Episode 1 – A New Wonder: Superman in Action Comics #1

Simon Carver

You’re tuned to KDCR, New York—Distinguished Comics Radio. Good evening, folks, and welcome to our very first broadcast, Tuesday night, January 10th, 1939. I’m your host, Simon Carver, coming to you from a little studio full of wires, coffee cups, and more comic books than my editor would approve of.

Robert Reed

And I’m Robert Reed, glad to be here, Simon. Chicago boy in a New York booth—don’t worry, I left my Cubs pennant at home so your Yankee fans don’t tune out right away.

Simon Carver

You keep that up and we’ll have a whole other show on our hands. Now, for folks just twisting the dial and wondering what they’ve stumbled into, this is Distinguished Comics Radio, where we take those funnybooks your kids are smuggling under the dinner table and treat ’em like real stories for real times.

Robert Reed

Because these are real times, Simon. We’re still living in the New Deal years, everybody trying to get their feet back under ’em. Factories are humming a little louder, but the rent doesn’t pay itself, and folks are watching every nickel.

Simon Carver

That’s right. And while all that’s going on, you look overseas—there’s talk of trouble all over Europe, people wondering if that peace they keep signing papers about is gonna hold. Just this month the British and French are huddling in Paris, trying to figure out how tough to be with the Italians, and our own President Roosevelt, in his State of the Union last week, warned that peace isn’t exactly guaranteed.

Robert Reed

Yeah, you read the papers, you can feel the hourglass running. And here at home, last year we had that big Joe Louis–Max Schmeling rematch. June 22nd, down at Yankee Stadium—Louis flattened him in the first round. That wasn’t just a prizefight, that was a lot of Americans cheering for our champ in a world that suddenly feels like it’s picking sides.

Simon Carver

And then, if that wasn’t enough to raise your blood pressure, just this past October, Orson Welles gets on the radio with that War of the Worlds play, and half the country thinks Martians are setting up shop in New Jersey. People are nervous, people are jumpy, and you can’t really blame ’em.

Robert Reed

Exactly. When the headlines are shouting about dictators and bombings and earthquakes and all the rest, a fella needs a little escape. But here’s the thing—we don’t just wanna duck out of the world, we wanna see it reflected back at us with, I dunno, a little more hope. Maybe even a new kind of hero.

Simon Carver

That’s what this program is about. Once a week, right here on KDCR, we’re gonna crack open these comic books and treat them like what they really are: modern storybooks. We’ll talk about the art, the plots, the wild ideas, and how they fit into this jittery little year called 1939.

Robert Reed

We’re not just gonna say, “Oh, that was a nice punch.” We’re gonna ask, “Why is this guy throwing that punch? Who’s he standing up for?” Stories matter, even when they’re drawn four colors on cheap paper.

Simon Carver

Now, Robert walked into the studio tonight carrying something under his arm like it was the Declaration of Independence. He’s been itching to tell you about it, and I’ve been trying to keep him from blurting it out during the station ID.

Robert Reed

I practically had to sit on my hands. Because, Simon, I think—no, I really think—we’ve just seen the birth of a whole new kind of hero. He showed up last year, back in the spring, in a book called Action Comics. First appeared in that number one issue with a June 1938 cover date.

Simon Carver

So if you’ve seen kids downtown pawing through the newsstand racks, that just might be why. Stick with us after the break; Robert’s going to introduce you to a fella called… well, I’ll let him say it.

Robert Reed

Yeah, I’m not giving away the name before the commercial, Simon. But I’ll say this: he can lift a car, outrun a train, and make you believe maybe the little guy’s got a fighting chance. That’s what we’re talking about tonight.

Simon Carver

Alright, we’re back on KDCR, Distinguished Comics Radio. Robert, you’ve been champing at the bit. What’s this new discovery of yours?

Robert Reed

The book’s called Action Comics, number one. And the star of the first story is a fella named Superman. If you’ve seen the cover, you know why I dragged it in like a trophy. Picture this, folks: big green automobile, maybe a sedan, lifted clean over one man’s head. The ground’s busted up under the tires, pieces of the car flying off—hubcap over here, wheel over there.

Robert Reed

Right under it, there he is: Superman. Blue suit, red trunks, red cape snapping behind him like a flag, red boots planted like he owns the whole street. On his chest, a shield with a great big S in it. Around him, crooks are running for their lives—one poor guy is clutching his head like the whole world just turned upside down. It looks like the kind of thing you’d hear about in one of those tall tales at the corner bar, except it’s right there in ink.

