Superman’s blue- collar roots firmly entrenched
CLEVELAND — The tough, bluecollar roots of Superman’s creators are getting a fresh look on the superhero’s 75th anniversary.
Creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster lived just a few blocks apart in the Cleveland neighbourhood that shaped their teenage lives, their dreams and the imagery of the Man of Steel.
In the city’s Glenville neighbourhood, Siegel and Shuster laboured on their creation for years before finally selling Superman to a publisher.
Shuster was Canadian, born in Toronto, where he grew up until moving with his family to Cleveland when he was 10. As a boy, Shuster — whose cousin Frank Shuster later gained fame as half of the Canadian comedy team Wayne and Shuster — was a newspaper carrier for the Toronto Daily Star ( now the Toronto Star). This gave him fodder for the newspaper career of Superman’s alter ego, Clark Kent. In early drafts of their creation, Clark Kent worked for The Daily Star, later changed to The Daily Planet. Shuster also has said the Toronto skyline of his boyhood influenced his drawings of the Metropolis skyline of the Superman comics.
The Man of Steel became a Depressionera bootstrap strategy for the Siegel/ Shuster team, says Brad Ricca, a professor at nearby Case Western Reserve University.
In his upcoming book Super Boys, Ricca says the story of Superman’s creation is mostly about their friendship: two boys dreaming of “fame, riches and girls” in a time when such dreams are all the easier to imagine because of the crushing economic misery. Siegel and Shuster reflected Cleveland’s ethnic mix: Both were sons of Jewish immigrants, struggled during the Depression and hustled to make something of themselves.
Superman’s first appearance, in Action Comics No. 1, was April 18, 1938. The first and greatest superhero has gone on to appear in nearly 1,000 Action Comics and has evolved with the times, including a 1940s radio serial, a 1950s TV series and as a reliable staple for Hollywood. Pop culture expert Charles Coletta at Bowling Green State University said Superman ranks globally with George Washington and the Super Bowl as American icons.
But it wasn’t just hardscrabble circumstances that tempered the Man of Steel, Siegel’s daughter said.
Laura Siegel Larson said Cleveland’s public library, comic pages and high school mentors all nurtured her father’s creativity.
The school even allowed Siegel to mimeograph the science- fiction magazine he wrote and sold by mail subscription, she said.
Spiegel recalled coming up with the idea while looking at the stars and imagining a powerful hero who looked out for those in distress.
Today, Siegel’s home is easy to pick out on a street with a mix of renovated and dilapidated homes: A stylized red Superman “S” adorns the fence and a sign identifies the home as “the house where Superman was born.”
Hattie Gray, 61, who moved into the home nearly 30 years ago unaware of its history, has got used to the parade of Superman fans walking by, trying to savour a piece of comics lure.
Shuster’s home has been demolished and replaced by another, but the fence has oversized Superman comic book pages displayed. The nearby commercial strip has a state historic marker detailing Superman’s Cleveland roots.