superman
Grumpy Old Fan | Happy anniversary, Lois Lane
Three panels which helped define a legend (from Action Comics #1, by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster)
Seventy-five years ago, on or about April 18, 1938, the company that would become DC Comics published the first issue (cover-dated June 1938) of a new anthology series. Today, Action Comics #1 is remembered mainly (and justifiably so) for introducing Superman.
Naturally, many of the elements and concepts from that first Superman story have changed over time. In Action #1, all we see of Krypton is its final fate. Pa Kent doesn’t have a first name, and Clark works for the Daily Star. There’s no Lex Luthor, no Jimmy Olsen, no Kryptonite, and no Superboy. Even Superman’s powers pale in comparison to what they would become.
However, two characters are already fleshed out pretty well, with motivations and dynamics instantly recognizable to today’s readers. One, of course, is Clark Kent, who creates the Superman identity to “turn his titanic strength into channels that would benefit mankind,” and who hides that strength behind a pair of glasses and a meek demeanor.
The other is Lois Lane.
Cleveland mayor declares April 18 ‘Superman Day’
The plates on the fence surrounding the site of the Shuster family home (via CapedWonder)
Someone, somewhere determined that on April 18, 1938 — it was a Monday, if you’re interested — Action Comics #1 arrived on newsstands, delivering riveting tales of Tex Thompson, Zatara the Master Magician and Scooby the Five-Star Reporter, and oh, yeah, introducing the world to Superman, Lois Lane and Krypton. It’s an issue that essentially gave birth to the superhero genre, and set the course of the fledgling comic-book industry.
Although DC Comics doesn’t appear to be marking the 75th anniversary of the Man of Steel, the city where teenagers Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created the character is, beginning in about an hour. At 1 p.m. ET, Cleveland Mayor Frank G. Jackson will present the Siegel and Shuster Society with a proclamation on the steps of City Hall declaring today “Superman Day.”
To commemorate the event, a Superman flag will be raised, and the lights on City Hall and the Terminal Tower (familiar to anyone how watched The Avengers) will be turned blue, red and yellow. In addition, Cleveland-Hopkins International Airport will have cupcakes for travelers, and a birthday card for the Last Son of Krypton at its recently installed Superman Welcoming Center.
Cleveland newspaper celebrates Superman’s 75th anniversary
Following the video on Friday, The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s celebration of the 75th anniversary of Superman kicked into high gear Sunday with seven more stories, including a front-page feature.
Superman was, of course, created in 1933 by teenagers Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who lived in the city’s Glenville neighborhood (spotlighted in that Friday video), and then sold in 1938 to Detective Comics. The newspaper’s anniversary coverage includes:
• Interviews with fans traveling to Cleveland to mark the occasion
• A timeline (of sorts, although it’s more like a game board) of Superman’s 75-year history, from his arrival on Earth to his first encounter with Beppo to his relaunch in DC Comics’ New 52
• A more in-depth chronicle of Superman’s journey
• A rundown of the Superman-related events planned over the next few months
• An interview with Brad Ricca, author of the upcoming Super Boys: The Amazing Adventures of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster — the Creators of Superman
• A video explaining everything you want to know about kryptonite in just 90 seconds
In addition to all of that, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson has proclaimed Thursday “Superman Day.”
Cleveland newspaper takes Superman back to his roots
Jerry Siegel’s former home in Cleveland
Kicking off its celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Man of Steel, The Plain Dealer has released a video that traces Superman’s Cleveland roots, from the character’s creation by teenagers Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in the city’s Glenville neighborhood to the studio they later established that employed local artists like John Sikela, Leo Nowak, Ed Dobrotka and Hi Mankin.
Over the next few days, the newspaper will roll out more Superman content, including a 90-second video about kryptonite, the full story of the character’s creation, and an illustrated timeline.
Grumpy Old Fan | July brings solicits heard ‘round the world
He’s a Brainiac, Braaaainiac on – the – flo-oo-or …
Don’t ask why — because the answer is too boring and has nothing to do with Steven Spielberg — but the other day I was thinking about the original 13 American colonies, and from there the general course of American history across the 18th and 19th centuries. Naturally, from there I imagined how DC Comics would solicit the story of a young nation. It ended up being something like a team book: Meet the states that will form a great democracy — and discover the shocking secret which threatens to tear them apart–!
And then, as fate would have it, DC released its July solicitations, and my stab at patriotic humor was somewhat justified. So there you go.
In any event, on to “Trinity War” –!
WORLD WAR T
Say, remember when “World War III” was an actual part of DC history? I’m not talking about the Great Disaster, or something that happened in the hazy interregnum between the present and the Legion of Super-Heroes, or even the final Grant Morrison/Howard Porter JLA arc. No, as part of 52 (2006-07), “World War III” was the name given to a week-long global Black Adam rampage. I bring it up because it’s no longer in continuity, and we still don’t know (beyond another “Villain Month”) what’s coming in September for the New 52′s second anniversary.
