featured Batman along with (and sometimes teaming up with) Superman.
60 ROSE AND THE GIRLS: Author interview with Joan Levy.
61 CARTOON STORY: Siegel, “How Superman Would End the War,” Look.
62 “TO RAP THE”: Uslan, America at War, 27.
63 “AS THE MIGHTIEST”: “Superman’s Dilemma,” Time.
64 “YOU’RE PHYSICALLY”: Untitled comic strips, February 16–19, 1942, Superman in the Forties.
65 THE U.S. MILITARY: “All’s Well in Britain Now—Admiralty Enlists Superman,” Washington Post; and Kobler, “Up, Up and Awa-a-y!”
66 AFTER D DAY: Weisinger, “Here Comes Superman!” accessed at superman-through-the-ages.nu.
67 AT U.S. MILITARY BASES: “Comic Culture,” Time; Robinson, Zap! Pow! Bam! 21; “Superman’s Dilemma,” Time; and “Superman Stymied,” Time.
68 “THE FBI CAME”: Overstreet, The Comic Book Price Guide No. 13 (1983), A-65. Superman editor Mort Weisinger went a step further, as always, saying, “I’d discovered the bomb two years before it was first exploded” (Peterson, “Superman Goes Mod,” Indianapolis Star Magazine).
69 A 1945 DOCUMENT FROM: “Superman and the Atom Bomb,” Harper’s; and “Superman vs. Atom Man—the Prequel—and the Sequel!” Alter Ego No. 98, 13.
70 ALVIN SCHWARTZ: Author interview with Alvin Schwartz; and Schwartz, “The Real Secret of Superman’s Identity,” Annual of the Modern Language Association.