Simon Carver

And that cover is just the invitation. Open it up, and the first thing you get is his… I guess you’d call it his birthright. A distant planet, doomed to destruction. A scientist who sees disaster coming, but nobody listens. So he does the only thing he can do—he puts his infant son in a rocket and sends him off into space.

Robert Reed

Next panel, that rocket’s landing here on Earth. A passing motorist finds the baby inside, takes him to an orphanage. There’s no big drumroll, no parade, just a kid from nowhere in particular, dropped into an ordinary world.

Simon Carver

Only he’s not so ordinary. As he grows up, they find he can do… well, things nobody else can. He can leap an eighth of a mile, hurdle tall buildings, raise tremendous weights, run faster than an express train. Bullets? The captions tell us they bounce right off his skin—nothing short of a bursting shell can penetrate it.

Robert Reed

Right there, the book stops and gives you a kind of scientific explanation. Says that coming from a world with heavier gravity, he’s like an adult among ants here—our buildings, our steel, it all might as well be cardboard to him. It’s a nice touch, like they’re saying, “No, really, we thought this through.”

Simon Carver

Then we jump ahead. The baby’s grown into a man in a blue costume, calling himself Superman. And from the first adventure, he’s not chasing treasure or fame. He’s racing against time to save a woman named Evelyn Curry from the electric chair. She’s about to be executed for a murder she didn’t commit.

Robert Reed

Superman snatches her up, then tracks down the real killer. There’s this great sequence where he crashes into the governor’s estate in the middle of the night, tears through locked doors like they’re paper. The governor’s aide tries to pull a gun, fires, and the bullets just ricochet off Superman’s chest. Superman doesn’t even flinch—he just uses that proof to scare the man into handing over the pardon papers.

Simon Carver

He gets the governor to listen, the phone rings the prison, and Evelyn’s saved at the last second. Then, just like that, Superman’s gone. Next morning, the papers are full of stories about her release and nobody quite knows how it happened.

Robert Reed

Then the story shifts. We meet Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter at the Daily Star. Same man, different suit. He puts on glasses, slouches his shoulders, talks in a soft voice. His editor barks at him, sends him out on stories he figures nobody else wants.

Simon Carver

And that’s where Lois Lane comes in. Clark’s sweet on her, asks her out, and she accepts—mostly out of pity, the way the story tells it. They go to a nightclub, there’s music, dancing… and then a big lug named Butch barges in, cuts in on Lois without asking.

Robert Reed

Clark plays the coward, pretends he’s afraid. You can almost see the act in his eyes. Lois, though, she’s having none of it. She slaps Butch, storms out, takes a taxi. But Butch and his boys pile into their own car and chase her down.

Simon Carver

They grab her, haul her into their car, and tear down the road. That’s when Superman shows up. He’s suddenly in the headlights, cape streaming. The crooks are yelling, “It’s the devil himself!” He chases them, overtakes the car, and then we get the scene from the cover brought to life.

Robert Reed

He plants his feet, lifts that car right over his head. The passengers tumble out in terror, and he smashes the whole thing against a rock. Metal crumples like tinfoil, parts fly everywhere. It’s pure, glorious mayhem—for the right reasons.

Simon Carver

Lois is shaken, but unharmed. Superman tells her to keep quiet about what she’s seen. Next morning, back at the Daily Star, she’s a little cooler toward Clark—still bothered that, as far as she knows, he let Butch push him around.

Robert Reed

And before Clark can patch things up, the editor’s shoving another assignment at him. There’s talk of war brewing down in South America, senators in Washington maybe mixed up in something shady. Clark catches a train to the capital, and Superman starts tugging on those loose threads.

Simon Carver

We see him grab a crooked politician—Senator Barrows—by the collar, drag him up into the night sky, even hop with him along telephone wires way above the city. There’s danger of electrocution, they nearly touch a live wire, but Superman just uses the line like a tightrope.

Robert Reed

He crashes in on war profiteers, scares confessions out of them, and generally makes life miserable for anybody getting rich by steering the country toward conflict. And that’s where the story leaves us: Superman, a physical marvel, but more than that, somebody who’s decided he’s gonna change the destiny of the world instead of just watching it happen.

