Origins Golden Age comic books, 1934–1955
Superman
Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster · Action Comics #1, DC, 1938
The last son of a dying planet is sent to Earth as a baby, grows up in Kansas and becomes the strongest man alive. Two teenagers from Cleveland dreamed him up and sold the rights for $130, which remains the worst deal in publishing history by a margin of several billion dollars.
Read the early stories and you'll meet a different Superman: a hard-edged social crusader who takes on wife-beaters, slum landlords and crooked politicians, and who can leap an eighth of a mile but can't yet fly. The superhero began as science fiction with a conscience.
