S UPERMAN

THE GOLDEN AGE SUNDAYS

1943 TO 1946

idwpublishing.com $49.99 libraryofamericancomics.com CREATED BY AND IDW PUBLISHING San Diego SUPERMAN: THE GOLDEN AGE SUNDAYS 1943–1946 By special arrangement with the Jerry Siegel family

SCRIPTS BY JERRY SIEGEL AND DC COMICS

ARTWORK BY WAYNE BORING AND JACK BURNLEY • LETTERING BY IRA SCHNAPP

[Although no records have been uncovered that specify which stories were written by Siegel, a reading of the text reveal hallmarks of his style in all stories except the “Superman’s Service to Servicemen” sequence, which corresponds to his induction into the army on July 4, 1943.]

THE LIBRARY OF AMERICAN COMICS EDITED AND DESIGNED BY Dean Mullaney • ART DIRECTOR Lorraine Turner ASSOCIATE EDITOR Bruce Canwell • INTRODUCTION Mark Waid COVERS Pete Poplaski • MARKETING DIRECTOR Beau Smith

STRIP RESTORATION BY Lorraine Turner and Dean Mullaney

IDW Publishing, a Division of Idea and Design Works, LLC 5080 Santa Fe Street, San Diego, CA 92109 www.idwpublishing.com • LibraryofAmericanComics.com

Ted Adams, Chief Executive Officer/Publisher • Greg Goldstein, Chief Operating Officer/President Robbie Robbins, EVP/Sr. Graphic Artist • Chris Ryall, Chief Creative Officer/Editor-in-Chief Matthew Ruzicka, CPA, Chief Financial Officer • Alan Payne, VP of Sales Dirk Wood, VP of Marketing • Lorelei Bunjes, VP of Digital Services

ISBN: 978-1-61377-797-8 • First Printing, December 2013 Distributed by Diamond Book Distributors 1-410-560-7100

Special thanks to Mark Waid, Joe Linder, Joe Desris, Sid Friedfertig, John Wells, Mike Tiefenbacher, Greg Goldstein, Jared Bond, Scott Dunbier, Justin Eisinger, and Alonzo Simon.

Artwork on page one by Jack Burnley from the cover to Superman #24, September-October 1943.

LibraryofAmericanComics.com

Superman ™ and © 2013 DC Comics. All rights reserved. The Library of American Comics is a trademark of The Library of American C omics LLC. All rights reserved. With the exception of artwork used for review purposes, none of the comic strips in this publication may be reprinted without the permission of DC Comics. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information and retrieval system, without permission in writing from DC Comics. Printed in Korea.

The strips reprinted in this volume were produced in a time when racial and social caricatures played a larger role in society and popular culture. They are reprinted without alteration for historical reference. An Introduction by MARK WAID

By 1938, Superman was dead. debut on the front page of their Saturday edition. “Dead,” that is, by the standards of the various syndicates By the time America entered the Second World War, that supplied comics strips to the hundreds of newspapers across Superman was featured in nearly two hundred fifty papers the U.S.A. These syndicates functioned as intermediaries (and, nationwide, with a combined circulation of twenty-five million thus, gatekeepers) between “funny pages” editors hungry for readers. Along the way, his powers—and the evils he faced— content and up-and-coming cartoonists ravenous for the fame had continued to evolve as Siegel, Shuster, and their assistants and fortune a successful newspaper strip could bring them. churned out as many adventures as they humanly could to feed Harold Gray’s Little Orphan Annie, Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy, the readership’s voracious demand for more. Initially, Superman Milton Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates, and Al Capp’s Li’l Abner could run faster than an express train, leap a twenty-story were just some of the daily features that were turning their building, and lift automobiles. By the war years, he was flying creators into men of wealth and celebrity. across continents in less time than it takes to tell, shrugging off Naturally, the competition among would-be syndicated grenade blasts and artillery fire, and in general doing anything cartoonists was fierce, but that hadn’t deterred two Cleveland his creators could imagine… teenagers from pitching samples of their creation to every …except enter the European Theater. syndicate in the game. Time and again, however, they were Once you link the ideas “Superman” and “World War Two,” rejected. No syndicate was willing to take a chance on Jerry Siegel you quickly see the problem. If the mightiest hero in comics and Joe Shuster’s Superman. It was, to the gatekeepers’ eyes, too applies his vast super-powers to ending all hostilities, which he wild, too crude, too implausible. A costumed, caped crimefighter could do in a day, the world of his fantastic exploits ceases to from another planet with powers and abilities far beyond ours? resemble the real world of his readers. But if he sits the war out, Outrageous. Who would buy that? what kind of man—what kind of Superman, what kind of Eventually, of course, Siegel and Shuster’s “Superman” samples American—is he? did see print, albeit in an altered and more obscure form than His editors and writers approached this in the obvious originally envisioned. Pulp magazine publishers were, at the time, manner: they had it both ways. Superman would do anything experimenting by reprinting licensed collections of newspaper for the armed services––short of joining up. And he always stayed strips into 64-page “comic books” for newsstand sale, often out of the actual fighting––except when he didn’t. peppering these collections with new material as licenses became In the stories, the Man of Steel’s failure to enlist was explained scarce. , an enterprising editor for the company known away by a comical mishap involving x- (shown in strips today as DC Comics, talked Siegel and Shuster into selling the 259 and 260 herein). But an earlier strip (212) put into Superman’s rights to this moribund property, and the boys happily took the dialog a more authentic, more genuinely moving explanation than offer. It’s likely no one was more surprised than them when their has been proffered anywhere else: “Superman” samples, reformatted to become the first few pages of 1938’s #1, sparked a pop-culture revolution “How can you beat soldiers with that sort of practically overnight. Within a few short months, Superman spirit—the spirit that makes Americans fight proved to be a publishing bonanza. against any sort of odds! For me to interfere The gatekeepers re-evaluated. The McClure Syndicate, which would be—well, presumptuous!” had turned Superman down more than once, quickly offered DC a contract for a Superman daily strip and had it in newspapers by Underscoring this touching sense of “a hero apart,” January of 1939. Impressed by its surging popularity, McClure Superman comic books rarely addressed the war directly. Instead added a color Sunday page on November 5, which was so heavily they supplied steady escapist entertainment to servicemen and anticipated that The Washington Post announced its imminent women overseas, to whom copies were bulk-shipped. The covers