Judge denies DC’s claims against attorney in Superman feud
Following a series of devastating legal blows to the estates of Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, their lawyer has finally received some good news: A federal judge denied a bid by DC Comics to force Marc Toberoff to pay $500,000 in attorneys fees.
According to Variety, U.S. District Judge Otis Wright on Thursday rejected the publisher’s 2010 claims that Toberoff illegally interfered with its copyright claims to the Man of Steel when he convinced the Siegel and Shuster heirs to walk away from “mutually beneficial” agreements and seek to recapture the rights to the first Superman story in Action Comics #1. They argued that the attorney stood to gain a controlling interest in the property.
But Wright sided with Toberoff and the Siegel and Shuster heirs, saying that DC had waited too long to make its claims of tortious interference. “The point here is that DC had more than enough knowledge by November 2006 to have tickled a suspicion that its business relationship with the Shusters was being tampered with,” the judge wrote. “It was then—and not when DC gathered the smoking-gun evidence supporting each element of its cause of action—that it should have filed suit.”
Grumpy Old Fan | Sequelizing the New 52
Someday I will run a landscaping company called Kneel Before Sod
Gather ‘round, kiddos, because we begin with another tale of Gen-X adolescence!
From 1977 through 1986, I grew from a snot-nosed third-grade punk into a snot-nosed (I had allergies) high-school senior, accompanied along the way by at least one big-budget sci-fi/fantasy movie milestone.* Specifically, right in the middle of the run were three sequels by which every self-respecting fan swears: The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Superman II (released in the United States in 1981) and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982). Each built on its predecessor using darker elements and/or more “mature” themes, because each had the sequel’s luxury of an established setting.
For Young Tom, though, the cumulative effect of these three movies was mind-expanding, if not mind-blowing. I’m not talking about Empire’s Big Reveal (echoed coincidentally in Khan) or the unsettling sight of a powerless Clark Kent. Instead, each catapulted the fevered suppositions of a junior-high imagination to higher levels of awareness. I went into the theater each time wondering will this be as good? and came out giddy at how much better each one was.
So what’s this have to do with comics? Read on …
It’s lights out for Rhode Island’s ‘Superman building’
The Providence, Rhode Island, skyline, with the “Superman building” on the left
Providence, Rhode Island’s Bank of America Building, known locally as the “Superman building” because of its resemblance to the Daily Planet on the Adventures of Superman television series, will go dark at the end of the month.
The Associated Press reports the familiar blue light atop the 1928 Art Deco-style building — at 428 feet, it’s the tallest in the state — will be turned off when Bank of America’s lease expires (the color was traditionally changed to red and green for Christmas, and red for Valentine’s Day). Likewise, the lights that illuminate the facade will be minimal, if they’re used at all.
Superman’s cape isn’t the only thing you don’t mess with
Superman may have a reputation as a big pushover, but that’s because not enough people know Kerry Callen’s version. That Man of Steel screws with Batman for kicks, won’t put up with your sob stories and doesn’t care what kind of excuse you have for not wanting to do the dishes. Knowing that, you probably shouldn’t tease him about his costume.
But that’s what some jerk does in the latest installment of Callen’s hilarious Super Antics comic strip and, well, see what happens below. Following that: more about superman’s undies.
Colbert cuts to the chase: ‘On Krypton, do they speak Spanish?’
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Diaz, an MIT professor who serves on the advisory board of Freedom University, a Georgia organization that provides college-level instructions to all qualified students, regardless of their immigration status, appeared last night on The Colbert Report to discuss immigration reform. As Diaz and host Stephen Colbert “debated” a pathway to citizenship and a guest worker program, the conversation soon turned to … the Superman Question.
“Every generation of Americans has to answer what we call ‘the Superman Question,’” Diaz said. “Superman comes, lands in America, he’s illegal, he’s one of these kids, wrapped up in a red bullfighter’s cape. You’ve got to decide what we’re going to do with Superman. Are we going to give him the boot and say, ‘You know what, you’re an illegal, you’re not an American,’ or are we going to have compassion and say, Listen, this kid was brought here before he knew, this could was brought here and he didn’t have a say in whether he was going to come, but he’s living in this country and –”
Cheat Sheet | From Fables Con to ‘East of West’ to WonderCon
Welcome to “Cheat Sheet,” ROBOT 6′s guide to the week ahead. Even as some attendees unpack from last week’s Fables Con: Fabletown & Below in Rochester, Minnesota, other folks are checking off their to-do lists before heading off to Anaheim, California, later this week for WonderCon.
Meanwhile, our contributors rattle off their picks for the best comics going on sale Wednesday, from Bad Machinery, Vol. 1, to Superman Vs. Zod to East of West #1.
