Speaker 1: Cleveland, Ohio, nineteen thirty two. The Great Depression is in
Speaker 1: full swing, and it's not exactly a barrel of laughs.
Speaker 1: Economic hardship is everywhere, and people are growing desperate, desperate
Speaker 1: enough to do anything for even a few dollars. Tucked
Speaker 1: into Cleveland Business District is a secondhand clothing shop. It's
Speaker 1: run by a man named Mitchell Segull. He's a Lithuanian
Speaker 1: Jewish immigrant born Mikhail Segalovitch. The shop does a fair business.
Speaker 1: He's able to provide for his family, his wife, his
Speaker 1: son Jerry, Jerry, siblings five in all. Mitchell's shop has suits, shirts,
Speaker 1: shoes previously worn, but in this economic climate, affording any
Speaker 1: kind of clothing at all is a luxury. Anyone walking
Speaker 1: through the door is greeted warmly. The two men coming
Speaker 1: in to his shop now, just before he starts closing up,
Speaker 1: he welcomes, how can I help you, gentlemen? They don't answer. Ah,
Speaker 1: that's a very nice, very shop. Would you like to
Speaker 1: try it on? The men pull suits from the racks,
Speaker 1: stretching out the sleeves admiring them. Mitchell has a good
Speaker 1: selection of sizes and colors. Maybe this man wants to
Speaker 1: look good for a job interview. Maybe he's going to
Speaker 1: be married, or maybe he has something else in mind. Rabbi, stop,
Speaker 1: it's a robber. One man has grabbed a suit and
Speaker 1: is headed for the door. Mitchell begins to move towards them,
Speaker 1: shouting there's two of them and only one of him.
Speaker 1: They pry the suit from his grasp, a suit that
Speaker 1: won't be easily replaced, that could earn him money he
Speaker 1: won't have. The struggle is half a name literally and metaphorically,
Speaker 1: all across the country. But even though Mitchell is one
Speaker 1: of many here, he's all alone. Please no, no. The
Speaker 1: men flee the store, leaving Mitchell on the floor. He
Speaker 1: can't catch his breath and his chest is heavy. Does
Speaker 1: he think he's been shot? Soon his wife will learn
Speaker 1: she's a widow, and his children will be told they
Speaker 1: no longer have a father. For the next six years. Really,
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life, his teenage son Jerry
Speaker 1: will wish someone had been there to protect Mitchell, to
Speaker 1: save him, someone who could shake the thieves out of
Speaker 1: their car as they ran away in terror, protecting an
Speaker 1: innocent man who only wanted to go to work to
Speaker 1: provide for his family. Someone invulnerable. Our story starts with
Speaker 1: a robbery, a coppy of Superman's first appearance being taken
Speaker 1: from the home of Nicholas Cage. But Superman's story starts
Speaker 1: here with another robbery, and in the eyes of Jerry Siegel,
Speaker 1: it won't be the last. Superman was taken from him
Speaker 1: over and over again, stolen a thousand times before a
Speaker 1: thief ever set foot on Cages property. For I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: this is Stealing Superman. I'm your host, Dani Schwartz, and
Speaker 1: this is episode six Another Planet In three. One year
Speaker 1: after his father died, Jerry Siegel walked down from his
Speaker 1: second floor shared bedroom at a hundred and six two
Speaker 1: Kimberly Avenue in Cleveland, headed to Glenville High When he
Speaker 1: was finished for the day, he'd head back home and
Speaker 1: immerse himself in science fiction in the Pulpse. Those were
Speaker 1: the digest sized fiction collections with titles like Amazing Stories
Speaker 1: and Private Detective that let the imaginations of their authors
Speaker 1: run wild. The full color covers held big promises, rockets
Speaker 1: to outer space, malevolent aliens, mad scientists. Jerry loved them.
Speaker 1: He breathed in the cheap brown paper and used it
Speaker 1: as kindling for his own imagination. Jerry wanted to be
Speaker 1: a writer, a sci fi writer, just like the ones
Speaker 1: he had admired in the Pulps. Everyone knew it too,
Speaker 1: I know my mom told me the story word. She
Speaker 1: was about seven or eight at that time, and she'd
Speaker 1: come over with her siblings. She had a four other siblings,
Speaker 1: and they come over the house and they knock on
Speaker 1: the door, and Jerry would be in his bedroom. He
Speaker 1: had this kind of like an attic bedroom where he
Speaker 1: kept this typewriter and he wrote all kinds of stories,
Speaker 1: even as a young team. And he'd look out the
Speaker 1: window and he see them coming up of the driveway
Speaker 1: and then he would go around to the door and
Speaker 1: they say opened the door, and he would say, wait,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna use my X ray vision to tell you
Speaker 1: what you're wearing. And he would say, Irv, you're wearing
Speaker 1: a white shirt, and Ruth, you're wearing a blue dress.
Speaker 1: And of course he knew this because he looked out
Speaker 1: the window, but he wanted to pretending he had X
Speaker 1: ray vision, and they didn't know what X revision even was.
Speaker 1: So he had all these ideas. And this was even
Speaker 1: before Superman. You know, he was coming with these different ideas.
