Episode 32: Superman at the World’s Fair and the War on Quackery

Simon Carver

The short wave hum is crackling through three thousand miles of cold salt spray tonight, friends, but if our carrier wave holds steady on this Tuesday evening, October 14th, 1941, we are reaching you directly from our requisitioned post here in London. The blackout curtains are drawn tight against the damp night air, and the street wardens are walking their rounds. Just five days ago, President Roosevelt asked Congress for immediate authority to arm American merchant ships, declaring that the American flag will not be driven from the seas by foreign threats. And across the continent of Europe, the German armies are battering their way toward the outskirts of Moscow under the first bitter winter snows. Yet, even under these long shadows, my spirits took a grand leap just eight days back when the New York Yankees brought home the World Series, defeating the Brooklyn Dodgers four games to one! Welcome to the thirty second episode of Distinguished Comics Radio. I am Simon Carver, broadcasting from London, and joining us from the KDCR studio in Chicago is my partner, Robert Reed. Robert, I trust the Windy City is holding up its end of the bargain?

Robert Reed

We are humming along like a finely tuned motor, Simon! Though around here folks were pulling for the Dodgers to stretch it out, even if my heart is always out at Wrigley Field. But you can feel that steady industrial rumble everywhere from the rail yards to the stockyards. That clash between tomorrow's shining machines and today's stubborn grit brings us squarely to our opening feature tonight. We are diving into that colossal ninety six page, fifteen cent giant, New York World's Fair Comics 1940. Simon, when you look at that cover, it knocks your hat clean into the creek. Superman, Batman, and Robin all standing together shoulder to shoulder for the very first time on a single comic cover!

Simon Carver

It is, uh, it is truly a landmark image, Robert. There they stand, framed right against the gleaming white obelisk of the Trylon and the giant globe of the Perisphere. That Flushing Meadows fair was designed to celebrate the World of Tomorrow, a grand vision of streamline locomotives, television receivers, and peaceful international cooperation. But by the time this 1940 edition hit the newsstands, several foreign pavilions had already gone dark because their home nations were overrun by war. That cover presents a fascinating tension, the gleaming technological optimism of the fair contrasted with three fictional figures who exist precisely because our world is broken and full of violent men.

Robert Reed

And the story inside, scripted by Jerry Siegel with pencils by Joe Shuster, throws Clark Kent and Lois Lane right into the middle of that exposition! Editor George Taylor calls Clark into his office and tells him to hop an early morning flight out of Metropolis bound for New York to cover the fair. Lois is along for the ride, determined to get what Taylor calls the feminine slant on the exhibits, though she makes no bones about wanting to scoop Clark on the spot.

Simon Carver

The moment they land at LaGuardia Field and take a cab out to the fairgrounds, the narrative pivots from travelogue to high stakes crime. Lois is eager to see the House of Jewels, where the legendary Madras Emerald, just arrived from India, is scheduled to go on display at eight o'clock sharp. While sitting down for a cold drink, Clark spots a familiar rogue at a nearby table: Blackie Sarto, an elusive continental jewel thief whom Clark covered four years earlier on a job in London. Clark uses his super hearing to eavesdrop on Sarto's whispered conference and learns the gang plans to intercept the emerald at Pier 56 before the armored transport car can ever leave the docks!

Robert Reed

Lois pulls her usual fast one, leaving an empty purse on the table to send Clark scurrying back while she shadows Sarto alone. But Sarto is no pushover. He collars her outside the fair gates, shoves her into a red sedan, and carts her off to a riverfront hideout. They bind and gag her to a wooden chair while Sarto and his mugs put on gas masks and head over to the pier. At six thirty sharp, as the leather jewel case is handed over, Sarto's gang rushes the guards, tossing lethal gas bombs that leave the dock workers writhing on the cobblestones!

Simon Carver

The kinetic staging on those pages is breathtaking. Superman leaps from the roof of Pier 56 down to the pavement, watching Sarto's red limousine speed away. Rather than taking flight, Siegel and Shuster have him sprint, giving the crooks a sporting head start! Sarto's speedometer hits eighty miles per hour, yet Superman effortlessly outpaces the car on foot, grabs the rear fender with one hand, and brings the automobile to a dead, screeching halt. When Sarto steps out firing a machine gun, the bullets bounce off Superman's chest like dry peas. Sarto gets desperate and hurls another lethal gas bomb, threatening to poison his own men, but Superman scoops up the unconscious crooks, piles them into their own vehicle, and hoists the entire two ton car above his head, leaping clean over the city rooftops to deposit them at the police station!