Judge confirms Superman belongs to DC Comics
Superman Unchained #1
A federal judge confirmed Wednesday that the heirs of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel relinquished any claims to the character in a 2001 agreement with DC Comics. However, that seems unlikely to end the nearly decade-long legal battle over the Man of Steel.
The order by U.S. District Judge Otis Wright III follows the January decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that the Siegel heirs had accepted a 2001 offer from DC that permits the publisher to retain all rights to Superman (as well as Superboy and The Spectre) in exchange for $3 million in cash and contingent compensation worth tens of millions — and therefore were barred from reclaiming a portion of the writer’s copyright to Action Comics #1.
Unwilling to give up, Siegel attorney Marc Toberoff introduced a new strategy earlier this month, arguing not only that the Ninth Circuit didn’t settle all of the outstanding issues but that if there was a contract, then DC failed to perform: “DC anticipatorily breached by instead demanding unacceptable new and revised terms as a condition to its performance; accordingly, the Siegels rescinded the agreement, and DC abandoned the agreement.”
Grumpy Old Fan | Grant Morrison’s super-symphony
Action Comics vol. 2 #1
With his 19-issue Action Comics saga, Grant Morrison has almost literally written a Superman story for all time. “For every time” might be more accurate, because it plays with chronology like a kid jumbling up a Rubik’s Cube. Morrison begins with tales of Superman’s earliest days, then jumps into the New 52′s present for a couple of issues (bringing in the 31st century’s Legion of Super-Heroes) before wrapping up the first arc and proceeding on to “now.” The result is a macro-level adventure that draws liberally from every era of Superman, blends those disparate elements into a fine pureé, and repositions the mix as a self-reflective epic. This is the Superman legend as alpha and omega, beginning and end, reinvention and restoration, and it’s a heck of a thing.
It’s also a pretty daunting read. I spent about three hours Tuesday night with issues 1 through 17 (and Issue 0, of course) and still didn’t catch every nuance and reference. However, the overall impression is a familiar one: Superman’s real power comes more from the idea of “Superman” than from the effects of yellow-sun rays. On its own this is rather hokey, or at least dismissable as such, and a reader casually flipping through Action Vol. 2 #18 might wonder what all the fuss was about. To be fair, a more dedicated reader might wonder that as well; but I think it’s a lot less likely.
SPOILERS FOLLOW for Action Comics #18 and its predecessors:
‘Man of Steel’ star Henry Cavill reads ‘Superman’ in ALA poster
Henry Cavill, star of Warner Bros.’ upcoming Man of Steel, is featured in a new poster for the American Library Association’s Celebrity READ campaign holding a copy of DC Comics’ Superman Annual #1.
As the title suggests, the 28-year-old campaign features celebrities, ranging from Bill Cosby (who appeared on the very first poster) and Bill Gates to Oprah Winfrey and the stars of The Hunger Games, with books in an effort to encourage reading. Watchmen star Jeffrey Dean Morgan previously appeared with a copy of the Alan Moore-Dave Gibbons book, while Hugh Jackman was shown with … The Man in the Moon.
Here’s the text accompanying the Cavill poster on the ALA website: “Born in the United Kingdom, actor Henry Cavill has already made quite an impact in both film and television. Henry made his feature film debut in The Count of Monte Cristo and went on to star in Tristan & Isolde, Woody Allen’s Whatever Works and, most recently, as Theseus in Immortals. On the small screen, Henry appeared on the Showtime series “The Tudors” for four seasons. This summer, audiences will see Henry star in Man of Steel when it flies into theaters on June 14. In preparation for this epic role, Henry delved deep into original source material, reading hundreds of Superman comics.”
Available for $16, the 22-inch by 34-inch poster is featured on the cover of the ALA Graphics summer catalog, arriving this week. Director Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel opens June 14.
(via Nerdage)
Quote of the Day | Tony Daniel on Andy Diggle’s ‘Action’ exit
“Yes, many have heard, Andy Diggle left Action Comics after the first issue. I can only say I feel bad he made that decision. I think it was the wrong one, but that was his choice to make. For the remainder of the arc I’ll be working off his plots to finish out this first arc. So essentially, I become ‘scripter’ in the credits w/Andy as ‘plotter.’ As for myself, I end my short run after I complete this first arc, which ends with issue 21. This was preplanned since last fall as there is another project I’ll be taking on, and assisting with, a massive project with DC. I still think people will like this arc and I’m staying as true as I can be to Andy’s plans for this story. In the end I hope he’ll find it somewhat recognizable as something he took part in.”
– Tony S. Daniel, commenting on his Facebook page about the abrupt departure of writer Andy Diggle from Action Comics after just one issue. Daniel, who was initially announced as penciler of the DC Comics series, previously had stints writing Batman, Detective Comics and The Savage Hawkman.