Speaker 1: That's Gary Kaplan. Gary is a cousin of Jerry's and
Speaker 1: knows a lot about the family history, which means he
Speaker 1: knows quite a bit about our shared cultural history. Well,
Speaker 1: I remember in the beginning, I didn't even know that
Speaker 1: men was graded by a family member. When I was
Speaker 1: really young, I was I remember I was watching The
Speaker 1: Adventures a Superman on TV with George Reeves. My mom
Speaker 1: walked in the room. She says, you know, that's your cousin,
Speaker 1: And at first I didn't know what she was talking
Speaker 1: about because I knew Superman wasn't real. She's no, she says,
Speaker 1: she's my cousin. Jerry. He created Superman with his friend Joe,
Speaker 1: and I was like shocked. In life, there are different
Speaker 1: kinds of fortune, good and bad circumstances. Losing his father
Speaker 1: was a tragedy, but not long before, Jerry Siegal had
Speaker 1: met someone who would change his life, a classmate named
Speaker 1: Joe Schuster. The Joe Gary mentioned they had actually lived
Speaker 1: near each other for a few years, but didn't know it. Yes,
Speaker 1: Jerry lived in the Glenville neighborhood of Cleveland and Joe
Speaker 1: lived in the Kinsman area of Cleveland, and they didn't
Speaker 1: know each other. The neighbors are not too far apart,
Speaker 1: but there were different neighborhoods. And Joe went to Alexander
Speaker 1: Hamilton Junior High and they had a newspaper there, the
Speaker 1: Junior High, and my uncle was editor of that paper
Speaker 1: as a ninth grader, and Joe was an illustrator and
Speaker 1: he did comics for that paper. And this was an
Speaker 1: early nineteen thirties. Jerry and Joe met through another cousin
Speaker 1: of Jerry's who knew Joe's family had moved to Cleveland
Speaker 1: from Toronto a few years earlier, and believed that the
Speaker 1: two boys would get together like a house on fire.
Speaker 1: That's because Joe was also a science fiction fanatic, but
Speaker 1: he didn't want to write for the Pulps exactly. Joe
Speaker 1: was a born artist, an illustrator, self taught mostly from
Speaker 1: tracing other art. Someone who might feel more comfortable drawing
Speaker 1: the covers that enticed people from the drug store shelves
Speaker 1: or the introductory drawings that set the stage for the
Speaker 1: story to follow. Joe would draw on anything, even wallpaper
Speaker 1: someone had thrown away. They had the same type of
Speaker 1: personalities and they related off. They both loved science fiction,
Speaker 1: and those days, science fiction was relatively small compared to today,
Speaker 1: so it was something that only a few people were
Speaker 1: interested in. And they read the pol magazines like Amazing Stories,
Speaker 1: and they love that kind of stuff, and they wanted
Speaker 1: to do something similar to that, but something really really
Speaker 1: different and new, and they kept coming up with ideas,
Speaker 1: and your Wood write and Joe would illustrate. It's hard
Speaker 1: to explain how serendipitous this meeting was. Jerry and Joe
Speaker 1: were even alphabetized in class close together. The universe seemed
Speaker 1: to want to make certain they would meet their skills
Speaker 1: complemented each other perfectly for what was at the time
Speaker 1: a virtually unknown medium, the comic book. In the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: comics usually referred to comics strips, the sequential art published
Speaker 1: in newspapers that offered tiny snippets of illustrated humor and adventure.
Speaker 1: Some publishers collected the strips into periodicals, and that over
Speaker 1: time gave way to creating original, long form illustrated stories,
Speaker 1: Beginning with ninety five New Fund number one, which is
Speaker 1: believed to be the first all new collection of comic
Speaker 1: book stories. Along with Jazz, it would be one of
Speaker 1: the rare homegrown mediums of art in the United States.
Speaker 1: But Jerry and Joe weren't thinking of birthing a new medium.
Speaker 1: They were high school kids having fun collaborating. Jerry conjured
Speaker 1: up sci fi tales and Joe visualized them. One of
Speaker 1: their stories was titled Reign of the Superman, which they
Speaker 1: published in their own pulp magazine they named Science Fiction.
Speaker 1: It was about a maniacal scientist trying to craft an
Speaker 1: unstoppable monster with powers of telepathy, super eyesight, and hearing
Speaker 1: via a special serum. But this superman was a crook,
Speaker 1: a villain. All he wants is money and power. You
Speaker 1: can see the wheels turning how Jerry and Joe were
Speaker 1: moving towards something new and different, something pop culture didn't
Speaker 1: even have a word for yet. As they moved through
Speaker 1: high school, Jerry and Joe absorbed what was happening in
Speaker 1: the world around them. One of the biggest local heroes
Speaker 1: in town was Benny Friedman, a football player for Glenville
Speaker 1: High the quarterback, he was solidly built and had a
Speaker 1: spit curl falling down over his forehead. He wore form
Speaker 1: fitting tights and in the Olympics all anyone could talk
Speaker 1: about was Jesse Owens, a Cleveland native who was believed
Speaker 1: to be the fastest man alive, like he had superpowers.
Speaker 1: There's a synthesis here, a translucent glimpse into the creative
Speaker 1: minds of Jerry and Joe. They were being inundated with
Speaker 1: information about people with physical abilities far beyond the norm
Speaker 1: at a time the world was in desperate need of
Speaker 1: a figure of hope, a figure that began to emerge
Speaker 1: from a symphony of fiction. They had both consumed with
Speaker 1: darkof breathing out, connected the right for death, and refugating alive.
Speaker 1: They decided their superpowered antagonist worked better as a protagonist.
Speaker 1: His origin was the stuff of science fiction. Born on
Speaker 1: a planet called Krypton that was about to end and
Speaker 1: sent off to Earth to be raised by mortals. A
Speaker 1: skin tight costume broadcast his other worldliness. A small curl
Speaker 1: hung over his forehead. He had speed and incredible powers.
Speaker 1: It was an homage to the strong men of the era,
Speaker 1: who were famous for feats of strength. Joe Shuster was
Speaker 1: trying to come up with costumes, and he said, these
Speaker 1: county fairs all over the country, and he used to
Speaker 1: have these strong men that would come to town. You know,
Speaker 1: these guys with the handlebar mustaches and they would ben
Speaker 1: steal on their bare hands and break chains, and they
Speaker 1: were these costumes that would be it would be like
Speaker 1: tights with swim trunks over the tights. And hey, Joe
Speaker 1: would go to these county fairs where they have these strongman.
Speaker 1: He would take his art pad and he would illustrate
Speaker 1: or he would draw these strongman. He would get ideas.
