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Inside a tall apartment building with big glass windows, two men are deep in conversation.
Something is up. The first is a slick lobbyist. Black bowler hat, burgundy suit, a tidy mustache.
This is Alex Greer.
He's talking to U .S. Senator Barrows.
More than talking, really — bribing.
Greer wants the senator to support a bill, one that will lead the U .S. to war with Europe.
And Senator Barrows promises the bill will pass and make them both very, very rich. And then a man appears.
He cuts a striking figure, dark hair, bulging muscles.
And he's not dressed for Washington, D .C.
In fact, he is wearing tights and a cape.
And a skin -tight shirt emblazoned with a giant S.
He demands to know who Greer is working for.
When Greer won't say, Superman grabs him by the foot and whisks him out the window and into the air.
all that was in the first ever installment of the story of superman published earlier in 1938 and now in july 1938 the new installment is here this is the superman comic that kids are picking up at newsstands and reading by flashlight in bed or while lounging at the community pool It picks up right where the first installment left off, with Greer and Superman flying through the air.
They hit the sidewalk so hard it breaks into pieces.
And Greer gives in.
His boss is the scheming munitions manufacturer Emil Norvell, who's hellbent on starting a war.
Superman has the information he needs.
He leaves Greer behind, flies to the top of the Washington Monument, and goes in search of Norville.
Superman has only had these two appearances in print, but it's already clear, bad guys aren't safe when he's around.
He is quickly becoming a household name.
Today, the creation of Superman.
How did two friends in Cleveland, Ohio invent an icon?
And how did he slip from their grasp?
October 1929. The stock market has just crashed.
The whole country is on edge.
This is the start of the Great Depression.
But Jerry Siegel has other things on his mind.
It's his first year at Glenville High School, and he urgently, desperately wants to find his place.
Siegel is short, has a lot of energy.
He's the youngest of six kids from a working -class Jewish family.
I say this with all the respect and power that it deserves, but Jerry was a nerd. That's what he was, and I think that was his power too.
That's Brad Ricca, author of Superboys, a book about the invention of Superman.
He told us Jerry Siegel has no interest in sports.
He has a major, but largely unreciprocated, interest in girls.
And more than anything, Jerry, like so many of us, just wants to be seen and understood.
Also, maybe, if he's lucky, he wants to be a little famous.
Glenville High could be his big break, if he plays his cards right.
For so many kids in the 30s, high school was it.
You know, you weren't going to college, so these big high schools kind of became these mini colleges.
They had all these clubs and people dressed up and wore ties and dresses.
Glenville High is one of those mini colleges.
It has dozens of clubs, one of which, in particular, catches Jerry Siegel's eye.
He really liked the newspaper, which was the Glenville Torch. The Torch comes out every week, and Jerry reads every issue.
He wants to be a part of it, and one day, he gets his chance.
The Torch is holding their annual literary contest. contest. The winning story will be printed in the paper.
For Siegel, this is perfect, because more than anything in the world, maybe even more than girls, he loves stories.
Not even the nice stories that you would read in school, but science fiction stories that you would buy in these magazines that he was probably too young to be reading anyway.
anywhere. Jerry submits a story to the Torch, a pulpy sci -fi tale.
And then, every day, for weeks, he opens the paper with bated breath, waiting for the result.
On May 29, 1930, there it is.
His name. His story.
In black and white.
He hadn't actually won the contest, but the Torch liked his story enough to print it anyways.
ways. This is the beginning of Siegel's extremely prolific career at the Glenville Torch. He writes all sorts of things, science fiction, detective stories, humor, even the occasional poem for a girl.
He just took off. And some of it's really student writing, I think is the nice way to put it.
But it's really great, too, because you can see him just finding his voice.
Writing becomes comes Siegel's obsession.
To the extent that his grades suffer, his teachers worry, but he doesn't care.
He's found his calling.
And then one day at school, he finds his creative partner.
He finds Joe Shuster.
Like Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster is short, Jewish, working class, but most importantly, he is also a nerd. Joe really liked science fiction and they became friends.
No one else Siegel knew was into the weird science fiction stories that he was.
Nerddom at this point was still rare.
But now here was Schuster at his high school.
It was like a miracle.
