Guide to Pre-Crisis Superman (1939) - Golden, Silver, & Bronze Age

As I continue my celebration of seven years of my Guide to DC Comics, it’s time to tackle yet another title for DC’s biggest hero in a guide debuting exclusively to Pledgeonaut Patrons of Crushing Krisis. This was the first true solo superhero book – and, it published continuously through WWII and even the early-50s dark ages of comics! That’s right, it’s a Guide to Pre-Crisis Superman (1939) – The Golden, Silver, & Bronze Ages!

Guide to Pre-Crisis Superman (1939) – The Golden, Silver, & Bronze Ages

Working on my Guide to Pre-Crisis Action Comics last month taught me a lot about the timeline of early DC Comics.

DC began 1939 having just figured out how much of a sales phenomenon Superman really was after his 1938 debut in Action Comics. Even as they debuted a new iconic hero in the pages of Detective Comics in March (Batman!), they were preparing to launch Superman into his own quarterly title just two months later – hitting the shelves in time for the summer of 1939.

Superman (1939) is significant as the first true solo superhero title in American comics. It’s also notable because it was always all-Superman from the start. While it would occasionally feature a page or two of comic strips, it never had non-Superman back-up stories or featured other pulp heroes. Superman was popular enough right from the start that he could headline Action Comics (1938) as well as his own title – albeit on a quarterly basis.

Two things struck me as especially interesting about Pre-Crisis Superman as I researched this guide.

First, it’s incredibly under-collected. DC still has a slew of Golden Age omnibus volumes to get through to complete their coverage of this title through issue #121. They’ve only released a single Silver Age omnibus so far. And, there is only one Bronze Age collection of sequential issues from this title!

That makes this one of the most under-collected Big Two guides I’ve worked on in quite some time. Pre-Crisis Action Comics was much more well-collected than this title.

Second, I learned how the development of Earth-One Superman – the Silver Age version of the character – is distinct from other Earth-One heroes.

In the case of Earth-One Superman, his origins began at the close of 1944 with the debut of Superboy. Superboy was written as though he was the canonical youthful version of the adult Clark Kent, but the adult Clark Kent we knew in the Golden Age had never been Superboy!

That sort of thing didn’t matter to much in the 1940s, when comics had extremely limited ongoing continuity between them. Remember, they were all sold off the newsstand and were generally considered to be as disposable as a magazine – there was no Direct Market to supply back issues.

However, as the 1950s brought more editorial consistency to Superman, it became clear that his origins would need to be revised to incorporate his exploits as Superboy. Thus, Earth-One Superman is a Superman who had been Superboy.

Even if DC treats Superman (1939) #122 as the start of the Silver Age, Earth-One Superman had appeared many times before then… anytime Superman acknowledged his past as Superboy! That not only includes distinct references to Superboy, but also the use of elements of Superboy continuity (including Lana Lang, who originally debuted in a Superboy comic).

Once established, the Earth-One version of Superman continued to star in every issue of Superman (1939) from the late 1950s through 1986 – when Crisis on Infinite Earths (and John Byrne) altered his origin once ago. This volume was renamed to The Adventures of Superman (1987) and continued its numbering, now starring the Post-Crisis version of the character.

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