Speaker 1: Because Superman ended up with kind of costume with people
Speaker 1: joking he's wearing his underpants on the outside, but really
Speaker 1: that is what the strongman used to have. They have
Speaker 1: these tights and they had these boots, and they had
Speaker 1: the swim trunks over that, and that's what he decided
Speaker 1: to go with. The s on his chest stood for Superman.
Speaker 1: It also could have stood for Seagull and Schuster. It
Speaker 1: was a few years when they were in eleventh grade
Speaker 1: is when they came up with the Superman idea. It
Speaker 1: wasn't a percent like it is today Superman the original
Speaker 1: one and even half a costume originally, and they drew one.
Speaker 1: It was a publisher actually interested because all the all
Speaker 1: the publishers they were communicating with wouldn't publish anything they
Speaker 1: came up with because they were high school kids, you know.
Speaker 1: And there was a publisher who was publishing a comic
Speaker 1: called Detective Dan, which was really like the first real
Speaker 1: comic book, because all the other comics were really comic
Speaker 1: strips and newspapers. They were syndicated. There were no comic
Speaker 1: books originally. So they saw this. I though, this would
Speaker 1: be really cool, this is what they would like to do.
Speaker 1: So they contacted that publisher and he said he was interested.
Speaker 1: But then the company went out of business a few
Speaker 1: weeks later, and they were so frustrated the cover they
Speaker 1: put for Superman, which basically he was as bear chested
Speaker 1: Joe Schuster was so upset that he destroyed everything except
Speaker 1: Jerry Siegel managed to say the cover that Jerry imagined
Speaker 1: Superman could be the next comic strip hit. It was
Speaker 1: clear that Superman was a visual character, one whose physical
Speaker 1: abilities needed to be seen, not just described. But the
Speaker 1: New York comic strip publishers Jerry queried were indifferent. At best.
Speaker 1: Superman was strange, a weird amalgam of sci fi and
Speaker 1: the kind of street level justice dished out by Dick Tracy.
Speaker 1: Superman was virtually invulnerable, but seemed content to punch the
Speaker 1: lights out of common thieves, thieves who might rob innocent shopkeepers.
Speaker 1: Jerry eventually tried his luck with National Allied Publications, which
Speaker 1: had already published a few of Jerry and Joe's stories.
Speaker 1: And just to be clear that publisher later known as
Speaker 1: d C Comics went through several names and was involved
Speaker 1: in acquisitions early on, will spare you the confusion and
Speaker 1: just refer to them as d C. The company was
Speaker 1: gearing up to begin printing a new anthology comic book
Speaker 1: title Action Comics Short and to the point, to grab
Speaker 1: a young reader's attention. They took a look at Jerry
Speaker 1: and Joe's submission and believed Superman would be a good fit.
Speaker 1: No one, of course, could predict what Superman would bring,
Speaker 1: that he would be the beginning of the superhero age.
Speaker 1: And then they kept working on it, and they sent
Speaker 1: it to other publishers, and they came up with the
Speaker 1: Superman costume and so forth, and in many other aspects
Speaker 1: of it, including that he was not from Earth originally
Speaker 1: he was from Earth, and how he came to Crypton
Speaker 1: and added different gravity and that would allow him to
Speaker 1: be able to leap tall buildings with the single bound
Speaker 1: and so forth, because they wanted to make sure they
Speaker 1: could justify how we could do all these things and
Speaker 1: lived how the objects because the weight on earth was different,
Speaker 1: although he couldn't fly in the beginning. But they kept
Speaker 1: getting objections. They graduated high school in nineteen thirty four,
Speaker 1: and they still worked at it, and they kept trying
Speaker 1: and trying and trying, and they never gave up. And
Speaker 1: finally publisher finally agreed to publish it, and that publisher
Speaker 1: later became known as d C Comics. Harry Donnenfeld, who
Speaker 1: headed up DC, offered the two young men the opportunity
Speaker 1: to write and illustrate their first Superman story. Jerry and Joe,
Speaker 1: who had been trying to break into the business of
Speaker 1: telling stories for years, eagerly accepted, and so in April
Speaker 1: of ninety eight, the cover of Action Comics number one
Speaker 1: depicted the debut of Superman and and the birth of
Speaker 1: the American comic book Superhero. A single copy would come
Speaker 1: to be worth millions of dollars. Back then it was
Speaker 1: ten cents. But that big break came with a catch.
Speaker 1: They said, Hey, we're gonna publish it, and not only
Speaker 1: that we're gonna give you a tenure contract, guaranteed money,
Speaker 1: guarantee salary to write and illustrate Superman. Well, this was
Speaker 1: their dream come true. So they were excited to agree
Speaker 1: to that d C. And I'll call it d C
Speaker 1: so as that we know for the audience. They said,
Speaker 1: but we agree to sign you this tenure contract, we
Speaker 1: must own the rights, not you. And they wanted to
Speaker 1: make sure they Superman got published, so they agreed to that,
Speaker 1: and they got a very small conversations for the writing.
Speaker 1: Harry Donnenfeld paid Jerry and Joe a hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: dollars and in return, Jerry and Joe gave Harry everything
Speaker 1: Superman to have and hold forever. The contract said forever.
Speaker 1: How can you even measure the success of a genre
Speaker 1: that didn't yet exist? When Action number one hit news stands,
Speaker 1: there was no such thing as a superhero. Sure, the
Speaker 1: Phantom had worn tights and comic strips, and Doc Savage
Speaker 1: had unbreakable skin, but Superman was something else and readers
Speaker 1: knew it. D C printed two hundred thousand copies of
Speaker 1: Action number one and watched as it sold out. Who
Speaker 1: knows why kids like anything but that cover of Superman
Speaker 1: hefting a car over his head while people run away
Speaker 1: from him was galvanizing. No one had seen anything like it.