Simon Carver

Now, for those of you who haven’t managed to track down Action Comics yet, let’s paint this fellow in your mind’s eye. Robert, walk us through how Superman actually looks on the page.

Robert Reed

Alright. Start with the costume. Head to toe blue—shirt and tights—so he looks almost like an acrobat or a circus strongman. Over that, bright red trunks and a yellow belt. On his chest, a yellow shield with a big red S, bold enough you could spot it from the cheap seats. Red boots that look like they were made for stomping through trouble. And then that cape—long, red, billowing behind him in every panel where he’s moving. It makes him look faster, bigger, like he’s cutting through the air even when he’s just leaping.

Simon Carver

And he’s not drawn like some dainty prince. He’s barrel-chested, thick arms, hands like he’s been working a farm or swinging a sledgehammer. The jaw’s square, the hair’s neat with that little curl in front. If you passed him on the street in a regular suit, you’d say, “There goes a solid, working fellow,” not a fancy movie star.

Robert Reed

Which is funny, because that’s exactly what he is as Clark Kent. Same man, but you add the glasses, round his shoulders, make the tie a little crooked, and suddenly everybody in the book treats him like a pushover. That’s a neat little trick—your hero is hiding in plain sight by acting smaller than he really is.

Simon Carver

Compared to what we’ve been seeing in comics through the thirties, it’s a jump. We’ve had funny animals, gag strips, sailors who can toss a battleship if they eat their spinach. We’ve had brave explorers, space adventurers, all that. But they usually live in worlds that feel like fairy tales or far-off planets.

Robert Reed

Right. Those mystery men in the pulps and some of the newspaper strips, they might punch out gangsters, but they’re often rich, or shadowy, or kind of above it all. Superman’s different. They call him “the champion of the oppressed” right there in the text. His first big acts aren’t fighting monsters from Mars—they’re stopping a wrongful execution, scaring a wife-beater half to death, busting up kidnappers, and dragging crooked politicians by the scruff of the neck.

Simon Carver

That’s what struck me. In 1939, we’re all reading about dictators, bombings in foreign cities, politicians making speeches about defense and danger. Roosevelt’s telling Congress we’re in a race to make democracy work. Into that steps this fictional man in a cape who says, “If the law’s too slow, if the big shots are crooked, I’ll shove the scales back where they belong.”

Robert Reed

And because he comes from another world, but was raised here, he’s kind of both outside and inside our troubles. He can pick up a car like it’s a toy, but he takes a job at a newspaper, lives in a city that looks a lot like ours, rides trains, listens in on political speeches. It’s like somebody took all the jitters of this decade and said, “What if one man could just grab them by the collar and say, ‘Cut it out’?”

Simon Carver

Comics have been growing up quietly all through the thirties—more action, more adventure, a little more bite. Superman feels like the moment the volume got turned up. Not just a strongman act, but a point of view: the little people deserve someone on their side.

Robert Reed

And we’re only at the beginning. That first story in Action Comics number one sets the stage, but by the time you get to the next few issues—well, I don’t wanna spoil everything tonight. Let’s just say he keeps poking his nose into places where the powerful would rather he didn’t.

Simon Carver

So here’s our plan, folks. On our next broadcast of Distinguished Comics Radio, we’re going to cover the Superman stories in Action Comics numbers two through seven. We’ll follow where this caped crusader—I almost said “cape-wearing busybody”—takes us next.

Robert Reed

If you wanna read along, see if you can track down those early issues before we’re back on the air, especially the Superman stories in Action Comics number two, number three, and number six. Ask your newsdealer, ask that kid down the block with the stack of comics under his bed—just don’t swipe ’em.

Simon Carver

Please address your letters to distinguished comics radio @ gmail.com. And Leave a review where ever you heard us. We’ll be here to walk through them with you, panel by panel, talk about what they’re saying about crime, war, and the way ordinary folks fit into this fast, nervous world of 1939.

Robert Reed

Until then, this is Robert Reed, saying keep your chin up, keep your eyes on the funny pages, and don’t be afraid to believe in a man who can outrun a train if it helps you sleep a little easier.

Simon Carver

And this is Simon Carver, thanking you for joining us on the very first Distinguished Comics Radio, here on KDCR. New York. Good night, friends—may your troubles stay on the page, and your heroes leap right off it. This is KDCR, signing off.