Photo Gallery
Clark Fable

FLYING START
Many Superman scholars have found a Christian allegory in the tale of Krypton's Kal-El, an all-powerful only son sent from the heavens by his father to serve humanity on Earth. But Superman was the creation of two Jewish teens from Cleveland, writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, who packaged their first tales of the Man of Steel in a self-published 'zine in 1933, before comic books had come on the scene. It was another five years before a comics publisher, Detective Comics (which became DC Comics, also the house of Batman and Wonder Woman), brought Superman to a national audience. The superhero comic was born with the release of Action Comics #1, with its famous cover of Superman lifting a car above his head. For the lifetime rights to their work, Siegel and Shuster received the sum of $130, which may have been a princely figure to a couple of starving, Depression-era artists but soon seemed a pittance, as Superman immediately took off in popularity. Siegel and Shuster would spend the rest of their lives battling DC Comics (which is, like EW.com, part of Time Warner) for a bigger share of the Super-royalties.