Speaker 1: It stood out one because it was colorful too, because
Speaker 1: of what it had on the cover. I mean, people
Speaker 1: knew what comics were, well, they know what comics worrying
Speaker 1: that they had started to show up, and they knew
Speaker 1: what what comic strips were, so they recognized, you know,
Speaker 1: that's what this was. But you have this strange picture
Speaker 1: of this guy in this suit, and the suit was
Speaker 1: like nothing else before, and he's lifting this car and
Speaker 1: kind of smashing it and it's a brand new car.
Speaker 1: That's brad Rica. Brad wrote the definitive dual biography of
Speaker 1: Jerry and Joe. It's called Superboys and it was published. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I teach once, I teach a class in
Speaker 1: comics and we always analyze this cover. You know, what
Speaker 1: is it about this cover that got kids to buy it?
Speaker 1: Because that's the oldest anecdote in Superman lores that you know,
Speaker 1: kids bought this thing and that's why comics and Superman
Speaker 1: took off. And you look at that cover and he
Speaker 1: doesn't even look like a hero, and that he looks
Speaker 1: like the villain because there's somebody's brand new car and
Speaker 1: he's destroying it. And who has a brand new car
Speaker 1: in the depression? And nobody but somebody in class. And
Speaker 1: I tried to remember who said it, so I feel
Speaker 1: bad about it, but I'll always acknowledge that somebody said
Speaker 1: it. It It wasn't me. They said, no, that's not why
Speaker 1: kids bought this book. And if you look at the
Speaker 1: picture of the cover of Action Comics one, if you
Speaker 1: know kind of picture in your head, they're Superman lifting
Speaker 1: the car and there's this guy on the bottom left
Speaker 1: who's with his both his hands he kind of looks
Speaker 1: like the scream and both his hands on his face,
Speaker 1: and he's running kind of out of the cover with
Speaker 1: a scream on his mouth. And somebody said, that's why
Speaker 1: kids bought it, and the rest of the custles like,
Speaker 1: why what are you talking about? They bought it because
Speaker 1: of Supermans. He's super cool. No matter the reason, Action
Speaker 1: Comics was a hit, Superman became a regular feature, eclipsing
Speaker 1: any other character within its pages. In nine he got
Speaker 1: his own title, and he had come from all places Cleveland,
Speaker 1: where Brad was from. When I got older and I realized, well,
Speaker 1: they did come from Cleveland, and they did create Superman here.
Speaker 1: The question that kept nagging at me was, well, how
Speaker 1: they do it? Because to me, that's like the Superman,
Speaker 1: the first superhero, really the first superhero. It's the Philosopher's stone, right,
Speaker 1: you know, how did they figure out to put all
Speaker 1: these different things together and have this magic to create
Speaker 1: somebody who wears his his underwear on the outside and
Speaker 1: that we all still love, you know, almost eighty years later.
Speaker 1: So to me then it became more of a kind
Speaker 1: of a detective story that I really wanted to know
Speaker 1: how they did it. It was Brad who debunked one
Speaker 1: of the great Superman creation myths that Jerry's father had
Speaker 1: been shot during that clothing store robbery. What I found
Speaker 1: is that, in fact, he did obviously die that night,
Speaker 1: but what happened is he had a heart attack. Is
Speaker 1: he was in his clothing store and some men came
Speaker 1: in and they were going to steal a suit, and
Speaker 1: he went to stop them and he dropped over of
Speaker 1: heart failure. And it's hard to say whether he was
Speaker 1: scared or he just you know, didn't know to do.
Speaker 1: We overexerted himself, but that's how he died. And then
Speaker 1: a year later, like almost to the day, is when
Speaker 1: Jerry comes up with the idea for Superman. And I
Speaker 1: started to see once you kind of see that all
Speaker 1: the early comics, there's all these panels where criminals dropped
Speaker 1: dead of a heart attack when they see Superman, and
Speaker 1: Superman goes, well, they're weak and what else could I do?
Speaker 1: And it's also Clark Kent, who's in one hand, Is
Speaker 1: this really meek, mild mannered American journalist who faints when
Speaker 1: there's action nearby turns into Superman? And this made me think,
Speaker 1: this is why Jerry was so invested in it, because
Speaker 1: he put the tragedy of his father's death into this
Speaker 1: character who is not the victim of crime but fights
Speaker 1: crime as this immortal superhero forever in the comics and beyond.
Speaker 1: And it made me see Superman is not just this,
Speaker 1: at least their version, not just this commercial thing, colorful
Speaker 1: thing to sell to kids who would go nuts. But really, this,
Speaker 1: for lack of a better word, but maybe it is
Speaker 1: the word is As the work of art and his
Speaker 1: mythology only grew. A new radio show followed, which introduced
Speaker 1: Jimmy Olsen, as well as Kryptonite, which weakened Superman. A
Speaker 1: series of theatrical cartoons by animation legend Max Fleischer were
Speaker 1: produced and were so exquisite that they don't have equals
Speaker 1: to this day. Superman toys began filling up shelves, model
Speaker 1: kits and statues and decoder rings. Kids were crazy for
Speaker 1: him and the other heroes that followed, Batman, Captain America,
Speaker 1: Wonder Woman, A damn had burst and out came heroes
Speaker 1: with grandiose origin stories and spandex uniforms, but none were
Speaker 1: as visible or as powerful as what Jerry and Joe
Speaker 1: had drunk up. For a few years, the two got
Speaker 1: steady work from d C Comics, so much work that
Speaker 1: the two hired artists to help fulfill the need for
Speaker 1: Superman stories. Superman even got the syndicated newspaper comic strip
Speaker 1: deal Jerry longed for, But when they'd asked for more
Speaker 1: fair compensation, d C editors would remind them that Superman
Speaker 1: belonged to d C and if they were sore about it, well,
Speaker 1: DC could find someone else to write and draw him.
