A work · 1938 · Press
The first superhero
A character who cannot die, printed in a newspaper, read by a generation of children on the same day.
The first parasocial figure with an explicit immortality guarantee, which is the trade being made: I will never get over this, and I will never have to find out. Nobody has ever been made this offer in a relationship.
Application. One-sided attachment put to work on purpose. Creator economies, community, fandom as infrastructure, and the things that genuinely help people. Not automatically good - a tool with an obvious use is a tool that will also get a bad one.
Where it sits
1900 1900-1949 · 1938 1949
Provenance · 3 source record(s)
- retrievableSuperman's first comic-book appearance was 1938; newspapers in early 1939, radio February 1940EBSCO Research Starters, Film Serials (chronology of the character's media appearances). ↗
- retrievableRepublic Pictures negotiated with Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster for a serial, and went to another hero when they demanded script control - creators versus commercial terms, earlyEBSCO Research Starters, Film Serials. ↗
- retrievableThe genre that made the character worked on television, not film: Columbia's 1948 Superman used cartoon animation for flight because effects were unaffordableFilm International, 'A World of Constant Peril: Seriality, Narrative and Closure' (2014). ↗
CHARACTER The written character
Connected · 3 out, 6 in
The comic stripcame after · 1897 · A workThe actor and the charactercites · 2008 · An event or momentThe Macy's counterof the same time as · 1955 · A personThe holiday specialcites · 1978 · A workNine to twelve million heard itof the same time as · 1938 · An event or momentFrom two undelivered reels to a lunchboxcame before · 1928 · A workThe comic stripdepicts · 1897 · A workThe actor and the characterdepicts · 2008 · An event or momentNineteen years of the version they were showncame before · 1933 · A work
It sits in