For all they have in common, Schuster is also different from Siegel.
He's shy, almost painfully so, self -conscious, obsessed with power lifting and trying to bulk up.
And so he would send away for these physical fitness courses and would drink raw eggs and like work out all the time.
But it made no difference.
He also isn't into writing.
What Joe Shuster likes is drawing.
He loved cartoons and he drew on everything he could find.
He's good. Everyone thinks so.
He entered a cartoon contest and it went on the front page of The Torch. And Siegel sees an opportunity.
Here's this friend of mine who's drawing and it's really good and people like it.
Maybe we should collaborate.
They start with short stories, genre fiction with eye -popping illustrations.
First for The Torch, then as submissions for the science fiction and detective magazines that they're both into.
They're always rejected, which is frustrating, but they love the work.
In 1932, when Jerry is 17, tragedy strikes the Siegel family.
One evening in June, Jerry's father is ending his day at work.
He worked in a secondhand clothing store and closing up one night, two or three men walk in, they try and steal a suit of clothes.
It's raining, storming, really.
And Jerry's father is frightened.
He thinks there might be a gun.
Still, he tries to stop them.
But he can't because he falls over dead of a heart attack.
Jerry Siegel doesn't talk much about his father's death, to Joe Shuster or anyone else.
Instead, he writes, and writes, and writes.
His mother hears his typewriter clacking late into the night.
Seagull's passion is hardening into real ambition.
He's now the last man in his household.
He wants to become a serious professional.
He just needs a great idea.
And then, one summer night, he has one.
The story of Superman's creation is legend.
Myth, really. Jerry Siegel always tells it like this.
It's a hot night and he can't sleep.
He's tossing and turning in his bed.
And then, he has an epiphany.
There's Superman, all of a sudden.
Superman appears to him as if in a vision.
in. He writes all night.
At dawn, he runs to Joe's house.
Joe opens the door, bleary -eyed.
Jerry is so excited he can barely get the words out.
But when he finally does, Joe gets it.
He starts drawing right there on a paper tacked to a breadboard in his mother's kitchen.
Superman is born. Maybe it really happened exactly like this.
Or maybe it didn't.
We do know that Siegel and Schuster start refining the story of this super strong hero who can run fast and lift things and get bad guys, but who lives life as if he's a normal person.
The journalist Clark Kent.
They draw elements from their environment.
Tights from the powerlifters Schuster loved.
Super speed from Cleveland legend Jesse Owens.
Hair seemingly plucked from the head of a local football hero.
and then of course there's the death of jerry's dad woven into the story superman gives jerry the chance to change the ending in this world if the bad guys show up at the second hand store on stormy night they won't get away with it superman will be there this was not a story to be made just just for money, just to be famous, just to impress girls, this was autobiography.
And if it's autobiography, if you're trying to make a statement about the world through this medium, then it's art." Segal and Schuster know that they have something here, so they send it out to all the magazines they love.
And they're rejected, over and over again.
Something is missing.
They need a girl, a love interest. They need Lois Lane.
And very soon, they'll meet her in real life.
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Hey, I'm Ben Stiller.
And I'm Adam Scott.
And we host a podcast called The Severance Podcast, where we used to break down every episode of the TV show Severance.
Severance isn't back just yet, but the podcast is.
Each week, we'll discuss the movies, TV shows, and ideas that influenced the making of Severance.
We're going to talk to the incredible artists who inspire us to do what we do.
The Severance Podcast returns Thursday, June 26.
Follow and listen everywhere you get your podcasts.
guests. If you went on a road trip and you didn't stop for a Big Mac or drop a crispy fry between the car seats or use your McDonald's bag as a placemat, then that wasn't a road trip.
It was just a really long drive at Participating McDonald's.
Across town from Joe and Jerry, on the west side of Cleveland, there lives a girl named Yolan Kovach. Her family life isn't great, And like Jerry and Joe, she's ambitious.
She really wants to get out of Cleveland.
She really wants to make something of herself.
So Kovach makes a plan.
She puts an ad in The Plain Dealer to be a model.
And she puts it in for one day.
In that one day, she gets a lot of responses.
Requests for dates, a few marriage proposals, some truly filthy letters.
But one note stands out.