Speaker 1: That scared the two. Superman was theirs, if not legally
Speaker 1: then creatively and emotionally, so they kept working, watching as
Speaker 1: d C counted their money. In alone subsidiary company, Superman Inc.
Speaker 1: Made one point five million dollars. Jerry and Joe didn't
Speaker 1: in my opinion, they knew what they were doing, that
Speaker 1: it wasn't just buying another comics feature. And part of
Speaker 1: this is that Harry Donond felt that lost out a
Speaker 1: contract on the Lone Ranger, and the Lone Ranger was
Speaker 1: hugely popular. Everyone was jealous of the Lone Ranger because
Speaker 1: it all came out of one person that every time,
Speaker 1: you know, you would license the Lone Ranger, but you
Speaker 1: would hear it on the radio, you'd watch the serials,
Speaker 1: you'd read the pulps and the whatever you had to
Speaker 1: pay this guy, just like Disney with Mickey Mouse. And
Speaker 1: I think Donald Felt really liked that because when he
Speaker 1: finally lost his contract, he was bringing Lone Ranger magazines.
Speaker 1: I think he kind of was looking for a character
Speaker 1: that he could do that with. And again that's just
Speaker 1: a theory of my part. But also I think the
Speaker 1: fact that once they got Superman, almost immediately they're turning
Speaker 1: him into what we today would call a trans media empire.
Speaker 1: They're working on the radio show is what transforms the
Speaker 1: audience for that, and then that just explodes. But I
Speaker 1: think so the other side of it, Like you said,
Speaker 1: they work on Superman for ten years, and they make
Speaker 1: a lot of money, and they asked for raises, they
Speaker 1: beg for raises, they get raises. It's a long and
Speaker 1: tumultuous relationship. But they're very well paid, you know. They
Speaker 1: moved to new houses and they're kind of what I
Speaker 1: call Cleveland famous around town and even bigger than that too.
Speaker 1: And then Jerry went off to war. Joe couldn't serve
Speaker 1: because of his poor eyesight, and Superman couldn't either. With
Speaker 1: his powers, it would be easy to imagine him pummeling
Speaker 1: the Axis, but that would minimize the sacrifices being made
Speaker 1: by real heroes. So when Clark Kent tries to enlist,
Speaker 1: he fails an eye exam, his X ray vision means
Speaker 1: he accidentally reads the eye chart in the next room.
Speaker 1: While stationed in Hawaii, Jerry contributed to Stars and Stripes,
Speaker 1: a periodical distributed to soldiers. His writing experience largely kept
Speaker 1: him out of action, though he was away from his
Speaker 1: own family. He had married a woman named Joanne, whom
Speaker 1: Joe had used as the physical model for Lois Lane.
Speaker 1: The war was being unkind to Superman in another kind
Speaker 1: of way, thanks to paper shortages. Paper drives were common,
Speaker 1: with households donating their newspapers, magazines, and comics so they
Speaker 1: could be pulped for the war efforts. There's no telling
Speaker 1: how many thousands, or even millions of comics were destroyed
Speaker 1: this way, for good cause, obviously, but turned into confetti nonetheless,
Speaker 1: and contributing to a scarcity of these comics that are
Speaker 1: so valued today. The war ended one conflict, but when
Speaker 1: Jerry returned home he was still fighting another, the one
Speaker 1: with d C. He and Joe felt they had been
Speaker 1: strung along, placated with work and good salaries while d
Speaker 1: C had profited handsomely from Superman. They suit the company
Speaker 1: for five million dollars, based in part on the introduction
Speaker 1: of Superboy, a juvenile version of the character the two
Speaker 1: had created and DC had published without obtaining the copyright
Speaker 1: to the character. The two ultimately settled for a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, sensing d C had three resources for a
Speaker 1: long legal fight. As a result, Jerry and Joe were
Speaker 1: persona non grata at d C and that infuriated both men,
Speaker 1: but Jerry especially and he tended to act on his emotions,
Speaker 1: which led to another story Brad was able to debunk.
Speaker 1: And there were other stories too. There was one that
Speaker 1: took me forever to track down that he put on
Speaker 1: a Superman cave and was going to jump off a
Speaker 1: building in Midtown because he was so upset with the
Speaker 1: way he had been treated. And I found out that
Speaker 1: that story was wrong, even though you know, there are
Speaker 1: tons of comics professionals to this day who will swear
Speaker 1: to its accuracy. All that was Jerry Siegel. It wasn't
Speaker 1: it with some other guy just doing it for some
Speaker 1: completely other reason. So there's a lot of stories like that.
Speaker 1: And as his wife once called into d C and said,
Speaker 1: we're out of money, we have a daughter, a young daughter,
Speaker 1: Please give him some work. And there's just there's a
Speaker 1: lot of that. I think you said, it's kind of
Speaker 1: extra legal, but kind of going on in the relationship
Speaker 1: between him and DC. And then things got very personal
Speaker 1: when DC sold the television rights to Superman in ninetift
Speaker 1: Jerry and Joe felt slighted now the character. In their view,
Speaker 1: their character was being beamed into millions of household and
Speaker 1: conquering another new medium, and they didn't get a penny
Speaker 1: for it. Having spent the settlement money, Jerry retaliated in
Speaker 1: whatever way he could. He wrote a letter to the
Speaker 1: FBI admonishing the agency to investigate d SE alleging their
Speaker 1: employees had criminal and communist pasts. When the Superman Show
Speaker 1: made it to air, Jerry proclaimed he was going on
Speaker 1: a hunger strike to protest what he said was unfair
Speaker 1: treatment by the company, and they began sending him a
Speaker 1: little bit of money, if only to avoid the negative publicity.
Speaker 1: But hadn't Jerry and Joe sold their rights free and clear,
Speaker 1: and of their own volition. They did, but in their eyes,
Speaker 1: what was legal and what was ethical were worlds apart.
