Superman Debuts in Action Comics

On April 18, 1938, the comic book company that later became DC Comics released Action Comics number 1 with a June 1938 cover date, offering a collection of illustrated stories for ten cents. The company had already established commercial success with Detective Comics and sought a new title to expand its reach. Editor Vin Sullivan worked under severe schedule constraints, gathering preexisting stockpile features and unused submissions to assemble the debut publication. Seeking an exciting lead attraction, Sullivan consulted former colleague Sheldon Mayer, who located a rejected comic strip proposal that transformed into the opening installment.

The strip was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, who had begun experimenting with the concept years earlier in Cleveland. In January 1933, Siegel had written a prose tale titled The Reign of the Superman for a self-published science fiction magazine, featuring a bald antagonist equipped with mental powers. Siegel subsequently reimagined the figure as a champion from a sophisticated extraterrestrial civilisation and worked with Shuster to draft newspaper comic strips. Syndicates repeatedly rejected their submissions until Sullivan offered to buy their material on the condition that they reformat the strips into thirteen standard comic book pages.