PAGE 5 were another matter. They became reliable monthly propaganda where things get ugly, and not at all like the latter-day posters in which Superman rode missiles to their targets, punched Metropolis Marvel. German tanks, physically dominated Hitler and Tojo, and waved In a storyline beginning April 23, 1944, a Japanese army the American flag. commander invites Superman to a Pacific island to provide The newspaper strips spoke more directly to the home entertainment for his weary troops. Pretending to honor the front––to friends and loved ones who worried and prayed but request, the Man of Steel cheerfully sets them up for a lethal were powerless to protect the young soldiers plucked from their ambush by allied forces. But that’s not the ugly part; this is lives. Perhaps sensing an appetite for wish fulfillment, the war, after all. creators of this era’s Sunday strips (believed written by Siegel This is where we should warn readers of Asian descent and DC editor Whitney Ellsworth, drawn by former Shuster and/or nervous dispositions and/or a speck of human decency apprentice Wayne Boring) began in the summer of 1943 a series that these were different times, a period of American history called “Superman’s Service for Servicemen.” where patriotism and outright racism were too often, too easily Ostensibly inspired by a real-life sergeant who wished conflated in popular culture. Most entertainment of the day Superman could whisk him to his distant home and back on trafficked heavily in mocking America’s enemies—particularly his meager one-day leave, the strip’s editors staked out a simple the Japanese—and the funny pages was no exception. That such format. Real servicemen would send their real wishes to the real treatment makes an enemy seem less human and therefore easier newspaper, and the Man of Steel would use his powers to grant to kill is an unsettling idea all these decades later, and it makes them on the page. Breaking the fourth wall, Superman himself you wonder how we apply it in our wars today. But the really invited “soldiers, sailors and marines—and that includes you upsetting thing is seeing Superman—the friendly cop, the women in service, too” to submit “any particularly tough gentle older brother, the very symbol of power merged with problems you’d like me to help you solve.” kindness—buy into this trope as the war wears on, culminating For the next two years of Sundays, the Man of Steel in a scene where he pulls off a gleefully nasty impersonation delivered mail (by air), did soldiers’ chores (at super-speed), and (strip 307). We can say in the Man of Steel’s defense only that interfered in romantic problems (with a grudging reluctance). he and his writers and artists knew they’d gone too far; after the He delivered a fresh cake to a lucky birthday boy, flew a busload war and to this day, Superman has appeared in dozens of public of showgirls to a military base dance party, tamed a horse, and service announcements preaching brotherhood and tolerance whisked an expectant father home just ahead of the stork. He for all races, and today the character is practically synonymous undertook most of these feats at the urging of , who with fairness and equality. read all the incoming requests with a special eye toward uniting World War Two ends before this volume does, and we get sweethearts. Superman also seemed to be dramatizing pleas to cleanse our palates with a retelling of the origin. This is a from the War Department, as when he influenced one town to compact version that faithfully merges all of the agreed-upon write letters to its lonely soldiers and another to evict a gang of elements up to this point, even revisiting the Jack Kennedy gremlins whispering temptations that would weaken wartime (that name again!) murder case from Jerry Siegel and Joe morale. Shuster’s very first Superman story. This Man of Steel anticipates later interpretations. He From there the mood lightens considerably. Superman is welcomed everywhere by law-abiding people, like the watches over Lois Lane as she embarks in an experimental Christopher Reeve Superman who delivers a sputtering Gene rocket on a space exploration that ends up on an advanced Hackman to appreciative prison guards, due process be damned. planet ruled by a tyrannical queen. After that, it’s off to the He rubs elbows with the highest rungs of authority, like the circus, where a sad clown risks his life for the love of a Silver Age Superman who arranges for President John F. glamorous acrobat. With the war’s lasting consequences yet to Kennedy to preserve his secret identity by impersonating Clark be felt, we gaze at the Man of Steel’s feats under the big top with Kent. Even the wartime enemy looks up to him...and that’s amazement and relief.

PAGE 6 The Superman Sunday page began on November 5, 1939 and the first 183 Sundays were reprinted in a handsome horizontal edition by DC Comics and Kitchen Sink Press. Our series begins with Strip #184 from May 1943 and will continue until the series ended in May 1966. At that time, we will return to the first 183 Sundays and present them in a vertical format that matches the rest of the series. We invite you to enjoy these marvelous Sunday pages that have never been previously reprinted.

—Dean Mullaney, Editor

STRIP 184 • MAY 9, 1943 PAGE 9 PAGE 10 STRIP 185 • MAY 16, 1943 STRIP 186 • MAY 23, 1943 PAGE 11 PAGE 12 STRIP 187 • MAY 30, 1943 STRIP 188 • JUNE 6, 1943 PAGE 13 PAGE 14 STRIP 189 • JUNE 13, 1943 STRIP 190 • JUNE 20, 1943 PAGE 15