Speaker 1: Without income from d C, both men were struggling, Joe
Speaker 1: more so. His eyesight, which had long been an issue
Speaker 1: for him, kept getting worse. At one point, he took
Speaker 1: on work as an artist for the underground adult illustration scene.
Speaker 1: These were drawings of a lurid nature that appealed to
Speaker 1: fetish enthusiasts, with men and women bound up and whipped.
Speaker 1: In Joe's drawings of these scenarios, the men looked very
Speaker 1: much like Clark Kent, and the women looked remarkably like
Speaker 1: Lois Lane. It was as though Joe was driven to
Speaker 1: depict them as being victimized, perhaps in the way he
Speaker 1: felt they were being tormented by d C, the way
Speaker 1: he and Jerry were being mistreated. Joe, of course left
Speaker 1: the drawings unsigned, and they weren't identified as his until
Speaker 1: decades later. In the late nineteen fifties, Jerry went back
Speaker 1: to Deasey as a writer, invited into the fold by
Speaker 1: new editors to resume being a co author of Superman's adventures.
Speaker 1: He set about writing the best stories he could, but
Speaker 1: the arrangement didn't last long, and by the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: Jerry was once more at odds with the company. He
Speaker 1: pursued another lawsuit to try and reclaim Superman's copyright. Though
Speaker 1: the odds weren't good, and Joe had relinquished the rights
Speaker 1: not once but twice, a court sided with d C.
Speaker 1: If the relationship was fractured, it suffered permanent injury. When
Speaker 1: d C entered into an agreement for a major motion
Speaker 1: picture to be made about the character, Warner Brothers would
Speaker 1: release Superman, the movie, starring Christopher Reeve as the Man
Speaker 1: of Steel In Jerry wrote an open letter in which
Speaker 1: he literally cursed the production. So I rate was he
Speaker 1: at the idea of d C profiting from the character
Speaker 1: while he and Joe struggled to make ends meet. He
Speaker 1: hoped He wrote that the movie quote super bombs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it was that movie because there's stories of he
Speaker 1: passed once on a New York street and it's his
Speaker 1: years before he passed, his wife and him passed. George
Speaker 1: Rey said, Jerry fro and he just couldn't handle it.
Speaker 1: And Joe would stand outside there was like the Superman
Speaker 1: musical on Broadway, and he, you know, would see the
Speaker 1: famous people coming in. He just froze. He just couldn't
Speaker 1: deal with it. But then it was that movie because
Speaker 1: they announced in the magazines there's gonna be this big
Speaker 1: Superman movie. But it was Brando is going to be
Speaker 1: in it, and he was going to be paid this
Speaker 1: obscene amount of money to be jo L. And that's
Speaker 1: what put Jerry over the edge. Merlin Brando was to
Speaker 1: play Superman's father, joor L. With Brando being the most
Speaker 1: respected living actor at the time, he was paid handsomely
Speaker 1: for relatively little work. Almost four million dollars, a number
Speaker 1: that grew when he received part of the box office gross,
Speaker 1: more than Jerry and Joe could ever dream of seeing
Speaker 1: from having created Superman. Money that went to an actor
Speaker 1: who seemed slightly disinterested in the role and suggested to
Speaker 1: director Richard Donner he could play the character as a
Speaker 1: suitcase or a bagel. He'd just do the voice. The
Speaker 1: publicity was not perhaps what d C and Warner wanted,
Speaker 1: so they agreed finally that Jerry and Joe were due
Speaker 1: at least modest compensation beyond their initial one hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty dollar payment and work for higher fees. After three
Speaker 1: decades of fighting, d C began paying them each an
Speaker 1: annual pension of thirty thousand dollars with healthcare. Of course,
Speaker 1: that's something that's good, but it still didn't seem just
Speaker 1: They created one of the most indelible characters in modern culture.
Speaker 1: But there was another concession, one that was probably as
Speaker 1: important to Jerry and Joe. From that point on, whenever
Speaker 1: Superman appeared in print or on screen, a credit would
Speaker 1: appear created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster. If you
Speaker 1: walk around Cleveland today, you'll see pages from Action Comics
Speaker 1: number one, priceless pages stuck on an outdoor fence, and
Speaker 1: in a testament to the respect due Jerry Siegel and
Speaker 1: Joe Schuster, no one tries to pry them off or
Speaker 1: deface them. The pages are oversized and FA similes, not
Speaker 1: the real thing, but they're there in tribute to what
Speaker 1: these two clevelanders really just two teenage boys contributed to
Speaker 1: the world an idealized version of a hero beyond the
Speaker 1: pettiness of human behavior, strong enough to defend the week.
Speaker 1: For Jerry and Joe, Defending them and honoring their memory
Speaker 1: meant creating the Siegell and Schuster Society, a nonprofit devoted
Speaker 1: to keeping their roles as pioneers alive in the eyes
Speaker 1: of the public. Here's Gary Kaplan. In two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: journalists for the Cleveland Playing Dealer, his name was Mike
Speaker 1: san Jacomo wrote a story, it was a full page story,
Speaker 1: asking why doesn't the city of Cleveland celebrate that Superman
Speaker 1: was created in Cleveland? And this sort of brought a
Speaker 1: lot of attention, and so a group of people got together,
Speaker 1: some businessmen, some college professors, and they formed the Seagull
Speaker 1: Schuester Society In two thousand and seven. My uncle was
Speaker 1: on the board at that time. I was not. And
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine, two years later, they renovated
Speaker 1: the home of Jerry Siegel, which was in pretty poor shape.
Speaker 1: He had a typewriter in his attic bedroom where he
Speaker 1: wrote so many of the stories, and so they wanted
Speaker 1: to preserve the home, and with the help of author
Speaker 1: Brad Meltzer, money was raised online and they raised over
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand dollars but a hundred thousand dollars of
Speaker 1: renovations in the home and they had a ribbon counting
Speaker 1: ceremony in two thousand nine. It was a wonderful event.
