Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster

Superman had two fathers, Jerome Siegel (born October 17, 1914, in Cleveland) and Joseph Shuster (born July 10, 1914, in Toronto). The two met in 1931 at Cleveland's Glenville High School, after the latter's struggling family had moved to the northern Ohio city. Siegel, a passionate devotee of pulp magazines and an amateur science fiction writer, and Shuster, a nearsighted bodybuilding enthusiast, shared a love of movies and newspaper comic strips. That love inspired them to create their own hero for the funny pages. From the start, however, fate worked against them.

In 1932, Siegel's father suffered a heart attack and died as a result of a robbery that occurred at the family store. The teenager published a short story called "The Reign of the Superman," about a megalomaniacal telepathic villain, in the third issue of his fan magazine Science Fiction: The Advance Guard of Future Civilization (published in 1933 under the pseudonym Herbert S. Fine, with illustrations by Shuster). Shortly thereafter, he spent a sleepless night brainstorming ideas and ran to his friend's home the following morning, where the two created a comic story called "The Superman" and sent it to Consolidated Book Publishing. But Consolidated had already stopped publishing comics. Joe, heartbroken, destroyed all but the cover of their story, while Jerry re-envisioned it as a newspaper strip. Despite their persistent efforts to sell it, no one was interested.

Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson finally gave the boys their big break when he purchased several of their comic book stories for his National Allied Publications in 1935. Siegel and Shuster's career in comics had begun. But in 1936, Wheeler-Nicholson partnered with his distributors Harry Donenfeld (a former pulp magazine producer) and Donenfeld's business manager Jack Liebowitz. The two proceeded to wrestle control of National from the Major. Max Gaines of the McClure Syndicate — via National's associate editor Vin Sullivan — brought Superman to Donenfeld's attention. Encouraged by Sullivan, Donenfeld agreed to publish the story, and Shuster reformatted the strip's art into 13 comic book pages for publication in June 1938's Action Comics #1. Siegel and Shuster were paid $10 for each page and signed a contract granting National all rights to the character. The superhero comic book was born.

Superman proved to be a massive hit, and a flood of imitators followed. The character won his own comic book with June 1939's Superman #1 (also by Siegel and Shuster), as well as, at long last, a newspaper strip on January 16, 1939. Shuster opened an art studio in Cleveland to keep up with the demand for more Superman, while Siegel married his 18-year-old neighbor — and fellow Glenville High School grad — Bella. The two had a son named Michael in 1944. Shuster, meanwhile, bought his family, with whom he still lived, a new home.

Jerry created other comic characters during this time, including the Spectre (introduced in February 1940's More Fun Comics #52). But although the two creators were making a decent living, they'd lost a great deal of merchandise money, while National was netting millions from the character they'd invented. In 1943, Siegel was drafted, and the company began taking control of Superman's production from Shuster, who was always the more acquiescent of the two men. By the time Siegel returned, the company had, without notification, introduced Superboy — an idea he and Shuster had pitched in 1938. In 1947, a lawsuit was filed for $5 million, as well as the rights to Superman and payment for Superboy. But in 1948 the New York Supreme Court upheld the original Superman agreement, though it agreed that compensation was owed for Superboy. Siegel and Shuster agreed to a settlement of $94,000, and National kept the rights to the Boy of Steel. Immediately afterward, the two were fired and lost their...