Robert Reed

That is what makes Siegel and Shuster's work so darn satisfying. They plant these impossible comic book feats against real, solid concrete landmarks like LaGuardia and Pier 56. Superman does not sit around waiting for warrants or calling squad cars. He uses pure, raw momentum to bulldoze right through criminal conspiracies, scoops Lois out of that locked waterfront room, and delivers the Madras Emerald to the fair committee before the evening crowds disperse.

Simon Carver

That direct, unyielding moral clarity shines even brighter when we turn back to the pages of Action Comics. In issue number twenty six, cover dated July 1940, Jerry and Joe aim their pens at a truly despicable brand of real world villainy: medical quackery. The story opens right inside the Daily Planet offices, where a slick charlatan named Professor Clarence Cobalt storms in, demanding an explanation because the paper rejected his advertisements for the Cobalt Clinic.

Robert Reed

Cobalt claims he can cure infantile paralysis and severe bone malformations with his special pills. The Planet's advertising clerk turns him away flat, pointing out that reputable organizations like President Roosevelt's Infantile Paralysis Fund are doing honest, scientific work, while peddlers selling false hope belong behind bars. Cobalt gets nasty and raises his heavy walking stick to strike the clerk. Clark Kent steps between them, grabs the cane, and snaps the thick wood right in two with his bare hands! It is a rare moment where Clark lets his righteous fury slip through the mild mannered disguise.

Simon Carver

Lois is stunned by the display, wondering if she misjudged Clark's spine. They team up to investigate the clinic, where Clark buys a ten dollar bottle of medicine from a distraught mother named Mrs. Watson, whose son Tommy is crippled. Clark tests the pills and confirms they are nothing but flavored sugar. When Clark returns to confront Cobalt, the doctor's armed partner, Grafton, locks Clark and Lois in an examination room, listening at the wall to see how much the reporters know. Clark realizes they are eavesdropping, so what does he do? He begins delivering an uninterrupted, monotone one hour lecture on the intricacies of astronomy, boring the guards until they walk away in utter disgust!

Robert Reed

That scene gave me a real chuckle! But once the coast is clear, the kid gloves come off. Clark twists the window iron bars, carries Lois across town to safety, and then streaks two hundred miles through a roaring hurricane to fetch Dr. Worthington, a genuine orthopedic surgeon, to save a dying girl named Mary whose chest muscles are collapsing from untreated polio. Superman flies through the gale, dodging uprooted trees and literally punching an airborne, windblown house to splinters to bring the doctor back in time.

Simon Carver

The climax is remarkably tense, Robert. An enraged mob of hundreds of parents and crippled youngsters storms Cobalt's mansion, ready to string up the charlatans from a tree branch. Superman physically steps in, tears down a massive iron gate to hold the crowd at bay, and insists that justice must be handled lawfully. He rounds up Cobalt and Grafton, hauls their heavy office safe down to the street, and announces that the seized illicit cash will be donated directly to President Roosevelt's Infantile Paralysis Fund. It was a powerful civic message to young readers in the summer of 1940.

Robert Reed

And they kept that fiery social crusader momentum rolling straight into Action Comics number twenty seven in August of 1940. That story hits close to home for me, dealing with the exploitation of wayward kids. It starts with Lois actually agreeing to go out on an evening date with Clark! But as Clark arrives at her apartment, Lois is on the telephone making a three dollar contribution to the Brentwood Rehabilitation Home. Clark warns her that rumors say the home is an abusive front, so their quiet evening turns into an undercover inspection.

Simon Carver

The Brentwood Home is run by a slimy couple, Mr. and Mrs. Tweed. On the surface, they show Clark and Lois a tidy model bedroom and a pleasant radio lounge. But the moment the reporters step outside, a terrified runaway named Davey Merrill pleads for help. His hands are terribly lacerated from scaling a high brick wall topped with jagged, broken glass. Davey reveals that the Tweeds force dozens of homeless boys to labor from dawn to midnight in a hidden cellar factory, shipping manufactured goods across state lines while running an abusive phone solicitation racket upstairs.

Robert Reed

Lois sneaks back inside through a cellar door, but the Tweeds catch her and Davey, locking Lois in a barred iron cage and shoving the boy into a cramped storage locker. When Superman arrives, we get some of the wildest physical stunts Joe Shuster ever put to paper. First, Tweed's savage guard dog, Black Satan, leaps at Superman's throat. Superman catches the hound in mid-air, chuckles at its snapped teeth, and gently deposits the animal high in the fork of a tree!

