The true origin of Superman: he was a villain, then he was from the future

On the new podcast The Comics Code, host Graeme Burk busts the myth about the creation of Superman in 1934. Comics fans have been told time after time the story that Cleveland teenager Jerry Siegel was hit by the sudden inspiration late one night, and ran the final script of Superman as we know him to his artist friend from high school Joe Shuster to draw the following morning. And the man from Krypton, disguised on Earth as mild-mannered Clark Kent, was born.

But drawing from various sources, including Siegel’s own unpublished memoir, Burk reveals a much more complicated story, with various different versions of Superman evolving, written by Siegel but drawn by different artists, until the version we all know, drawn by Shuster, was finalized in 1934 and published in 1938 in Action Comics #1.

Over the course of two years, Siegel struggled through various iterations of Superman, teaming with different artists:

Siegel wrote a short story for his self-published science fiction magazine called “The Reign of the Superman,” illustrated by Shuster, in which a homeless man is given temporary mind powers against his will by an evil scientist, and uses them maliciously;
Then Siegel and Shuster drew up a (unpublished) comic book in which a man is given superhuman powers of strength against his will by an evil scientist, and becomes a hero;
Then Siegel tried to use that same concept intended for a newspaper comic strip, but with samples drawn by established comic strip artist Leo O’Mealia (about which Shuster was so angry, he tore up the cover of their original Superman comic book and burned the contents);
Siegel then teamed with comic strip artist Russell Keaton to create a Superman (finally named Clark Kent) who is a human who is sent back in time from Earth’s apocalyptic future, for an unsold comic strip; and
Finally, in late 1934, Siegel re-teamed with Shuster to create the version we know.

A link to The Comics Code podcast website is here.