The First Victim in Super-Hero Comics by Nigel Brown

Who was the first-ever crime victim in super-hero comics? by Nigel Brown

Action Comics # 1 (June 1938), the comic book that introduced Superman to the world, begins with an exciting scene: Superman leaps through the night, a woman held under his arm like a parcel. ((Spoiler Alert!)) Superman is racing to the Governor’s estate to stop an innocent girl being executed for the murder this woman has committed.

                                                        [Action Comics #1, June 1938]



Superman succeeds, and… well, we all know the rest: a career lasting, to date, over eighty years.

I wouldn’t like to imagine how many victims of crimes there have been in all the super-hero stories since then, but there had to be a first one: the man murdered by that woman seen in that opening comic book panel. The story in Action Comics # 1 moves on, and we never discover his name.

But it turned out that this Superman story was missing its beginning pages as it first appeared. Siegel and Shuster had originally hoped to sell their ‘Superman’ concept to the newspapers, and had cut up and repasted their ‘Superman’ newspaper strip to fit into the format of the comic book page needed for publication in Action Comics #1.

In truth, this was no disadvantage. The story begins in a gripping way which benefits the introduction of a brand-new concept to readers. No explanation is needed to explain what a ‘Superman’ is: we see him – as the comic title promises – in action!

A year later, after the success of Superman in Action Comics, the publishers – Detective Comics Inc. – decided to capitalise on this by producing a Superman comic to be sold at the New York World’s Fair in the summer of 1939. They simply named the comic book ‘Superman’ (it didn’t even have a #1 on the cover). It debuted in May, 1939.

Given the heavy demand for Superman comic strips (by then featured in the newspapers as well), they used Superman story reprints from Action Comics #1, #2, #3 and #4 to fill this issue. But they did add a new, two-page Superman origin story to replace the rushed one-pager seen in Action Comics #1 the year before.

And they also provided a ‘proper’ beginning to that first Superman story. These extra few pages don’t add to the excitement of the tale, but they do fill in some missing back-story.

[Incidentally – as pointed out by my friend, Superman fan extraordinaire, Richard Morrissey (1954-2001) – there is cross-hatching drawn in the Action Comics #1 panels of the story, as you’d expect for a comic strip produced originally for newspaper publication and printed in black and white. But the cross-hatching is gone in those extra few pages printed in Superman #1. So were these not the original panels of this first Superman story?

Perhaps Joe Shuster re-drew them for comic book publication.]


And in answer to the question: Who’s the first crime-victim in all super-hero comics?

Readers were told this after a year’s wait as the victim was named in these new pages.

                                                        [Superman # 1, Summer 1939]



And remember, Superman #1 was published in 1939, 24 years before this name was – tragically – familiar all around the world.





copyright. Nigel Brown