Simon Carver

Then Tweed attacks with a red-hot iron fireplace poker, striking Superman across the neck. Superman smiles, takes the poker, and bites off the glowing, incandescent tip, chewing it up like a piece of peppermint candy! When Tweed pulls a pistol and fires, Superman catches the lead slug in his bare hand. As Tweed fires a second shot, Superman flicks the caught bullet with his thumb and forefinger like a child playing marbles, striking the second bullet out of the air in mid-flight! The level of casual invulnerability here is spectacular.

Robert Reed

The final showdown in the workshop is pure pulp gold. Tweed ties Lois to a table directly beneath a whirling, roaring buzzsaw. Superman dives in, thrusting his open palm right into the teeth of the blade! The steel saw shatters into jagged shrapnel against his skin, completely harmless to him. To wrap up the case, Superman chases the fleeing Tweeds into the freight elevator, grabs the counterweight cables, and thrusts the entire elevator car straight up through the building's roof, flying through the sky to park it directly on the steps of police headquarters. You talk about cutting through red tape!

Simon Carver

That brings us to Action Comics number twenty eight, published in September 1940, where Siegel and Shuster pit Superman against a very different sort of adversary: a boastful circus performer. A masked prowler clad in a leopard skin has been terrorizing Metropolis, bending steering shafts, tearing open bank vaults, and leaving the police completely stymied by his sheer brute muscle. Daily Planet editor George Taylor sends Clark and Lois to investigate the Barnone Daly Circus, which has just arrived in town.

Robert Reed

The prime suspect is the circus strongman, a mountainous fellow named Herculo. When Lois and Clark visit his tent, Herculo boasts that he can lick any ten men with one hand tied behind his back. He grabs Clark's hand in a bone crushing grip, expecting the reporter to squeal, but Clark just plays along and pretends to faint. To lay a trap, Clark buys one hundred circus tickets for local orphaned newsboys, but before handing over the cash, he secretly sprinkles the banknotes with a chemical powder that stains skin bright scarlet on contact.

Simon Carver

During the main show, with the bleachers packed with cheering kids, the ringmaster announces Herculo's open challenge. Superman leaps into the center ring to accept! Herculo tries every underhanded trick in the book, throwing wild hooks and attempting a running head-butt right at the hero's ribs. When Herculo collides with Superman's chest, Shuster draws a massive sound effect across the panel: Bong! Herculo rebounds as if he struck a granite cliff. Superman offers a sportsmanlike handshake, but Herculo tries to squeeze his knuckles, only for Superman to tighten his grip until the strongman drops to his knees, howling for mercy.

Robert Reed

The real twist lands right after the bout. Circus owner Jenkins rushes to the dressing quarters to count the box office receipts and spots the circus clown staring nervously at his own hands. Jenkins demands to see his palms, and sure enough, they are stained bright red from Clark's chemical powder! The clown was the circus's original strongman, replaced by Herculo. He put on the leopard skin to frame Herculo out of bitter professional jealousy. The clown decks Jenkins, runs back into the big top, and hurls the ringmaster off a high platform directly toward a flaming water tank where a high diver is mid plunge!

Simon Carver

Superman springs from the sawdust floor, intercepting both Jenkins and the diver in mid-air above the flames, carrying them down without a single scorch mark on their clothes. It is an extraordinary visual display of acrobatic rescue. And that circus strongman imagery actually leads us directly into a fascinating batch of radio letters we received following our broadcast on Fox Feature Syndicate two weeks ago.

Robert Reed

Oh, boy, the mailbag got plenty heavy on this one, Simon! Several listeners wrote in asking about the Blue Beetle's costume in Mystery Men Comics. Specifically, folks wanted to know why Dan Garret runs around town fighting crime in what looks like a pleated blue skirt! A lot of folks back home thought Victor Fox's artists were losing their marbles, but there is some real practical craft behind that design.

Simon Carver

There certainly is. When Charles Nicholas Wojtkoski and Will Eisner were designing the Blue Beetle's updated look for the Eisner and Iger studio shop back in late 1939, they were drawing direct visual inspiration from Roman gladiators and medieval armor. Dan Garret's outfit is technically a chainmail tunic worn over shorts. But from a shop perspective, that tunic was a stroke of absolute drafting genius. In an assembly line packaging studio where artists like Eisner, Lou Fine, and Jack Kirby had to turn out dozens of completed pages every single week, drawing intricate muscle anatomy and skin tight tights took valuable hours. A loose, pleated chainmail tunic could be blocked out and inked with broad, sweeping brush strokes in three minutes flat, keeping the printing presses rolling without busting the publisher's budget!

