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Science Fiction themes are a natural for the Superman comic strip. I mean the guy came to Earth in a rocket from another planet. But once Kal-El got here his adventures were rather mundane for a while. Sure the guy could leap tall buildings in a single bound but the bad guys he took on were crooks and gangsters in the earliest comic strips. Gradually over time, the SF elements got bigger as Sup himself became more fantastic. Here are some of the tropes that I particularly liked in the Sunday strips run from 1939 to 1966.
It might be a good place to remind readers that Superman had a many-pronged publication history. First there was the comic books like Action Comics, but later Siegel & Shuster sold the black & white comic strip with its separate color Sundays. This meant that Superman canon was appearing three places at the same time. Two men behind the Superman success story at DC Comics were Julius Schwartz and Mort Weisinger. Both veterans of the fanzine scene of the 1930s, they became Pulp editors before becoming comic book editors. as Pulpsters and fans, the two men were well familiar with Science Fiction’s classic themes. They would hire old SF Pulp writers like Edmond Hamilton and Otto Binder to work in the DC Universe. Ed wrote classic Superman and Batman stories from 1944-1964 while Otto created Batman’s utility belt and Supergirl.
Jerry Siegel, who created Superman along with Joel Shuster, was another fan of the Pulps. Doc Savage in particular. According to Will Murray there are numerous connects between Doc and Sup plots and idea. It is only natural that SF elements were going to work their way front and center eventually.
As I wrote about at length (here) 1939 was the year of the robot. The New York’s World’s Fair featured Elecktro from Westinghouse. After that SF explodes with new and interesting bots including Adam Link by Eando Binder (Otto Binder was half of that team) and the Three Laws of Robotics from Isaac Asimov after 1940. “The Bandit Robots of Metropolis” was written by Jerry Siegel appeared in newspapers from October 3 to December 22, 1940. Giant robots become associated more strongly with the Man of Steel after Max Fleischer’s “The Mechanical Monsters” (1941). Unlike the killers in the cartoon, these bots are more interested in stealing and kidnapping.
It was a while before a big SF tale came along but in 1946 “Out of This World” by Jerry Siegel took Lois Lane and Superman off the planet. Travels to outer space was hardly new in 1946 with Verne and Wells exploring the idea back in the Victorian Age in books like From the Earth to the Moon (1865) and The First Men in the Moon (1901).
“Lovesick Monster” appeared a year later with a dinosaur tale written by Jerry Siegel. This predated Ray Bradbury’s “The Fog Horn” (The Saturday Evening Post, June 23, 1951, that’s 74 years ago today!) by four years. Bradbury’s dinosaur is also lovesick, mistaking a fog horn for a romantically interested dino.
“One Hundred and Forty Million Miles From Earth” was written by Al Schwartz, who would later created Bizarro, the anti-Superman. Lois & Superman go to Mars this time. Tales about Martians aren’t new either. Across the Zodiac by Percy Greg appeared in 1880. H. G. Wells did it with “The Crystal Egg” (The New Review, May 1897).
Time travel seems a given if you’ve ever watched Superman II (1980) where Sup reverses time to save Lois from falling to her death. Time travel tales started earlier back in 1948 but it is 1949 before the idea really starts to cook. “Noble Knights of Merlin” was written by Al Schwartz and takes Superman back to the days of King Arthur. Later on, Superman will go forward into the future days.
“The Parasoids” is an alien invasion tale written by Al Schwartz. Wells again with The War of the Worlds (1898) got this ball rolling.
“The Phantom Thief” was written by Al Schwartz is a tale of invisibility which goes back to Fitz-James O’Brien and Ambrose Bierce but it was Wells again with The Invisible Man (1897) that inspires here. Schwartz does one cute thing. His invisible man pretends to be a ghost.
“Superman Meets Hercules” was written by Al Schwartz and made me immediately think of The Three Stooges Meet Hercules (1962) but that film is seven years away. This is another time travel story to the past though Superman helps Herc look good. It was a familiar formula for the DC Comics, Superman being the real power behind another’s success. he did the same thing for Lois as a jungle girl.
“Superman Duels the Future Men” was written by Bill Finger. The choice of “Future Men” I thought interesting. Edmond Hamilton, who was stilling writing Superman strips at this time, had once had Captain Future and the Futuremen in the Pulps. “The Birthplace of Creation” the final Cap Future tale appeared in Startling Stories, May 1951. After six years, nobody cared, I guess. The Pulps were dead and gone…
“Big Boy” was written by Bill Finger. This story has a chimp grown to gigantic proportions. He’s not quite King Kong big but the Pulps and DC Comics had a long history of ape story comics. Julius Schwartz famously believed that any comic cover with an ape on it sold better. For more on that, go here.
Jerry Siegel returned the DC fold in 1959. This time we get time travel to the Future. This strip may have been written by Bill Finger or Jerry Siegel. (Let me know, if you know on any of these!)
Giant Ants were another old standby from the Pulps. This strip may have been written by Bill Finger or Jerry Siegel. This same tale appeared in Action Comics #296, January 1963.
Another blast from the past. Ralph Milne Farley had a successful series called Radio Planet with humans riding around on giant insects on Venus. In this one, Superman finds a planet where everyone is blind. “Country of the Blind” (The Strand Magazine, April 1904) by H. G. Wells much? This strip was written by Bill Finger or Jerry Siegel.
Plant Monsters date back to the 1870s. This strip was written by Bill Finger or Jerry Siegel. Lex Luthor puts a mysterious powder on the cacti to make them bigger and more aggressive. We get a flashback to Krypton and the Scarlet Jungle where trees look like red giants.
Conclusion
I think by way of conclusion I want to talk about Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye. This duo drew the Superman strip for decades. Boring may not be as famous as Curt Swan but I think he was as good an artist, doing the penciling in the 1950s while Swan dominated the 1960s. Wayne brought a more powerful version of Sup to the comics that fit better with the heroic aspects of these stories. Wayne Boring’s iconic Superman look solidified an idea, especially the Silver Age version of that idea, that we still see today in films. (Yes, I know, a new Superman film in July! Yah, we get Krypto this time!) The use of a single team of artists over such a long period gives these stories a consistency that many other collections lack. Sure, you get stupid plots like “The Fat Superman” but between these stories you also get robots, dinosaurs and giant ants drawn by Wayne and Stan. What more could you ask for?
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