The Legend of Topher Thomas: Chapter 1

Okay, so there’s a young woman in a Japanese school girl outfit. There’re also several tentacles. Don’t worry though; this isn’t going to be that kind of manga… Chris Perguidi is responsible for th…

Source: The Legend of Topher Thomas: Chapter 1

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the history of superman

the history of superman! part 1 :the creation

ORIGINS OF A MODERN DIETY : TRACING THE ORIGINS OF SUPERMAN AND THE AMERICAN SUPER HERO!by Christopher perguidi

history doesn’t happen in a linear pattern nor a vacuum only the thoughts of men .

history branches out like the limbs of an ancient tree its roots hidden deep beneath

the ground. So it may seem arrogant to try and trace the origins of an idea to one singular

event to the next. But perhaps we can find that seeds that started it all as we look back into

the origins of a modern American myth the man god Clark Kent.

as every one knows mild mannered reporter Clark Kent is in reality superman

a strange visitor from another planet the last son of a dead race rocketed to

earth by his father a great scientist and raised by poor American farmers ma and pa Kent

where he grew to be super man! who fights a never ending battle for truth justice and

the American way.

every one on the planet knows the story of super man it is a myth as well known

as that of Jesus , Moses or budda.even if his story owes much to the first two men.

WHO CREATED SUPERMAN?superman was created by two Jewish teenagers Canadian born artist Joe Shuster

and American born writer jerry Siegel.

jerry Siegel the youngest of six children was the son of a sign painter Mitch Siegel who later opened his own convenience shop he was one of the few people who encouraged jerry .ironically, the type of incident that inspires so many superheroes to put on spandex and fight crime may have been the very element that inspired the creation of superman. While jerry was still in middle school his father Mitch Siegel’s was shot and killed in his store by an unknown thief .how powerless must the young jerry Siegel have felt. In 1929 jerry published the first sci-fi fanzine science wonder stories.

he worked at his high schools school newspaper the torch where he created the character goober the mighty a Tarzan parody. Here he would befriend Joe Shuster .

Joe Shuster

was a Canadian born artist and like jerry the son of Jewish immigrants before moving to America .he worked at as a paper boy at the daily star in Toronto it would later become the basis for the daily planet. He moved

to Cleveland Ohio when he was ten. He would meet jerry at Glenview high school and become life long friends and collaborators.

THE CREATION OF SUPERMAN:superman didn’t spring fully formed from the minds of the young

creators like a goddess from the head of Zeus. No, it took some time and some polishing before Clark Kent became what we know today . he started not as a hero but as a bald villain more akin to lex Luther than Clark Kent. This superman appeared in the third issue of there fanzine in the story titled reign of the superman it was released in 1933 the same year Adolph Hitler had become chancellor of Germany and declared a reign of the superman. But it would be no time before superman would be fighting the axis power.

the teens would glance a copy of consolidated publications Dan duns 48 page comic book .they decided that there character would sell better as a good guy and reformatted there work to that of the comic medium and pitched the series to consolidated publishing who rejected but given an encouraging letter .consolidated publishing stopped making comics. It might have been because the Dan Dunn comic itself was a failure. Joe tossed the failed offending pages of superman onto the kindling pile only the cover page remained rescued from the flames by jerry .this drawing would become the basis for another more down to earth character slam Bradley.

in 1934 superman would be recreated once more this time in a more familiar form.

now envisioned as a mythic being clad in the outfit of a circus performer with a huge s on his chest he was a social activist righting the wrongs of his time.

the icon was beginning to take shape the creator where on to something but it would be another four years before they convinced any one else .

THE OLD MYTHSbefore America had superheroes, cowboy and pro wrestlers the mythologies of old

had their own masked supermen demigods capable of superhuman strengths

that they used to accomplish tasks of great good.

we know that superman creator were directly influenced by at least two of these

mythological heroes Samson and Hercules as they compare there man of might

to the old gods on an early cover of action comics.

Samson is a man possessed of great strength by god thru his long hair

he battles whole armies that threaten his semantic race with only jaw bone . he is easily manipulated

by beautiful women and can only lose his powers if his hair is cut short. It is believed

Samson was based on a Sumerian sun god who inurn was based on a historical

figure.

now we compare this myth to superman a man possessed of great strength by his alien heritage

and the rays of earths yellow sun. his only weakness is kryptonite a rock from his home planet

that dissolves him of his god like strength. He battles against an army using only his fists

to protect the Semitic race. In this case from German dictator Adolph Hitler.