It's from a Mr. Schuster asking her to model for his drawings.
Kovach likes cartoons.
Mr. Schuster seems nice.
And Kovach has the rashness of a teenager.
So a few weeks later, she finds herself across town knocking at Mr. Schuster's front door.
And she was freezing cold and she's all bundled up and she's totally thinking, I should not be here.
And Joe answers the door, and he's this kid.
And she's like, can I talk to Joe Schuster?
Joe pauses for a moment, blushing.
And he's like, I am Joe Schuster.
And she knew it was going to be fine.
Schuster draws Kovacs for hours under his mother's supervision.
And when he's done, there she is.
Lois Lane. She shows up in all the comics and looks exactly like those first drawings.
strings, Kovacs and Schuster actually end up dating for a while.
But pretty soon she does what she's always set out to do.
She leaves Cleveland.
She becomes a model in New York and steps out of Joe and Jerry's life.
For the moment, at least. In 1935, after years of submissions and rejections, 20 year old Siegel and Schuster finally get their big break.
— they're actually hired to write comics!
It's not Superman and they aren't paid much. But it's finally happened.
They are officially comic book professionals!
They thought they were the big time, you know, they were getting checks, and hey ma, you know, look, I'm a comics artist now.
But even as Siegel and Shuster settle into their grownup job, they never give up on Superman.
man. They submit him to newspapers and magazines for seven years.
And over and over, they're rejected.
Rejection letters that are so bad.
They're like, this art is immature.
Have you considered being a plumber?
But they don't change anything because they know it's good.
And then one Monday in January, they get a letter.
her. There's been a shakeup behind the scenes at the company they work for.
That company, called National, it wants to publish Superman.
This is another part of the story that's steeped in myth and legend.
So there's like so many stories about how it gets discovered.
And the reality is we don't know why.
Some say it was luck that Superman just just finally gets noticed in the slush pile.
Brad Ricka thinks it was a calculated play by that company, National.
It had just lost the rights to the Lone Ranger.
Maybe you know him, a fictional masked ranger who caught outlaws in the Wild West. He was what we would call today a transmedia property.
You could make money on the Lone Ranger in radio, They were looking for a replacement, something that could be bigger than comics.
And they saw that in Superman.
But Siegel and Schuster, they're not thinking about franchising.
They're just excited.
This is the moment they've been waiting for for seven years.
And when the contract arrives from National, they sign it.
Just like that. And then they realize they've made a big mistake.
Siegel and Schuster's contract with National is now infamous.
They were paid $10 a page for $130.
Not only that, the contract includes this.
This is the non -legal version, but you will relinquish the rights.
You walk away and you own nothing.
National owns Superman.
Not Jerry and Joe. So the big question is, did they know that was going to happen?
I think they didn't know, which makes it in some ways kind of more difficult to digest. What we know for sure is that within weeks of Superman's publication, Siegel and Schuster try to get the rights back.
But it's too late. It was a contract, and a contract is a contract is a contract.
trick after almost a decade superman is finally flying out into the world but he's no longer siegel and schuster's he belongs to national the first issue of superman comes out in action comics one on april 18th 1938 and there's other stories in there about like cowboys and you name it but there's only one superhero, and Superman's on the cover.
That cover is iconic.
Schuster draws Superman lifting up a mangled green car.
All around him are grown men running away, terrified.
When the comic hits the stands, it's a sensation, a runaway hit.
Nobody has ever seen a superhero in a cape and tights before, and kids buy it in droves.
So National doubles down.
out. They want as much Superman as Siegel and Schuster can give them.
Siegel and Schuster are still furious with the company, but even though they sold the rights for a pittance, they are making decent money to write and draw new issues of the comic.
And they do love working on Superman, seeing their childhood dream fulfilled.
So they roll up their sleeves and crank out issue after issue.
They get office space.
They hire more artists.
They had their little workshop going, and it seems like really awesome.
They bought new houses and they moved to newer suburbs.
Jerry got married. Joe bought a car.
And they were what I call Cleveland famous, where they were famous in Cleveland, but nowhere else.
Siegel and Schuster are thriving.
But then, one December morning, thousands of miles away, Japanese fighter planes appear in the skies over Oahu.
Bombs start dropping.
