SUPERMAN: CORRECTING MYTHS

The current issue of Roy Thomas’ Alter Ego fanzine, No. 88, publishes several interviews with the surviving relatives of Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, the founder of the comic book company that eventually became DC Comics. Citing letters and other documentation, Douglas Wheeler-Nicholson, son of the Major, has corrected one of the myths about the debut of Superman in Action Comics No. 1, cover-dated June 1938. The myth is that Superman showed up at the last minute just as Action Comics was poised to go to the printer except for the lack of a lead feature. Shelly Mayer, working for Max Gaines at McClure newspaper syndicate, was enthralled with the submission from Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and showed it to Action editor Vince Sullivan, who opined that the kids would love it and then published it in Action’s inaugural issue.

Not so, said Douglas Wheeler-Nicholson. The fact, he says, is that his father, who had been publishing other stories by Siegel and Shuster (Slam Bradley, named by the Major, was one of them), saw the Superman creation in the spring or summer or early fall of 1937 and created Action Comics as the vehicle for showcasing the character. So Superman’s appearance in Action Comics No. 1 was no happy accident: it had been planned for months. Another revelation: Siegel and Shuster signed their Superman contract in December 1937 with Harry Donenfeld, not with Wheeler-Nicholson, because Donenfeld, who was already in mid-plot to take over Wheeler-Nicholson’s company, persuaded the two youths that Wheeler-Nicholson was on his way out. This issue of Alter Ego is brimming with new scraps of information about Wheeler-Nicholson and Superman, including nine never before published daily comic strips introducing Superman, written by Siegel but drawn by Russell Keaton, who, we lately learned, Siegel approached to draw the strip when Shuster began to lose heart in the project after so many failed attempts to sell it.