13 Freaky Facts You May Not Know About Comics And Their Creators

12. Superheroes Might Never Have Existed If The 1st Comic Hadn't Bombed!

The Superman character was repeatedly rejected as both a comic book feature and a newspaper comic strip. During their years of rejection, writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster honed their skills, and continued to modify and refine the character until he became pretty much the superhero we know today. National Comics (now DC) finally accepted the character and ran Superman as the lead story in Action Comics #1. He even made the cover. National owned its own distribution company, guaranteeing that readers everywhere got a chance to see Action #1 with its highly original concept of the costumed "superhero." The comic sold extremely well, and inspired a plethora of super-powered people. Other publishers flooded the market with brightly clad capes, cowls and corsets. Superman was the match that lit the fuse that ignited the explosive popularity of comic books. Although "funny books" had been around for years, publishers had never before seen the medium's full potential and marketability. The Golden Age of Comics began with Superman's 1938 appearance, ensuring that 8 decades later, we'd still be reading comics, and especially featuring superheroes. But things could have turned out drastically different. Superman was actually accepted for publication in 1933, by Humor Publishing Company. Joe and Jerry had arrived - or so they thought! Humor also agreed to publish another Siegel and Shuster character, Detective Dan, in what was to be the first comic featuring both new and reprint material. But Humor suffered from poor distribution and, in 1933, comics hadn't yet found an audience, so the publisher's new comic lost money. Humor decided to give up on comics, and backed out of publishing "The Superman"! Joe and Jerry were back to square one, trying to find a home for the character. After a few more rejections they also went back to the drawing board. But imagine if Superman had appeared five years earlier, in his more primitive form; before Joe and Jerry had polished their work; in a medium still without an audience; released by a company with poor distribution (and which cancelled their first comic after the poor performance of a single issue). Would Superman have succeeded - or been quickly cancelled? Started a trend ... or faded into oblivion? If Humor's first comic hadn't bombed, it's possible there'd be no superheroes as we now know them; probably no Golden Age, either. All speculation, of course, unless we can locate a time machine.