WEBVTT - Stealing Superman: Episode Six — Another Planet 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:09.160 Cleveland, Ohio, nineteen thirty two. The Great Depression is in 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:13.200 full swing, and it's not exactly a barrel of laughs. 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:18.680 Economic hardship is everywhere, and people are growing desperate, desperate 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:22.840 enough to do anything for even a few dollars. Tucked 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:27.400 into Cleveland Business District is a secondhand clothing shop. It's 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:31.560 run by a man named Mitchell Segull. He's a Lithuanian 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:37.840 Jewish immigrant born Mikhail Segalovitch. The shop does a fair business. 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:41.280 He's able to provide for his family, his wife, his 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:47.559 son Jerry, Jerry, siblings five in all. Mitchell's shop has suits, shirts, 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:52.920 shoes previously worn, but in this economic climate, affording any 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:56.440 kind of clothing at all is a luxury. Anyone walking 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:59.800 through the door is greeted warmly. The two men coming 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:02.720 in to his shop now, just before he starts closing up, 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:11.120 he welcomes, how can I help you, gentlemen? They don't answer. Ah, 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:14.080 that's a very nice, very shop. Would you like to 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:18.280 try it on? The men pull suits from the racks, 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:22.560 stretching out the sleeves admiring them. Mitchell has a good 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:26.440 selection of sizes and colors. Maybe this man wants to 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:29.160 look good for a job interview. Maybe he's going to 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:35.399 be married, or maybe he has something else in mind. Rabbi, stop, 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:44.040 it's a robber. One man has grabbed a suit and 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:47.440 is headed for the door. Mitchell begins to move towards them, 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:51.120 shouting there's two of them and only one of him. 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:53.920 They pry the suit from his grasp, a suit that 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:57.320 won't be easily replaced, that could earn him money he 0:01:57.440 --> 0:02:02.120 won't have. The struggle is half a name literally and metaphorically, 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:05.880 all across the country. But even though Mitchell is one 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:15.560 of many here, he's all alone. Please no, no. The 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:19.080 men flee the store, leaving Mitchell on the floor. He 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:22.399 can't catch his breath and his chest is heavy. Does 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:25.880 he think he's been shot? Soon his wife will learn 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:28.960 she's a widow, and his children will be told they 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:36.560 no longer have a father. For the next six years. Really, 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:40.040 for the rest of his life, his teenage son Jerry 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:43.959 will wish someone had been there to protect Mitchell, to 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:47.320 save him, someone who could shake the thieves out of 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:50.440 their car as they ran away in terror, protecting an 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:52.920 innocent man who only wanted to go to work to 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:58.600 provide for his family. Someone invulnerable. Our story starts with 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:02.840 a robbery, a coppy of Superman's first appearance being taken 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:07.680 from the home of Nicholas Cage. But Superman's story starts 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:12.000 here with another robbery, and in the eyes of Jerry Siegel, 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:16.320 it won't be the last. Superman was taken from him 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:21.640 over and over again, stolen a thousand times before a 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:32.120 thief ever set foot on Cages property. For I Heart Radio, 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:36.440 this is Stealing Superman. I'm your host, Dani Schwartz, and 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:48.840 this is episode six Another Planet In three. One year 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:52.560 after his father died, Jerry Siegel walked down from his 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:56.160 second floor shared bedroom at a hundred and six two 0:03:56.280 --> 0:04:00.680 Kimberly Avenue in Cleveland, headed to Glenville High When he 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:03.240 was finished for the day, he'd head back home and 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:07.600 immerse himself in science fiction in the Pulpse. Those were 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:12.440 the digest sized fiction collections with titles like Amazing Stories 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:16.920 and Private Detective that let the imaginations of their authors 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:21.920 run wild. The full color covers held big promises, rockets 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:28.159 to outer space, malevolent aliens, mad scientists. Jerry loved them. 