Japan attacks Pearl Harbor.
Thousands die, and everything changes.
Pearl Harbor changes everything for everyone living in the country, so of course it changes their lives.
And it definitely changes Superman's life, too.
SIEGEL AND SCHUSTER SIGN UP TO ENLIST. JOE IS REJECTED FROM THE ARMY , BUT JERRY IS DRAFTED – SENT TO HONOLULU.
AND SUPERMAN… Superman continues, but it's not really continuing with them as much. SUPERMAN NOW HAS A LIFE OF HIS OWN, A TEAM OF WRITERS AND ILLUSTRATORS WHO CAN CONJURE HIM UP WITHOUT SIEGEL AND SCHUSTER.
The further Jerry gets from Superman, the more it hurts.
And then he sees something that really gets him.
A new comic from National, Super Boy.
It was the adventures of Superman as a boy.
He had pitched it years ago.
National had rejected it, but now they're putting it out.
And they didn't ask him.
They didn't ask his permission.
Even worse, the artist is Joe Schuster.
He'd gone ahead and done it without telling Jerry.
And Jerry feels betrayed.
It caused like a real rift there.
In 1945, the war ends.
Jerry Siegel returns to Cleveland.
But everything's different, like it was for everybody.
Siegel tries to step back into his old life, but he can't quite.
White. His marriage starts to fall apart.
Within a few years, he'll get divorced.
Meanwhile, superheroes are bigger than ever.
There are comic books, but also radio plays, cartoons shown in movie theaters.
None of this would exist without him, but Jerry is on the outside.
He and Joe have been patching things up, and in April of 1947, they team up against against National.
They sued for $5 million and the rights to Superman and Superboy.
After weeks in court, the ruling comes down.
Segal and Schuster are awarded the rights to Superboy.
A contract is a contract.
It's Superman they wanted, but he belongs to National.
And they were told by the courts, they were told by their lawyers, you know, there's nothing you can do.
And then another blow.
When they sued for the rights, they were both fired.
And that's like kind of the beginning of the kind of lost time for them.
About six months later, in the spring of 1948, Jerry Siegel finds himself in New York at the Waldorf Astoria.
attending the Cartoonists Ball.
Very famous. It's a masquerade ball, like a costume ball.
It's a very festive event.
There are rumors that Marlon Brando is going to appear to judge the costume contest. But Siegel is feeling down.
He and Schuster have been trying to get back on their feet.
They tried to get the band back together and make a comic named Funny Man, which was like a kind of comedian, I don't know.
I can't get into Funny Man, but I've tried, but it didn't work.
Yeah, Funny Man wears a kind of clownish outfit and catches criminals with juggling pins or an exploding cigar.
He really isn't going anywhere.
And to make things worse, Superman is more popular than ever.
However, Columbia has just announced a 15 -part movie serial.
Movies that Siegel and Schuster won't play a part in and won't get paid a dime for.
Then, a finger on his shoulder, he snaps out of his reverie and turns around.
There, in a ball gown, looking like a movie star, is Yolon Kovach. Lois Lane.
Only now she's going by Joanne Carter.
Carter. Carter isn't here by accident.
Joe brought her. They dated in high school, remember, and had never fully lost touch. But now she's smiling at Jerry, and that's it.
She comes with Joe and leaves with Jerry.
Jerry and Joanne date and then marry, and Jerry and Joe Schuster drift apart.
part. Maybe it's romantic betrayal.
Maybe it's all the stress over Superman.
Maybe it's something else.
But for a while, they aren't really friends.
And then things go from bad to worse.
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For the next 20 years, years.
Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster live in relative obscurity.
They both try to make it in comics, but eventually they both have to get other jobs.
Jerry moves to California in the late 60s and works at the California Utilities Commission.
Joe works as a cashier and a stock boy in New York.
They're barely making ends meet.
It's a dark time. And then Yolong Kovach, a .k .a.
Joanne Carter, now Joanne Siegel, also a .k .a.
the inspiration for Lois Lane.
She does something very, very Lois Lane -like.
When they're, like, kind of giving up, she does not give up.
Instead, she picks up the phone.
And she calls D .C. National is D .C.
Comics now. And Joanne asks them, point blank, how it would look if the creator of Superman died of starvation.