Speaker 1: In addition to that, Joe Schuster who illustrated it. This
Speaker 1: home was nine blocks away and the home had already
Speaker 1: been torn down years ago, so it was a new
Speaker 1: home put there. But they put up a commemorative events
Speaker 1: with the panels from Action Comics number one going all
Speaker 1: the way around the fence, which is really really cool,
Speaker 1: and so people drive by and they can see all
Speaker 1: these panels of the comic from Action Comics number one.
Speaker 1: And then in two thousand twelve, a Seagull Interstor Society
Speaker 1: worked with Cleveland Hopkins Airport to put in a permanent
Speaker 1: Superman exhibit which contains a datio Superman along with assign
Speaker 1: this as welcome to Cleveland, where the legend began, and
Speaker 1: everyone can see that as they go to the baggage
Speaker 1: department at Cleveland Hopkins Airports. All's our society. In two
Speaker 1: thousand thirteen, we work with the State of Ohio the legislature.
Speaker 1: We put together a license plate with a Superman uh
Speaker 1: S Sabney at the logo with the words truth, Justice
Speaker 1: in American way. So anybody the know how can get
Speaker 1: one of those license plates. And there's at the legal
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand ohiolands have that license plate, including myself.
Speaker 1: So those are some of the things that we have done,
Speaker 1: and we're working at some other things right now too.
Speaker 1: In a way, Jerry's home became a kind of shrine,
Speaker 1: a place of cultural birth. It's also occupied by a
Speaker 1: couple the Grays, who warmly welcome people make a pilgrimage
Speaker 1: to pay their respects to Superman's co creator. It's the
Speaker 1: best looking house on the block. You know you're in
Speaker 1: the right place because there is a big s on
Speaker 1: the wooden fence out front. For years some collectors arrived,
Speaker 1: wondering if the rumors about Jerry leaving stacks of Action
Speaker 1: number ones in the attic were true. After all, no
Speaker 1: one knew they'd become cultural artifacts, prized like Maltese falcons.
Speaker 1: Well where newsstands were typically they would have some comic books.
Speaker 1: It could be a pharmacy, but it could be lots
Speaker 1: of places. Really, it was ten cents to buy a
Speaker 1: Superman comic, and who knew years later it would be
Speaker 1: worth so valuable. Because what happened, people would buy it
Speaker 1: and then the next one would come out so they
Speaker 1: could throughout the old one. They wouldn't save it. No
Speaker 1: one envisioned it would have some value to it. Author
Speaker 1: Brad Meltzer traveled to the family home once along with
Speaker 1: a journalist, and the current owners told him no one
Speaker 1: had been in the attic in decades. He was seized
Speaker 1: by the possibilities. Could there really be a small pile
Speaker 1: of million dollar comics just sitting in this attic? So
Speaker 1: he asked to go up, but there wasn't any easy
Speaker 1: access to it. They promised they'd have their son take
Speaker 1: a look. The Grays later phoned the reporter to state
Speaker 1: that they had gone up and no, there was no
Speaker 1: hidden treasure. Well, I suppose they'd say that regardless, wouldn't they. Well,
Speaker 1: I can guarantee you there are no Superman actually Comics
Speaker 1: number one in the house that the Grays occupy right
Speaker 1: now in Cleveland, that I can tell you there's none
Speaker 1: in there. Jerry himself saved many copies of Action Comics
Speaker 1: Number one, and they had dozens of them. And his
Speaker 1: daughter told me that what happened was well, him and
Speaker 1: Joe both were financially devastated by losing their jobs, and
Speaker 1: for years they had several things out. Joe worked for
Speaker 1: the post office, and it was difficult for them. So
Speaker 1: they ended up selling some of these Action Comic number
Speaker 1: ones for money. So they get a hundred dollars maybe
Speaker 1: for one, which was that's a pretty good return on
Speaker 1: a ten s investment, you know. And then later they
Speaker 1: may maybe they've got a few hundred dollars, you know,
Speaker 1: and eventually they never left. I'm sure they never envisioned
Speaker 1: it would be worth over a million dollars. The same
Speaker 1: comic coveted by collectors and thieves who spend or steal millions,
Speaker 1: once sold off for a few hundred dollars because Jerry
Speaker 1: Siegal needed the money. It's a cutthroat media world out there,
Speaker 1: with massive entities jocking for consumer dollars and comic book
Speaker 1: properties treated like roadmaps to fortunes. Lost among all of
Speaker 1: that maneuvering are the people responsible for creating these characters.
Speaker 1: The Seagull family waged a legal battle for years against Warner,
Speaker 1: arguing the estate was entitled to compensation and partial ownership
Speaker 1: for the cultural pillars Superman had become. That fight seemingly
Speaker 1: ended in with a court ruling that concluded years of
Speaker 1: legal entanglement. Warner brothers would keep Superman in the Seagull
Speaker 1: estate would get a settlement. So did d C steal Superman? No,
Speaker 1: of course, not a deal was made, But what precedent
Speaker 1: did Jerry and Joe have? Who could have anticipated what
Speaker 1: Superman would become? The promise of making a living as
Speaker 1: creators was intoxicating. What reason would either of them have
Speaker 1: to ever lay down at night and imagine a world
Speaker 1: where Superman was earning millions in toys and movies and comics,
Speaker 1: while Joe would later be so downtrodden. He was awakened
Speaker 1: by a cop on a park bench and taken for
Speaker 1: a warm meal. Superman seemed to enrich everyone around him
Speaker 1: except the two men who brought him to life. Not theft,
Speaker 1: but something was taken. Today, living comic writers and artists
Speaker 1: often see there were are co opted for movies or
Speaker 1: streaming shows, but checks rarely make their way to their mailboxes.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you can create something so big and immersive that
Speaker 1: you can't get out from its shadow. Gary wants Jerry
Speaker 1: and Joe to avoid that fate. Joe died in two Jerry.