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:31.359 He breathed in the cheap brown paper and used it 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:35.440 as kindling for his own imagination. Jerry wanted to be 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:38.920 a writer, a sci fi writer, just like the ones 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:42.240 he had admired in the Pulps. Everyone knew it too, 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:44.719 I know my mom told me the story word. She 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:47.720 was about seven or eight at that time, and she'd 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:49.919 come over with her siblings. She had a four other siblings, 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:51.960 and they come over the house and they knock on 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:54.839 the door, and Jerry would be in his bedroom. He 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:56.440 had this kind of like an attic bedroom where he 0:04:56.480 --> 0:04:58.520 kept this typewriter and he wrote all kinds of stories, 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:01.000 even as a young team. And he'd look out the 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:03.120 window and he see them coming up of the driveway 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:06.159 and then he would go around to the door and 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:08.039 they say opened the door, and he would say, wait, 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:10.120 I'm gonna use my X ray vision to tell you 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:13.480 what you're wearing. And he would say, Irv, you're wearing 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:16.279 a white shirt, and Ruth, you're wearing a blue dress. 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:18.120 And of course he knew this because he looked out 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:21.480 the window, but he wanted to pretending he had X 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:23.960 ray vision, and they didn't know what X revision even was. 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:26.520 So he had all these ideas. And this was even 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:29.799 before Superman. You know, he was coming with these different ideas. 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:36.200 That's Gary Kaplan. Gary is a cousin of Jerry's and 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:39.600 knows a lot about the family history, which means he 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:43.880 knows quite a bit about our shared cultural history. Well, 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:47.000 I remember in the beginning, I didn't even know that 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:50.000 men was graded by a family member. When I was 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:52.479 really young, I was I remember I was watching The 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:55.880 Adventures a Superman on TV with George Reeves. My mom 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:57.599 walked in the room. She says, you know, that's your cousin, 0:05:57.839 --> 0:05:59.120 And at first I didn't know what she was talking 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:02.560 about because I knew Superman wasn't real. She's no, she says, 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:05.800 she's my cousin. Jerry. He created Superman with his friend Joe, 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:10.000 and I was like shocked. In life, there are different 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:15.360 kinds of fortune, good and bad circumstances. Losing his father 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:19.760 was a tragedy, but not long before, Jerry Siegal had 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:23.320 met someone who would change his life, a classmate named 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:28.159 Joe Schuster. The Joe Gary mentioned they had actually lived 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:31.920 near each other for a few years, but didn't know it. Yes, 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:36.320 Jerry lived in the Glenville neighborhood of Cleveland and Joe 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:38.680 lived in the Kinsman area of Cleveland, and they didn't 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:41.159 know each other. The neighbors are not too far apart, 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:45.480 but there were different neighborhoods. And Joe went to Alexander 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:48.560 Hamilton Junior High and they had a newspaper there, the 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:52.760 Junior High, and my uncle was editor of that paper 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:55.760 as a ninth grader, and Joe was an illustrator and 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:58.160 he did comics for that paper. And this was an 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:02.559 early nineteen thirties. Jerry and Joe met through another cousin 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:06.080 of Jerry's who knew Joe's family had moved to Cleveland 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:09.640 from Toronto a few years earlier, and believed that the 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:12.280 two boys would get together like a house on fire. 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:18.120 That's because Joe was also a science fiction fanatic, but 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:21.559 he didn't want to write for the Pulps exactly. Joe 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:26.560 was a born artist, an illustrator, self taught mostly from 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:30.640 tracing other art. Someone who might feel more comfortable drawing 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:34.360 the covers that enticed people from the drug store shelves 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:37.400 or the introductory drawings that set the stage for the 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:42.280 story to follow. Joe would draw on anything, even wallpaper 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:44.800 someone had thrown away. They had the same type of 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:47.760 personalities and they related off. They both loved science fiction, 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:51.040 and those days, science fiction was relatively small compared to today, 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:53.360 so it was something that only a few people were 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:57.360 interested in. And they read the pol magazines like Amazing Stories, 0:07:57.440 --> 0:07:59.640 and they love that kind of stuff, and they wanted 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:03.040 to do something similar to that, but something really really 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:05.680 different and new, and they kept coming up with ideas, 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:09.640 and your Wood write and Joe would illustrate. It's hard 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:13.840 to explain how serendipitous this meeting was. Jerry and Joe 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:18.240 were even alphabetized in class close together. The universe seemed 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:22.520 to want to make certain they would meet their skills 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:25.920 complemented each other perfectly for what was at the time 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:32.200 a virtually unknown medium, the comic book. In the nineteen thirties, 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:37.680 comics usually referred to comics strips, the sequential art published 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:42.520 in newspapers that offered tiny snippets of illustrated humor and adventure. 