Exactly 75 years ago today, the first issue of “Action Comics” was released with a character on the cover who would change the literary world. Superman, the creation of teenagers Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, was an immediate hit and became a worldwide sensation, kicking off the comic book industry which continues today.
From the comic books and Saturday morning cartoons to “Smallville” and Christopher Reeve’s 1978 film portrayal, the Man of Steel has long been an iconic part of pop culture history. Click HERE for a look at The Man of Steel’s 75 year legacy in pictures.
Action Comics #1: No, he couldn’t fly — hence the “leaping a tall building in a single bound” — but so much of Superman’s mythology was firmly in place in Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s very first Superman story: the baby sent from a dying planet to Earth, being raised as a human, an older Clark Kent falling for a woman named Lois Lane. The modern age of the superhero can be traced back to this 1938 issue.