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The Forgotten History of Superman

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 2 months ago

The Forgotten History of Superman

 

 

The history of Superman has a number of twists and turns. The Superman character was conceived by Jerry Siegel in 1933. Along with his friend Joe Schuster, the two seventeen-year-olds from Cleveland, Ohio, developed the character in comic strip form. The Superman storyline is said to be an amalgamation of Voltaire’s 1752 tale Micromegas, about a visitor from another world, elements of comic hero Doc Savage, Philip Wylie’s 1930 Gladiator novel, and even the biblical story of Moses being placed in a basket to be saved from sure destruction. Of course, there are messianic overtones. Kal-El, the only son of Jor-El, is sent to a world in need of salvation.

 

El is the Hebrew word for “God.” That would make Kal-El the son of Jor-El, the son of El or the son of God. I’m just thinking out loud. Did these two Jewish teenagers self-consciously model their superhero after biblical ideals of the transcendent becoming immanent? Siegel described Superman as “a character like Samson, Hercules and all the strong men I ever heard of rolled into one.”

 

Siegel and Schuster were paid $130 for all the rights to the comic and character. For years, they sued DC (Detective Comics) to participate in the financial windfall of their believed character, but with no success. It wasn’t until the first Superman movie came out that Siegel and Schuster were able to strike a deal with DC. They took their plight to the press. It was bad publicity that forced DC to sit down with the originators of Superman, who were nearly 60 years old, to reach a financial settlement.

 

American Vision P.O. Box 220, Powder Springs, GA 30127, 800-628-9460, www.americanvision.org . History Unwrapped by Gary DeMar.

 

Please order a free information pack from American Vision. This pack will include subscription information for Biblical Worldview magazine plus a special discount form for their first order. For details, see the section for "First Time Visitors."

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