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:48.120 Some publishers collected the strips into periodicals, and that over 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:53.240 time gave way to creating original, long form illustrated stories, 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:58.319 Beginning with ninety five New Fund number one, which is 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:01.880 believed to be the first all new collection of comic 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:05.800 book stories. Along with Jazz, it would be one of 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:09.800 the rare homegrown mediums of art in the United States. 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:14.520 But Jerry and Joe weren't thinking of birthing a new medium. 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:19.280 They were high school kids having fun collaborating. Jerry conjured 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:23.400 up sci fi tales and Joe visualized them. One of 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:27.240 their stories was titled Reign of the Superman, which they 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:31.160 published in their own pulp magazine they named Science Fiction. 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:35.760 It was about a maniacal scientist trying to craft an 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:40.800 unstoppable monster with powers of telepathy, super eyesight, and hearing 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:44.720 via a special serum. But this superman was a crook, 0:09:44.880 --> 0:09:48.840 a villain. All he wants is money and power. You 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:51.920 can see the wheels turning how Jerry and Joe were 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:56.640 moving towards something new and different, something pop culture didn't 0:09:56.679 --> 0:10:02.680 even have a word for yet. As they moved through 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:05.760 high school, Jerry and Joe absorbed what was happening in 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:09.319 the world around them. One of the biggest local heroes 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:13.239 in town was Benny Friedman, a football player for Glenville 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:17.240 High the quarterback, he was solidly built and had a 0:10:17.320 --> 0:10:21.120 spit curl falling down over his forehead. He wore form 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:25.320 fitting tights and in the Olympics all anyone could talk 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:28.880 about was Jesse Owens, a Cleveland native who was believed 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:32.600 to be the fastest man alive, like he had superpowers. 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:37.559 There's a synthesis here, a translucent glimpse into the creative 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:41.080 minds of Jerry and Joe. They were being inundated with 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:45.319 information about people with physical abilities far beyond the norm 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:48.000 at a time the world was in desperate need of 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:51.720 a figure of hope, a figure that began to emerge 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:56.800 from a symphony of fiction. They had both consumed with 0:10:56.960 --> 0:10:59.920 darkof breathing out, connected the right for death, and refugating alive. 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:08.280 They decided their superpowered antagonist worked better as a protagonist. 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:12.760 His origin was the stuff of science fiction. Born on 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:15.920 a planet called Krypton that was about to end and 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:19.400 sent off to Earth to be raised by mortals. A 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:24.520 skin tight costume broadcast his other worldliness. A small curl 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:29.000 hung over his forehead. He had speed and incredible powers. 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:32.120 It was an homage to the strong men of the era, 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:39.640 who were famous for feats of strength. Joe Shuster was 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:41.520 trying to come up with costumes, and he said, these 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:43.719 county fairs all over the country, and he used to 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:46.440 have these strong men that would come to town. You know, 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:49.719 these guys with the handlebar mustaches and they would ben 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:52.920 steal on their bare hands and break chains, and they 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:55.080 were these costumes that would be it would be like 0:11:55.120 --> 0:12:00.760 tights with swim trunks over the tights. And hey, Joe 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:03.000 would go to these county fairs where they have these strongman. 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:05.679 He would take his art pad and he would illustrate 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:08.680 or he would draw these strongman. He would get ideas. 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:12.520 Because Superman ended up with kind of costume with people 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:15.079 joking he's wearing his underpants on the outside, but really 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:17.079 that is what the strongman used to have. They have 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:19.800 these tights and they had these boots, and they had 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:21.880 the swim trunks over that, and that's what he decided 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:25.640 to go with. The s on his chest stood for Superman. 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:31.520 It also could have stood for Seagull and Schuster. It 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:33.720 was a few years when they were in eleventh grade 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:36.839 is when they came up with the Superman idea. It 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:40.600 wasn't a percent like it is today Superman the original 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:43.959 one and even half a costume originally, and they drew one. 