Hercules is the son of sues raised by a human mother born of an affair his evil step mother hera sends all manner of creatures to kill young Hercules who produces great feats of strength even in his child hood strangling to death a snake sent to kill him as an infant. Like Clark Kent he is trapped between the divine and the flesh of man .he is best known for his twelve labors a symbolic representation of the suns travel thru the 12 months. It is clear that super man owes much to these

two ancient sun gods .

superman is an alien raised by mortals .he shows great strength even in his youth .

THE GLADIATORno not that bad Conan knock off staring russle crow I am talking about Philip j. willies sci-fi classic the gladiator

one of the first serious sconce fiction novel. This book could have easily been called the more modern Prometheus its lead character is more Frankenstein’s monster than Clark Kent. Hugo danner is a handsome monster but filled with the same pathos and wondering spirit as the creature from merry Shelly’s Frankenstein.

the novel reads like a frank miller deconstruction story of super man but be assured that it predates our beloved champion of justice.

the novel begins in 1900s Colorado as professor danner discovers a serum that will create a super

race . he first experiments on a kitten creating a bullet proof super cat. He later decides to move to human testing and decides to try it on his unborn sun Hugo danner injecting it into his wife’s womb

Hugo is born several months later on Christmas day. Young Hugo shows great amounts of strength

even in his youth but his parents raise him with a strong moral core telling him never to use his great powers in anger. He is such a superior specimen of man that the world looks on him with aberration .in collage he plays foot ball accidentally killing a man this leads him to join the army and fight in world war one. Like superman he can jump great distances. He is bullet proof and can bend steal with his bare hands. His strength is compared to that of a grasshopper or ant . small but able to lift things much greater than his size. A comparison between ants grass hoppers and superman’s

strength is made in an early superman adventure where his abilities are explained. The moral of the gladiator is inverted to that of superman. Superman is a saintly figure who improves the world while

the gladiator is about how great men are worn down by the wheels of an unjust and unworthy world.

a theme that would later influence the ideology of ayn rand and spider man creator Steve ditco.

super man isn’t the only super hero that Hugo danner influenced. The wrestling scene in amazing fantasy 16 is a direct swipe from Hugo danners show down with a boxer to gain some quick cash

and both spider man and Hugo danner try getting into show biz. spider man as a wrestler and Hugo as a circus strong man where he wears a skin tight bat suit predating the bat man.

but what influenced Philip g wylie to create the gladiator?

In early February 1930, Wylie described the inspiration for Danner’s creation in the introduction to one of the earliest printings of Gladiator:“A temperamental consciousness of material force brought Hugo Danner into being. The frustration of my own muscles by things, and the alarming superiority of machinery started the notion of a man who would be invincible. I gave him a name and planned random deeds for him. I let him tear down Brooklyn Bridge and lift a locomotive. Then I began to speculate about his future and it seemed to me that a human being thus equipped would be foredoomed to vulgar fame or to a life of fruitless destruction. He would share the isolation of geniuses and with them would learn the inflexibility of man’s slow evolution. To that extent Hugo became symbolic and Gladiator a satire. The rest was adventure and perhaps more of the book derives from the unliterary excitement of imagining such a life than from a studious juxtaposition of incidents to a theme”

but there was another Hugo who looked a lot like Clark Kent and predated not only

HugoDanner and superman but there creators as well….

GIVE IT UP FOR HUGO HERCULES……Hugo Hercules was published before ww1 for a 1 year period in between 1902 & 1903 he was created by cartoonist williem h.d koerner.it stared a modern day Hercules who wandered the Americas using his strength to help people but mostly to impress the girls. Its hard to imagine that this little known short lived comic strip could inspire superman or even Hugo danner as the creator of both weren’t even born at the time of his run. We can argue that Hugo was a popular name at the beginning of the20th century and just a coincidence and perhaps they are just both modern retellings of Hercules. I would discount the influence over either creation if it wasn’t for a few little things that add up in a big way. Hugo Hercules looks just like Clark Kent and has a penchant for

lifting cars over his head while running. The very thing that would make superman an icon on the cover of action comics number one. Siegel and Shuster had originally intended for superman to be a comic strip in the newspapers just like Hugo Hercules. I have no proof

of this connection as there is no way in telling how these young creator would have gotten hold of a thirty year old news paper strip but perhaps in the future

we shall find the key to that mystery but perhaps time has weathered all the evidence we would of had as superman is in his 70s and Hugo is well over 100 years old.