Speaker 1: The Society raises money and promotes events to make sure
Speaker 1: their memory remains a constant, that every time Superman bursts
Speaker 1: through a wall, that fans will remember. The s can
Speaker 1: stand for Segel and Schuster. And you know, Jerry's father
Speaker 1: died during a botched robbery, and I think he thought
Speaker 1: of his father a lot when he wanted to create somebody,
Speaker 1: have somebody who would defend the defenseless, and he thought
Speaker 1: of his father, I'm sure. And he made a bulletproof too.
Speaker 1: But I think for that reason, with Siegel and Schuster
Speaker 1: left behind, is much more than a comic book. There
Speaker 1: is so much history thin the pages of Action Comics.
Speaker 1: Number one superficially it's an object and one to be
Speaker 1: coveted among the millionaire collectors of the world. But look
Speaker 1: past the panels and you'll see a story about a
Speaker 1: grieving son who coped with the loss of his father
Speaker 1: by giving the world what everyone needs, a hero. What
Speaker 1: you're buying isn't scarcity, but a representation of hope. Well.
Speaker 1: I can't put a price on it. I think the
Speaker 1: market decides the price like anything. But even if it
Speaker 1: was only worth a dollar, I would want it, you know,
Speaker 1: because it's historical and it means a lot to my family,
Speaker 1: and it started the entire superhero genre. This one comic.
Speaker 1: It all started with that, and now we have all
Speaker 1: these superheroes everywhere and they're more popular than ever. And
Speaker 1: during Joe made it happened, and I'm very proud of them.
Speaker 1: The value of the world is, I would say, is huge.
Speaker 1: I mean he's known all over the world. You could
Speaker 1: go to visit cities in Tokyo and Paris and so worth,
Speaker 1: and you see people walking out around with T shirts
Speaker 1: with a Superman s chield on it all over the world.
Speaker 1: Even in Ukraina they were showing people defending Ukraini and
Speaker 1: somewhere wearing Superman T shirts because they thought like Superman
Speaker 1: for that moment trying to defend the defense is just
Speaker 1: like Jerry wanted Superman to defend the defense. So the
Speaker 1: significance is tremendous. Here's brad Rika. Yeah, I've thought about
Speaker 1: this a lot and other people too. It's it's a
Speaker 1: really strange, almost unique kind of American artifact Action One
Speaker 1: because it's like this almost holy relic because it's worth
Speaker 1: so much money, but it's also this holy relic because
Speaker 1: of what's in it, because it's the first appearance of Superman.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's why it's in the Smithsonian, not because
Speaker 1: it's worth millions of dollars. You know, everyone who's ever
Speaker 1: seen an Action comics one, you have this moment where
Speaker 1: it's like this is it, and then people that effect
Speaker 1: really touched one or help it's the same thing. I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh wait, this is just a comic, just paper and staples.
Speaker 1: But it's something more too. It's so strange to think
Speaker 1: of a thief stealing of all things Action one, right,
Speaker 1: because it's the it's the superhero, it's the fight against crime,
Speaker 1: and someone's trying to take that away. The thing with
Speaker 1: Action one it has no physical value, right, but it's
Speaker 1: kind of all that symbolic value. I mean it's valuable
Speaker 1: because it's rare, certainly, but there's a lot of things
Speaker 1: that are rare that aren't worth millions of dollars. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just Superman. It's the first superhero, and you know,
Speaker 1: I think it gets more valuable with time because we
Speaker 1: start to realize how more important that is to our
Speaker 1: history than maybe we first thought. Was that on the
Speaker 1: mind of the thief who took it from Nicholas Cage,
Speaker 1: the they were really stealing someone's idealized version of Superman,
Speaker 1: that they were robbing him of the innocence that the
Speaker 1: character was supposed to be projecting. The thing about Superman, too,
Speaker 1: is it's so it's it's Superman. It's the good guy,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, what do you do if you
Speaker 1: steal it and you're just like looking at it every
Speaker 1: night and Superman's right on the cover, just saying, you know,
Speaker 1: why don't you steam lee? That's the wrong thing to do.
Speaker 1: You can't like Superman and steal action one, No, you
Speaker 1: probably can't. That would probably be the first thing you'd
Speaker 1: want to ask anyone who surfaced with the comic why
Speaker 1: why do it? But after eleven years, it didn't seem
Speaker 1: like that day was ever going to come, that Superman
Speaker 1: would be forever defeated by the Cage Party robber. But
Speaker 1: then one day, Cages comic book dealer Stephen Fishler got
Speaker 1: a call and an invitation to meet the two most
Speaker 1: bizarre our characters of this entire story. The individual who
Speaker 1: walked in behind me holding the Mandola folder is now
Speaker 1: sitting in this office, and the Minola folder is now open,
Speaker 1: and there's the book on like a little aprilic pedestal,
Speaker 1: and we sit down. Yeah, that's an original action one
Speaker 1: that's next time on Stealing Superman. Stealing Superman is written
Speaker 1: by Jake Rawson, sound design and score by Jonathan Washington,
Speaker 1: Additional production support by Josh Fisher. Original music by Aaron Kaufman,
Speaker 1: Mixing and mastering by Baheed Fraser. Research and fact checking
Speaker 1: by Jake Rawson and Austin Thompson, with production support from
Speaker 1: Lulu Philip. Additional voices by Ruthie Stevens and Zarin Burnett.
Speaker 1: Show logo by Lucy Quentinian. Our executive producer is Jason
Speaker 1: English and I'm your host Danish worts. If you're enjoying
Speaker 1: this show, check out Haileywood and Noble Blood and give
Speaker 1: us a nice review. We'll see you next week. Stealing
Speaker 1: Superman is a production of I Heart Radio.