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:45.880 It was a publisher actually interested because all the all 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:49.080 the publishers they were communicating with wouldn't publish anything they 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:50.760 came up with because they were high school kids, you know. 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:54.160 And there was a publisher who was publishing a comic 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:56.880 called Detective Dan, which was really like the first real 0:12:56.960 --> 0:12:59.120 comic book, because all the other comics were really comic 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:02.199 strips and newspapers. They were syndicated. There were no comic 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:04.840 books originally. So they saw this. I though, this would 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:06.440 be really cool, this is what they would like to do. 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:09.360 So they contacted that publisher and he said he was interested. 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:11.319 But then the company went out of business a few 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:13.600 weeks later, and they were so frustrated the cover they 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.520 put for Superman, which basically he was as bear chested 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:19.760 Joe Schuster was so upset that he destroyed everything except 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:24.640 Jerry Siegel managed to say the cover that Jerry imagined 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:28.040 Superman could be the next comic strip hit. It was 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:32.000 clear that Superman was a visual character, one whose physical 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:36.000 abilities needed to be seen, not just described. But the 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:40.600 New York comic strip publishers Jerry queried were indifferent. At best. 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:45.160 Superman was strange, a weird amalgam of sci fi and 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:49.720 the kind of street level justice dished out by Dick Tracy. 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:54.679 Superman was virtually invulnerable, but seemed content to punch the 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:59.719 lights out of common thieves, thieves who might rob innocent shopkeepers. 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:05.400 Jerry eventually tried his luck with National Allied Publications, which 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:08.280 had already published a few of Jerry and Joe's stories. 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:12.400 And just to be clear that publisher later known as 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:16.720 d C Comics went through several names and was involved 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:20.800 in acquisitions early on, will spare you the confusion and 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:24.880 just refer to them as d C. The company was 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:28.280 gearing up to begin printing a new anthology comic book 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:32.760 title Action Comics Short and to the point, to grab 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:36.120 a young reader's attention. They took a look at Jerry 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:40.040 and Joe's submission and believed Superman would be a good fit. 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:45.360 No one, of course, could predict what Superman would bring, 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:49.520 that he would be the beginning of the superhero age. 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:53.560 And then they kept working on it, and they sent 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:55.320 it to other publishers, and they came up with the 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:58.360 Superman costume and so forth, and in many other aspects 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:01.120 of it, including that he was not from Earth originally 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:03.280 he was from Earth, and how he came to Crypton 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:06.880 and added different gravity and that would allow him to 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:09.120 be able to leap tall buildings with the single bound 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:11.080 and so forth, because they wanted to make sure they 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:13.760 could justify how we could do all these things and 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:16.160 lived how the objects because the weight on earth was different, 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:18.160 although he couldn't fly in the beginning. But they kept 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:21.760 getting objections. They graduated high school in nineteen thirty four, 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:24.840 and they still worked at it, and they kept trying 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:27.880 and trying and trying, and they never gave up. And 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:33.280 finally publisher finally agreed to publish it, and that publisher 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:36.880 later became known as d C Comics. Harry Donnenfeld, who 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:40.240 headed up DC, offered the two young men the opportunity 0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:46.120 to write and illustrate their first Superman story. Jerry and Joe, 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:48.320 who had been trying to break into the business of 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:53.560 telling stories for years, eagerly accepted, and so in April 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:57.680 of ninety eight, the cover of Action Comics number one 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:01.520 depicted the debut of Superman and and the birth of 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:05.960 the American comic book Superhero. A single copy would come 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:09.840 to be worth millions of dollars. Back then it was 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:14.280 ten cents. But that big break came with a catch. 