1930s SCIENTIFIC FICTION: THE MEN FROM TOMMOROWduring the time of Siegel and shysters child hood cheaply printed pulp magazine filled with lurid tales of scincetific fiction where a popular source of entertainment.

scientific fiction would later be renamed science fiction by yet another Hugo , Hugo gernsback and in modern time to sci-fi. Hugo Greenback was a publisher of pulps an inventor and one of the founding fathers of sci-fi .these magazines were devoured

by the young superman creators and the heroes introduced by science fictions had a lasting affect on what would become superman! In 1926 Hugo grernsback would publish amazing stories one of the most famous sci-fi magazines of its time. In 1928 it introduced buck Rogers a futuristic rip van winkle .frozen in time by a strange mist he awakens in the future an alien of his own planet. It captured the attention of a comic strip editor and was licensed into a comic strip drawn by Dick calkins on January 7,1929 the same day as the Tarzan strip. Many considered theses graphically drawn heroes are the direct predecessors to the comic hero. In 1934 flash Gordon was introduced to cash in on the popularity buck Rogers . yet , super man and the above mentioned owe a huge debt to Edgar rice Burroughs john carter of mars. published in 1911 john carter is transported by mars because earth has a greater gravity than mars john is able to leap in huge bounds and pick things up twice his weight making him many more times powerful than the Martian natives. He is in essence a reverse superman . a human who goes to another planet and gains super powers. In early stories it was explained that superman was so powerful because krypton had a greater gravity than earth. Most of these tales were about ordinary men in extraordinary circumstances what made super man unique was that he reversed that he was an extraordinary man in an ordinary world and he was also the first real good alien in science fiction before e.t ,before stitch superman was the alien who came to be are friend like Shane the cowboy he is the powerful outsider who protects us from ourselves asking for nothing he does it because its right. The amazing story name would later be sold to zip Davis publications where siegle and Shuster would write some of there last comic books.

THE PULP ADVENTURERS:in the 1930s pulps started to lean more towards heroic fiction largely because of Walter Gibson’s creation the shadow and Lester dents creation doc savage. The big brothers of batman and superman .the shadow a grim vigilante who struck fear into the hearts of men with his deep laugh and chrome plated .45s is one of the most know characters from the pulp magazines his influence on superman may have been slim but he invoked a greater influence over batman and many conventions of the comic book world first be used in the shadow pulps a dual identity hero who uses fantastic voiceless gadgets and wads of cash to battle bizarre and freakish villains.

doc savage while not as well known excreted a greater amount of influence on superman.

doc savage was a man trained from birth into peak human condition in order to fight crime a lot of his elements are inspired by wylies novels the gladiator and the savage gentleman including his name.doc Clark savage is a genius athlete with a think tank filled with the worlds smartest men. He has a secret hide out called the fortress of solitude and is referred to as the man of bronze. It is from doc savage that superman got his first name the name from his base and the inspiration for his man of steel moniker.

in later shadow stories it was revealed that amount Cranston was really Kent allard.did Siegel and Shuster derive there new heroes name from the first names of these older heroes? they claimed it was from combining actor Clark gable with actor Kent Taylor.

GIMME SOME OF THAT OLD TIME RELIGIONit doesn’t take a religious major or a theologian to see the connections between

superman and mosses or even super man and Jesus

I am going to step lightly here as to avoid offending any one.

superman is placed in a rocket ship to carry him away from the exploding planet krypton while mosses is placed in a basket and floated down the river Nile by his mother to avoid a mass genocide of male children decreed by the pharoh.moses grow up to be a defender of the oppressed and hero of the people

god sends his only son in the form of man to earth by means of the immaculate conception to be raised by a mortal family. Young Jesus performs great miracles even in his youth. as an adult he has powers and abilities far surpassing that of any men he becomes the defender of the weak and poor .he is betrayed by his friend Judas for forty pieces of silver. He is crucified by the alliteratively name ponchos pilot .Jesus gets his power from god.

Jar-el sends his only son to earth to be raised by mortal parents Clark Kent displays feats of strength at a young age. As an adult he has abilities beyond that of any mortal man he becomes the defender of the weak and oppressed. His arch nemesis is the alliteratively named lax author who was once his child hood friend

now to be fair to the comics creators the superman biblical analogy was emphasized more in the movies than it ever was in the early comics of the 1940s. CLOSING WORDSit would be impossible to figure out all the ingredients that came together in the minds of superman creator jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster as everything they saw heard and experienced had an effect on them consciously and unconsciously just as it does on all of us .with out there word to verify any

of this its all just speculation.

sources

redboots.net

wikipedia

geeks,gangsters,and the men of tommorow by gerard jones

the gladiotor by philp whylie

dc archives: superman