The Superman Curse

I’ve finished reading Gerard Jones’s non-fiction book about the history of superhero comic books during an uneventful duty in EK’s clinic. Each duty has always been uneventful, but for some reason less than five people had "post-ride vertigo". I’ve always looked at such "patients" with slight disdain and always told them that if the ride loops 360 degrees six times there’s that possibility that yes, you will get dizzy, but whenever I remember that 9 years ago I’ve almost barfed after the first upstroke swing in anchor’s away I snap back to being nice. Or tolerant.

Gerard Jones narrates how the superhero comic book came about in the 30’s, birthed by the Depression and gangsters and such, but goes into more detail into the struggles of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman. As a comic geek myself I have always been aware that they did have a hard time getting recognized and compensated as the creators of the character that singlehandedly created the superhero genre, but after reading Jones’ well-researched accounts I now look at comic books with a new set of eyes and appreciation.

Siegel (writer) and Shuster (artist) created the character in the early thirty’s but failed to sell them to publishers until 1939, when it became a major pulp hit, each issue of Action comics selling more than 1 million copies. To put this into perspective, each "hit" these days, such as Birds of Prey or Superman, sells roughtly about 50,000 copies. The problem was Siegel and Shuster sold the character without much thought, brought about by what they looked like a lucrative deal to those 2 young boys in their twenty’s. Superman went on to have a hit radio show, publishers Jack Liebowitz and Harry Donenfeld got filthy rich, while Siegel and Shuster received a less than modest per-page compensation. Shuster eventually went blind and no longer able to draw the character, Siegel went into deep depression and became an awful writer. To illustrate how awful, Jones describes Siegel’s attempt at a new superhero, Funnyman, and it is rather awful.

Of the two Siegel was the one who pushed for recognition while Shuster disappeared entirely from the scene. He mailed hundreds of letters to national newspapers, got this hopes up by some editors and lawyers, but mostly just got frustrated. An enraged Siegel then proclaimed, which some claimed was done very tongue-in-cheekly, that he was putting a curse on the Superman franchise. Come to think of it: George Reeve, the guy who played Superman in the 50’s TV series blew his own brains out with a gun. Christopher Reeves became paralyzed. And of course, most horribly, Dean Cain became the host of Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

Finally in 1975, after 36 long years of misery, of seeing their creation making everyone rich except its creators because of an unjust deal, through the huge efforts of comic book writer Jerry Robinson, and through a series of events that led to a change of ownership of the publishing company and later through a national media frenzy, it was made official that all Superman products (except toys because they’re difficult to print on) should bear the logo Created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. I rarely get teary eyed whenever I read a book, but I did when the deal was finally closed, and after 36 years of poverty and injustice, Walter Cronkite announces in television that "…finally truth, justice, and the American way have triumphed, and that’s the way it’s going to be, December 24, 1975." All the Siegel and Shuster supporters screamed and cried as they watched this during their victory party, and I myself got all misty too.

Upon getting back home I immediately checked my father’s huge collection of 60’s Superman comic books, and discovered that they really weren’t credited back then. That in the underbelly of what seemed like a every innocent time, when comics were fun and jovial and simple, was the grime of abuse.

There are other very interesting facts in Jones’ book. Wonder Woman’s creator William Moulton Marston is a maverick psychologist who was seminal in the creation of the modern lie detector test. As much as a symbol of feminine strength Wonder Woman seems to be, a lot of those "innocent" 40’s comic books had her in positions fairly suggestive of bondage and female subservience. While the crediting of Siegel and Shuster is a triumph on its own, the opposite is true of Batman’s creator Bob Kane. He did not create Batman alone. In fact, he did not create most of what makes Batman Batman. He hired a lot of ghost artists and ghost writers, with Bill Finger being almost the true creator of the character. As opposed to the young Siegel and Shuster, the young Bob Kane was shrewd and cunning. He IS still the only one being credited as Batman’s creator almost 70 years hence, Bill Finger is dead, so I guess there’s still a lot of victories left unaccomplished. (Jan. 14, 2007)