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:17.320 They said, Hey, we're gonna publish it, and not only 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:21.120 that we're gonna give you a tenure contract, guaranteed money, 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:24.680 guarantee salary to write and illustrate Superman. Well, this was 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:27.560 their dream come true. So they were excited to agree 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:29.560 to that d C. And I'll call it d C 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:31.560 so as that we know for the audience. They said, 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:34.720 but we agree to sign you this tenure contract, we 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:38.120 must own the rights, not you. And they wanted to 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:40.360 make sure they Superman got published, so they agreed to that, 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:43.080 and they got a very small conversations for the writing. 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:49.080 Harry Donnenfeld paid Jerry and Joe a hundred and thirty 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:54.119 dollars and in return, Jerry and Joe gave Harry everything 0:16:54.840 --> 0:17:02.840 Superman to have and hold forever. The contract said forever. 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:10.760 How can you even measure the success of a genre 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:15.040 that didn't yet exist? When Action number one hit news stands, 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:18.720 there was no such thing as a superhero. Sure, the 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:22.680 Phantom had worn tights and comic strips, and Doc Savage 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:28.200 had unbreakable skin, but Superman was something else and readers 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:32.000 knew it. D C printed two hundred thousand copies of 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:36.760 Action number one and watched as it sold out. Who 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:40.800 knows why kids like anything but that cover of Superman 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:43.879 hefting a car over his head while people run away 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:48.840 from him was galvanizing. No one had seen anything like it. 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:53.680 It stood out one because it was colorful too, because 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:57.440 of what it had on the cover. I mean, people 0:17:57.480 --> 0:18:00.520 knew what comics were, well, they know what comics worrying 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:02.800 that they had started to show up, and they knew 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:05.399 what what comic strips were, so they recognized, you know, 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:09.000 that's what this was. But you have this strange picture 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:11.679 of this guy in this suit, and the suit was 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:15.679 like nothing else before, and he's lifting this car and 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:18.240 kind of smashing it and it's a brand new car. 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:23.080 That's brad Rica. Brad wrote the definitive dual biography of 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:28.640 Jerry and Joe. It's called Superboys and it was published. So, 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:30.960 you know, I teach once, I teach a class in 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:33.480 comics and we always analyze this cover. You know, what 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:36.600 is it about this cover that got kids to buy it? 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:40.119 Because that's the oldest anecdote in Superman lores that you know, 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:44.320 kids bought this thing and that's why comics and Superman 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:46.679 took off. And you look at that cover and he 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:49.520 doesn't even look like a hero, and that he looks 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:53.040 like the villain because there's somebody's brand new car and 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:55.840 he's destroying it. And who has a brand new car 0:18:55.960 --> 0:19:00.159 in the depression? And nobody but somebody in class. And 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:02.720 I tried to remember who said it, so I feel 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:05.560 bad about it, but I'll always acknowledge that somebody said 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:08.120 it. It It wasn't me. They said, no, that's not why 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:10.879 kids bought this book. And if you look at the 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:13.360 picture of the cover of Action Comics one, if you 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:16.040 know kind of picture in your head, they're Superman lifting 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:20.199 the car and there's this guy on the bottom left 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:23.000 who's with his both his hands he kind of looks 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:25.399 like the scream and both his hands on his face, 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:29.000 and he's running kind of out of the cover with 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:32.480 a scream on his mouth. And somebody said, that's why 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:34.960 kids bought it, and the rest of the custles like, 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:36.440 why what are you talking about? They bought it because 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:39.960 of Supermans. He's super cool. No matter the reason, Action 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:45.040 Comics was a hit, Superman became a regular feature, eclipsing 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:49.280 any other character within its pages. In nine he got 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:53.680 his own title, and he had come from all places Cleveland, 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:58.720 where Brad was from. When I got older and I realized, well, 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:02.280 they did come from Cleveland, and they did create Superman here. 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:05.760 The question that kept nagging at me was, well, how 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:09.960 they do it? Because to me, that's like the Superman, 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:16.360 the first superhero, really the first superhero. It's the Philosopher's stone, right, 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:19.080 you know, how did they figure out to put all 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:22.640 these different things together and have this magic to create 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:25.800 somebody who wears his his underwear on the outside and 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:28.840 that we all still love, you know, almost eighty years later. 