“It was essentially a violent socialist”: the origin of Superman's character as a radical rebel

“It was an implacable superman, who created his own laws and applied them to punch, which cheerfully intimidated his enemies with a malicious smile and a sinister look,” says Mark Waid, a scriptwriter and comic historian, in the introduction to a volume of classic reprints of Action Comics.

“It was not a superpolicía. It was a superanarchist.”

If this rebel and uprising superman were presented today, it would be acclaimed as one of the most subversive superheroes that exist.

“I had no idea that the character was like this until I started writing my book,” says Paul S. Hirsch, author of “Pulp Empire: a secret story of the imperialism of the comic.” “But I was amazed when I saw him. He is essentially a violent socialist.”

The first numbers of Action Comics confirm this statement. When there are problems to solve, Superman demolishes doors and hangs suspicious from fifth floors windows and, while doing so, launches very enthusiastic jokes such as: “Do you see how easily the clock crushes you in the palm of your hand? I will do the same in your neck!”

Some of the people who are mistreated by this bustling outlaw are armed gangsters, but they are usually a less glamorous type of villain: a domestic abuse or a superintendent of cruel orphanage with children. And most are so rich that they do not need to steal banks.

The owner of a mine that spits in security measures, the construction tycoon that sabote the competition buildings or the politician who buys a newspaper to convert it into propaganda.

More than a typical uniformed fighter against crime, the Superman of 1938 was a leftist revolutionary.

“I love those old numbers,” Matthew K. Manning, the author of “Superman: the definitive guide and science fiction stories of John Carpenter.” “They are clearly the work of young people frustrated by the injustices of the world, and rightly.”

“Let us remember that there were two Jewish men who reached adulthood just before the outbreak of World War II. There were many reasons to be angry. And suddenly, they had this character capable of expressing their concerns and demanding responsibilities to the corrupt.”

Siegel and Shuster were classmates in Cleveland, Ohio. Having grown during the great depression, they defined Superman in the first issue of Action Comics as a “oppressed champion … who swore to dedicate his existence to help those in need.”

“We were children and if we wanted to see a movie we had to sell bottles of milk, so we felt as if we were at the lowest and we could empathize with people,” says Siegel in “Superman: the complete story”, by Les Daniels.

“Superman arose from our feelings about life. And that is why, when we saw so many similar strips, we felt that they mimiced Superman's format, but something was missing: that tremendous compassion that Joe and I felt for the oppressed.”

It is not that Siegel and Shuster were the only comic professionals with such liberal opinions. “The comic industry was mainly founded by people who were forbidden to work in more legitimized fields,” Hirsch explains to the BBC, “for being Jews, immigrants, people of color or women.”

“It was a creative ghetto where many talented people ended because they did not get an advertising work in Madison Avenue or could write for the magazine Life. Many of those people were radical, or at least unconventional, and DC was founded by men who fit in that mold: men who had been recent immigrants, men with leftist sympathies for having grown up in New York City at that time. “

Even so, few comic characters were as militants as Superman. In one of its first numbers, it demolishes a row of precarious housing to force the authorities to build better (a risky, of course) strategy.

In another, he faces the city game industry because he is taking the addicts to ruin. And in another, he declares the war to all those who consider deaths in traffic accidents responsible.

It terrifies reckless drivers, kidnaps the mayor who has not enforced traffic laws, destroys the stocks of a second -hand car dealership and destroys a factory where defective cars are assembled.

“It's because metals and lower quality parts are used to obtain greater benefits at the expense of human lives,” he informs the owner.

Were Superman's direct action protest campaigns strictly legal? No, but they were an unbridled and decidedly political fun, and almost 90 years later, they are still a fascinating story at the foot of the American urban life of the 1930s.

However, too soon, Superman focused his attention on crazy scientists and giant monsters, moving away from the disadvantaged masses of metropolis.

After a few numbers, his “opponents were all of huge proportions, and although that gave rise to exciting comics, his days of social crusade were becoming a thing of the past,” Waid writes.

What was the Kriptonite that undermined Superman's social consciousness? Hirsch argues that it was a combination of two elements. One was the “softening” that occurs when sales of any commercial property increase without stopping.

“Superman is incredibly popular from the moment they obtain the sales figures from the first issue,” he says. “So suddenly they realize what they have in hand and do not want to risk it. Jack Liebowitz, the president of DC, sees that they can sell pillow and Superman pajamas, but if Superman walks around throwing people through the windows and threatening to put iron bars around his neck, he will not work.”

Together with the well -known story of a great star that is sold, “which finally puts an end to Superman's radical vein is the beginning of the war,” says Hirsch.

“All immigrants and non -white people who worked in this industry wanted to be seen as patriots. And it makes sense. That was what had to be done to fit. And, even more practical, that was what had to be done to get the paper ration (to print magazines). If you did things that bothered the government in 1941, you perhaps did not get your wooden pulp.”

Another factor, more personal, was that Siegel and Shuster lost control of their creation. The deterioration of Shuster's view forced him to let other artists take care of the drawing, and the recruitment of Siegel in the army in 1943 reduced the time he had to work on the scripts. But the worst was to come.

After selling Superman's rights for $ 130 in 1938, both were treated by DC as day laborers, instead of as venerated innovators, and in 1947 they tried, without success, recover those rights in court.

In retrospect, it is sadly ironic that these first stories were about exploiting fat fish that received their deserved. Siegel and Shuster would have had a defender of the oppressed by his side.

Even so, after World War II, Superman was not the type of superhero that would face a conspirator editorial. “Superman constantly evolves over time, and that has not always been for better,” says Manning.

“During the McCarthy era of the 50s, when the parents burned comics and Congress blamed the comics of youth crime, the publishers were forced to self -regulate their content under the seal of the comic code authority. This seal appeared on the cover of each comic approved, marking it as 'safe' for children.”

“Although he had already softened a little, Superman became more a father figure during this period, without interest in the real world villains. Instead, he focused mainly on aliens, beings of other dimensions and frustrating Lois Lane's last attempt to discover her secret identity.”

However, Superman's evolution did not stop there. In some times, it has been a pillar of virtue, politely conservative, of which his companions superheroes of DC mocks themselves as “the great Boy Scout blue”, while in others, Manning points out, he has recovered part of his originality … as justice with an eye for social justice.

And in the new movie? We still don't know what Superman we will have, so corrupt politicians and construction magnates should keep their eyes on the sky.

It's a bird! It's a plane! It is overlapping!

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