{"id":7612,"date":"2011-11-24T08:00:29","date_gmt":"2011-11-24T08:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=7612"},"modified":"2011-11-22T16:26:26","modified_gmt":"2011-11-22T16:26:26","slug":"superman-archives-volume-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2011\/11\/24\/superman-archives-volume-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Superman Archives volume 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Jerry Siegel<\/strong> & Joe Shuster<\/strong> (DC Comics)
\nISBN: 0-30289-47-1
\nWithout doubt the creation of Superman and his unprecedented acceptance and adoption by a desperate and joy-starved generation quite literally gave birth to a genre if not an actual art form.<\/p>\n

This stunning, lavish collection was also a significant first: the lovingly restored pages on glossy paper between gleaming hardback covers began DC’s superb Archive Editions series which, since 1989, has brought long forgotten and expensive classic tales to an appreciative wider audience.<\/p>\n

Moreover the format has inestimably advanced the prestige and social standing of the medium itself as well as preserving a vital part of American popular culture.<\/p>\n

Within this initial collection, following an effusive appreciation from legendary creator and comics historian Jim Steranko, are the complete contents of the first four issues of Superman<\/strong>, from Summer 1939 to Spring 1940. Here is the crude, rough, uncontrollable wish-fulfilling exuberance of a righteous and superior man dealing out summary justice to wife-beaters, reckless drivers and exploitative capitalists, as well as thugs and ne’er-do-wells, who captured the imagination of a nation and the world.<\/p>\n

The character had debuted a year previously in Action Comics<\/strong> #1 in truncated, reformatted episodes by young, exuberant creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, cobbled together from a rejected newspaper strip proposal. An instant stand-out hit in the otherwise average comics anthology, the Man of Steel was given his own solo title – another first – and also starred in the tourist tie-in New York’s World Fair Comics <\/strong>#1 (June 1939).<\/p>\n

Superman<\/strong> #1 began with an expanded partial reprint of the premier Action Comics tale, describing the alien foundling’s escape from exploding Planet Krypton before a costumed crusader masquerading by day as reporter Clark Kent averted a tragedy by saving an innocent woman from the Electric Chair, pounded a wife beater and busted racketeer Butch Matson, consequently saving feisty colleague Lois Lane from abduction and worse.<\/p>\n

He also averted a European war fomented by greedy munitions dealers.<\/p>\n

Superman’s first issue also re-presented the material from Action<\/strong> #2-4, with the mystery-man travelling to San Monte to spectacularly quiet down the hostilities already in progress and after a ‘Scientific Explanation of Superman’s Amazing Strength!’<\/em> the Man of Steel responded to a coal mine cave-in and exposed corrupt corporate practises before cleaning up gamblers who fixed football games. The first issue concluded with a two-page prose adventure of the Caped Crime-crusher and a biographical feature on Siegel & Shuster.<\/p>\n

Superman<\/strong> #2 opened with a human drama as the Action Ace cleared the name of broken heavyweight boxer Larry Trent, coincidentally cleaning the scum out of the fight game and, after ‘Superman’s Tips for Super-Health’<\/em> and a captivating add for New York’s World Fair Comics<\/strong>, proceeded with ‘Superman Champions Universal Peace!’<\/em> wherein the hero crushed a gang who had stolen the world’s deadliest poison gas weapon, once more going up against unscrupulous munitions manufacturers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

‘Superman and the Skyscrapers’<\/em><\/strong> found Kent investigating suspicious deaths in the construction industry, leading his alter ego into confrontation with ruthless thugs and their fat-cat corporate boss, after which another Superman text tale ended the issue.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Winter Superman<\/strong> edition opened with a rip-roaring and shockingly uncompromising expose of corrupt orphanages, after which Lois stole Clark Kent’s assignment and became hopelessly embroiled in a deadly construction scam: imperilled by a colossal collapsing dam in a stirring yarn first published in Actio<\/strong>n #5.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Future Superboy star artist George Papp contributed science filler ‘Fantastic Facts’<\/em> and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Bert Lexington\u00e2\u20ac\u009d penned prose crime thriller ‘Death by the Stars’<\/em> after which ‘Superman’s Manager’<\/em> turned up to scam Metropolis until he finally met his supposed client and ended up behind bars (reprinted from Action<\/strong> #6).<\/p>\n

The exigencies of providing so much material was clearly beginning to tell: this issue is filled with fillers such as ‘Acquiring Super-Strength’<\/em>, ‘Attaining Super-Health!’<\/em>, prose prison yarn ‘Good Luck Charm’<\/em> by Hugh Langley and funny animal antics with dashing Dachshund ‘Shorty’<\/em> before the Man of Steel made his last appearance in another sterling gang-busting exploit, rescuing Lois from murderous smugglers.<\/p>\n

Superman<\/strong> #4, cover-dated Spring 1940, concludes this inaugural compendium, with another four adventures; beginning with the landmark saga ‘The Challenge of Luthor’<\/em>, wherein the red-headed rogue scientist used earthquakes to threaten civilisation. Following more ‘Attaining Super-Strength’<\/em>, animal antics with ‘This Doggone World’ <\/em>and facts ‘From the 4 Corners’<\/em> by Sheldon Moldoff, the mad scientist returned in ‘Luthor’s Undersea City’<\/em>, a terrific tale of dinosaurs and super-science. Langley’s text vignette ‘Changer of Destiny’<\/em> preceded Superman’s battle against ‘The Economic Enemy,’<\/em> a spy-story about commercial sabotage instigated by an unspecified foreign power. Another Papp ‘Fantastic Facts’<\/em>, some immensely enticing house ads and Lexington’s science fiction prose poser ‘Pioneer into the Unknown’<\/em> all act as palate-cleansers for the final fantastic thriller wherein the Man of Tomorrow clashed with gangsters and Teamsters in ‘Terror in the Trucker’s Union’.<\/em><\/p>\n

Steranko then closed the show with an ‘Afterword’<\/em> detailing the contents of the adventures from Action Comics<\/strong> #1-14 (which were eventually collected in 1987 as Superman in Action Comics Archive<\/strong> volume 1).<\/p>\n

As well as economical price and no-nonsense design and presentation, and notwithstanding the historical significance of the material presented within, there is a magnificent bonus for any one who hasn’t read these tales before. They are astonishingly well-told and engrossing mini-epics that can still grip and excite the reader.<\/p>\n

In a world where Angels With Dirty Faces<\/strong>, Bringing Up Baby<\/strong> and The Front Page<\/strong> are as familiar to our shared cultural consciousness as the latest episode of Dr Who<\/strong> or the next Bond <\/strong>movie, the dress, manner and idiom in these seventy-plus-year-old stories can’t jar or confuse. They are simply timeless, enthralling, and great.<\/p>\n

Read these yarns and you’ll understand why today’s creators keep returning to this material every time they need to revamp the big guy. They are simply timeless, enthralling, and great.
\n\u00c2\u00a9 1939-1940, 1989 Dc Comics. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster (DC Comics) ISBN: 0-30289-47-1 Without doubt the creation of Superman and his unprecedented acceptance and adoption by a desperate and joy-starved generation quite literally gave birth to a genre if not an actual art form. This stunning, lavish collection was also a significant first: the lovingly restored pages on … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Superman Archives volume 1”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[78,44,76,127,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comic-strip-classics","category-dc-archives","category-dc-superhero","category-nostalgia","category-superman"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-1YM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}