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:31.760 So to me then it became more of a kind 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:34.640 of a detective story that I really wanted to know 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:38.040 how they did it. It was Brad who debunked one 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:41.679 of the great Superman creation myths that Jerry's father had 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:46.400 been shot during that clothing store robbery. What I found 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:50.120 is that, in fact, he did obviously die that night, 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:52.320 but what happened is he had a heart attack. Is 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:55.600 he was in his clothing store and some men came 0:20:55.600 --> 0:20:57.639 in and they were going to steal a suit, and 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:01.240 he went to stop them and he dropped over of 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:03.960 heart failure. And it's hard to say whether he was 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:06.560 scared or he just you know, didn't know to do. 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:09.680 We overexerted himself, but that's how he died. And then 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:13.160 a year later, like almost to the day, is when 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:16.800 Jerry comes up with the idea for Superman. And I 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:20.080 started to see once you kind of see that all 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:24.199 the early comics, there's all these panels where criminals dropped 0:21:24.200 --> 0:21:27.000 dead of a heart attack when they see Superman, and 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:30.240 Superman goes, well, they're weak and what else could I do? 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:33.760 And it's also Clark Kent, who's in one hand, Is 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:38.720 this really meek, mild mannered American journalist who faints when 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:42.920 there's action nearby turns into Superman? And this made me think, 0:21:43.040 --> 0:21:45.520 this is why Jerry was so invested in it, because 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:48.640 he put the tragedy of his father's death into this 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:51.919 character who is not the victim of crime but fights 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:57.040 crime as this immortal superhero forever in the comics and beyond. 0:21:57.119 --> 0:21:59.720 And it made me see Superman is not just this, 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:04.520 at least their version, not just this commercial thing, colorful 0:22:04.600 --> 0:22:08.400 thing to sell to kids who would go nuts. But really, this, 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:10.919 for lack of a better word, but maybe it is 0:22:10.920 --> 0:22:13.119 the word is As the work of art and his 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:17.640 mythology only grew. A new radio show followed, which introduced 0:22:17.760 --> 0:22:22.119 Jimmy Olsen, as well as Kryptonite, which weakened Superman. A 0:22:22.200 --> 0:22:26.680 series of theatrical cartoons by animation legend Max Fleischer were 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:29.960 produced and were so exquisite that they don't have equals 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:34.280 to this day. Superman toys began filling up shelves, model 0:22:34.359 --> 0:22:38.000 kits and statues and decoder rings. Kids were crazy for 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:42.280 him and the other heroes that followed, Batman, Captain America, 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:46.520 Wonder Woman, A damn had burst and out came heroes 0:22:46.560 --> 0:22:51.360 with grandiose origin stories and spandex uniforms, but none were 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:55.280 as visible or as powerful as what Jerry and Joe 0:22:55.400 --> 0:22:58.920 had drunk up. For a few years, the two got 0:22:59.000 --> 0:23:02.679 steady work from d C Comics, so much work that 0:23:02.800 --> 0:23:05.639 the two hired artists to help fulfill the need for 0:23:05.800 --> 0:23:10.920 Superman stories. Superman even got the syndicated newspaper comic strip 0:23:11.000 --> 0:23:14.640 deal Jerry longed for, But when they'd asked for more 0:23:14.720 --> 0:23:19.399 fair compensation, d C editors would remind them that Superman 0:23:19.640 --> 0:23:23.480 belonged to d C and if they were sore about it, well, 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:27.440 DC could find someone else to write and draw him. 0:23:27.520 --> 0:23:32.000 That scared the two. Superman was theirs, if not legally 0:23:32.080 --> 0:23:37.160 then creatively and emotionally, so they kept working, watching as 0:23:37.280 --> 0:23:43.840 d C counted their money. In alone subsidiary company, Superman Inc. 0:23:44.200 --> 0:23:49.360 Made one point five million dollars. Jerry and Joe didn't 0:23:50.600 --> 0:23:54.840 in my opinion, they knew what they were doing, that 0:23:55.000 --> 0:23:58.119 it wasn't just buying another comics feature. And part of 0:23:58.119 --> 0:24:00.880 this is that Harry Donond felt that lost out a 0:24:00.960 --> 0:24:04.639 contract on the Lone Ranger, and the Lone Ranger was 0:24:04.880 --> 0:24:08.400 hugely popular. Everyone was jealous of the Lone Ranger because 0:24:08.440 --> 0:24:11.760 it all came out of one person that every time, 0:24:11.840 --> 0:24:13.840 you know, you would license the Lone Ranger, but you 0:24:13.880 --> 0:24:16.160 would hear it on the radio, you'd watch the serials, 0:24:16.160 --> 0:24:18.879 you'd read the pulps and the whatever you had to 0:24:18.920 --> 0:24:22.080 pay this guy, just like Disney with Mickey Mouse. And 0:24:22.119 --> 0:24:24.760 I think Donald Felt really liked that because when he 0:24:25.040 --> 0:24:29.040 finally lost his contract, he was bringing Lone Ranger magazines. 0:24:29.119 --> 0:24:31.520 I think he kind of was looking for a character 0:24:31.600 --> 0:24:33.560 that he could do that with. And again that's just 0:24:33.680 --> 0:24:36.240 a theory of my part. But also I think the 0:24:36.280 --> 0:24:40.520 fact that once they got Superman, almost immediately they're turning 0:24:40.600 --> 0:24:45.320 him into what we today would call a trans media empire. 0:24:45.400 --> 0:24:48.800 They're working on the radio show is what transforms the 0:24:49.080 --> 0:24:52.679 audience for that, and then that just explodes. But I 0:24:52.720 --> 0:24:54.800 think so the other side of it, Like you said, 0:24:54.800 --> 0:24:57.119 they work on Superman for ten years, and they make 0:24:57.160 --> 0:24:59.439 a lot of money, and they asked for raises, they 0:24:59.480 --> 0:25:02.399 beg for raises, they get raises. It's a long and 0:25:02.480 --> 0:25:05.960 tumultuous relationship. But they're very well paid, you know. They 0:25:05.960 --> 0:25:08.359