Superman Comic STRIP hero?

[alschroeder3]

If you enjoyed the early Siegel and Shuster Superman comics, let me tell you something--you only know half the story. The early Superman comic STRIP running in the newspapers from 1939 till at least 1942 or 1943 are all part of the same continuity. In other words, what happened in the comic strip affected the comic book adventures of Superman, and vice versa.

Proof? Well, of course Superman #2 were all newspaper strips reprinted in comic book form, but there are other links. For instance, in Superman #17, "Man--or Superman?", the story in which Lois first seriously suspected Clark was Superamn, we have two pages of retrospective in Lois' scrapbook.

Of course, the first picture is the cover of Action #1, but that second one--where she said not long after, Superman caught her falling from a plane? There are a lot of stories where Lois did something similar, but the earliest was in the first newspaper comic strip story, with another early meeting of Lois and Superman. (It would take a little fudging to fit Action #1 and the opening newspaper story together, but it could be done.)

Okay, that can't be taken as iron-clad, but the NEXT page has a very interesting reference.

"The time he aided Eustace Watson was a classic". That is a reference to the story that ran in the Superman newspaper comic strip from December 1940 through March 1941.

Another more famous reference was this panel from Superman #25.

That refers to the first newspaper strip written after Pearl Harbor, where Clark Kent rushes to enlist..

Eventually, the Superman newspaper strip and the Superman comic book did diverge--probably after Siegel was drafted--but during his early years, you had to read the comic book AND the newspaper strip to get the full flavor of Superman's adventures.

Comments

[lordultimus]

Didn't the newspaper strip introduce Bizarro?

[alschroeder3]

I'm trying to remember. It was a later decade---in the Superman/Superboy comics, Bizarro was first introduced in SuperBOY as a one-shot, and became a recurring character in SuperMAN when Luthor recreated him. I'm not sure if the adult Bizarro occurred in the newspaper strip after the Superboy story, but before the Superman story, or even predated the Superboy story.

[lordultimus]

Just looked up wikipedia, they had this to say:

An adult version appeared around the same time in the Superman daily newspaper comic strip written by Alvin Schwartz, debuting in Episode 105: "The Battle With Bizarro" (strips 6147-6242: August 25, 1958 to December 13, 1958). According to comics historian Mark Evanier, Schwartz long claimed that he originated the Bizarro concept prior to the character's appearance in Superboy.[2] The newspaper storyline introduced the strange speech patterns that became synonymous with the character, with all of Bizarro's comments meaning the opposite (e.g. "bad" means "good"). The newspaper version wore a "B" on his chest, as opposed to Superman's distinctive "S".[3]

[cricharddavies]

I don't know about that, but if memory serves, it DID introduce Mxyztplk.

[kore]

OMG, these are great.

[thanekos]

" There was Ultra.. and of course, I'm not forgetting Luthor..! "

A-heh.

[strejdaking]

Thank you for this.