Her bluntness seems to get the job done.
A few weeks later, a man shows up at the seagull house and hands Joanne a check for $50.
So she calls again.
Soon, the seagulls are getting $100 a week.
Joanne feels like she's really figured something out.
So once again, she picks up the phone.
This time she calls Joe and tells him to get on the phone with DC himself, to fight for his money.
Somehow, in that moment, it's like no time has passed at all.
The three of them, they're friends again.
They're in this together.
What the seagulls and Schuster don't know is that DC has a movie in the works, A big one.
So they don't want any bad press right now from Superman's creators.
The film is announced in 1978 in Variety.
It's going to star Marlon Brando.
And Jerry Siegel is working as a file clerk.
You know, just living paycheck to paycheck.
And he reads that. And then it says what Marlon Brando is going to be paid.
And it is a lot of money.
And Jerry loses his mind.
Brando is set to make more than $3 .7 million to play Superman's father.
Siegel decides to do what he does best. He sits down, and he writes.
Not a comic this time.
A press release. Sort of a press release slash curse.
Here's what he says.
Why am I putting this curse on a movie based on my creation, Superman?
Superman? Because cartoonist Joe Schuster and I, who co -originated Superman together, will not get one cent from the Superman supermovie deal.
Jerry sends this letter to every news outlet he can think of.
One picks it up. And then another.
And then it's everywhere.
It catches the attention of someone important.
Another comic book artist, named Neil Adams. famous for his depictions of Batman and the Green Lantern.
Neil Adams, who was the biggest comic book artist at the time, an all -time great, heard this story and said, we're going to have a press conference.
Siegel and Schuster give their permission, and Adams shares their story.
Two great artists getting nothing from their creation, while DC gets rich. This is the 70s, and this is the era of inflation and evil corporations and Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster all of a sudden are the poster boys for the fight against that.
Siegel and Shuster get booked on talk shows on late night.
People love their story.
And the public pressure on DC starts to build which is lucky for Siegel and Shuster because they've already lost this fight in court.
They have no legal leg to stand on.
There's no reason for Warner Brothers, who owns DC, to give them money.
But they have to because the public outcry is so great.
Neil Adams ends up on the phone with DC and they start negotiating.
And they finally get a deal where they're going to get a stipend, they're going to get health insurance, they're going to pay to help Joe's eyes.
But Adams isn't done.
He said, I want one more thing.
The Superman movie comes out in December 1978.
It stars Brando, Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, and Gene Hackman.
When it begins, it says, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.
This was Adam's surprise.
He was the one who made sure that that would be on every property going forward. After decades of fighting, Siegel and Shuster are getting paid and they're getting credit for what they created.
old wounds die hard and this doesn't fix everything they were still like who they were jerry would see a superman movie and like oh that's great you know but i could write you know a better one still in their later years they seem happy they're surrounded by friends and family they lived right around the corner from each other just like they did when they were kids Joe Shuster dies in 1992.
Jerry Siegel follows four years later.
Then Joanne Siegel in 2011.
After their deaths, their families keep on fighting for ownership of Superman.
Because Superman is still famous.
He still means something.
thing. Born out of pain and chaos, the Depression, Siegel's father's death, World War II, high school, Superman offers hope.
Hope that we can be saved, that good will triumph, and that someday we'll get the chance to be like Clark Kent, taking off his glasses and putting on his cape.
We'll finally be seen for who we really are, not who we appear to be.
Thanks for listening to History This Week, a Back Pocket Studios production in partnership with the History Channel.
To stay updated on all things History This Week, sign up at historythisweekpodcast .com.
And if you have any thoughts or questions, send us an email at historythisweekathistory .com.
Special thanks to our guest, Brad Ricca, author of Superboys, The Amazing Adventures of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the Creators of Superman.
His newest book is Lincoln's Ghost. This episode was produced by Catherine Isaac.
It was sound designed by Dan Rosato and also produced by me, Sally Helm.
For Back Pocket Studios, our executive producer is Ben Dickstein.
From the History Channel, our executive producers are Eli Lehrer and Liv Bidler.
Don't forget to follow, rate, and review History This Week wherever you get your podcasts.
And we'll see you next week.
We'll be right back.