Robert Reed

That makes a heap of sense, Simon. When you are sweating over a drafting board at four in the morning to meet Victor Fox's brutal deadlines, a sturdy Roman kilt beats drawing twenty four knee joints every single page!

Simon Carver

Turning from the monthlies to the prestige quarterly shelf, the fall of 1940 gave us Superman number six, a release that marked a major turning point in how National presents their flagship hero. If you pick up this sixty eight page, ten cent quarterly at the newsstand, the very first thing that arrests your gaze is the cover. Drawn by Joe Shuster with inking by Paul Cassidy, it presents Superman standing in a bold, confident pose with hands on his hips, silhouetted against a brilliant white circular disc.

Robert Reed

That pose was directly adapted from a stunning oil painting produced by the great pulp artist H. J. Ward, which publisher Harry Donenfeld hung with great pride right on his office wall in New York. And look at the title lettering across the top! That is the debut of the formalized, three dimensional blockbuster logo designed by Ira Schnapp. It replaces the flatter, rougher lettering of the earliest issues with solid, architectural block letters that leap clean off the pulp paper.

Simon Carver

Inside, the lead feature, Superman 6a, titled Lois Lane, Murder Suspect, shows Jerry Siegel crafting a tight, urban detective mystery. The premise begins with everyday newspaper life. It is a slow, sleepy news morning in Metropolis. Lois complains to Clark that not a single interesting lead has crossed the desk. Determining that an enterprising reporter makes her own headlines, Lois decides to pay a visit to Samuel Norval, an eccentric jewel collector whose private mansion is rumored to be fitted with mechanical traps to guard his fortune.

Robert Reed

Lois walks up to the Norval residence, finds the front door unlocked, and steps inside. Out of nowhere, a hand clamps over her face with a chloroform rag, and she passes out cold. Meanwhile, Clark is down at police headquarters chewing the fat with Sergeant Casey, when an anonymous telephone tip reports trouble at Norval's estate. Clark hitches a ride in Casey's squad car, but just as they turn the corner, Scoop Carter, the loudmouthed star reporter for the Morning Pictorial, swings onto the running board!

Simon Carver

When they arrive at Norval's home, they find the interior divided by a baffling maze of half a dozen spring locked doors. Clark discreetly uses his x-ray vision to identify which door conceals a body, directing Casey inside. Samuel Norval is lying on the rug, shot through the back. Scoop Carter scrambles for the hall telephone, calls in his front page scoop, and then deliberately snaps the telephone wire to stop Clark from wiring the Daily Planet! But Clark's acute hearing catches a faint gasp from behind an adjoining wall. Casey breaks open the door, finding Lois lying dazed on the floor with a handful of Norval's uncut gems planted right inside her purse!

Robert Reed

Casey slaps the bracelets on Lois right then and there for murder and grand larceny. Scoop Carter gloats, but Clark stays cool as a cucumber. Once the squad car pulls away with Lois, Clark dashes into an alley, strips down to the red and blue suit, and leaps after the cruiser. He grabs the rear bumper with both hands, planting his heels into the asphalt until the squad car grinds to a dead halt! Superman flips over the roof, takes Lois out of the car, and leaps into the clouds while the bewildered police fire harmless volleys of lead into his back.

Simon Carver

Superman brings Lois to the roof of the Norval mansion, snaps her steel cuffs like twine, and dives back inside to search for clues. The real killer set a thorough trap: Lois's fingerprints are on the revolver, and a torn piece of her skirt is clasped in the dead man's fingers. Sergeant Casey confronts Superman inside the murder room. Instead of fighting, Superman offers a wager: give him twenty four hours to produce the real killer. Casey names the three men with access to the estate: Norval's two nephews, John and Henry Davis, and Burkley, the architect who drafted the blueprints for Norval's mechanical security traps.

Robert Reed

What follows is an incredible demonstration of cross country investigation. Superman leaps to John Davis's home, finds an airline schedule with a flight to Lakeland underlined, streaks across the sky, and catches up to the twin engine passenger plane cruising at two hundred and fifty miles an hour! Superman rips open the emergency cabin door, calmly walks down the aisle, taps John Davis on the shoulder, and carries him out into thin air. Then he swings down to Henry Davis's apartment, catches Henry trying to hide a stolen diamond necklace, and finally plucks the exhausted architect Burkley off his penthouse balcony, hauling all three back to the crime scene.

Simon Carver

The resolution is brilliant psychological warfare. All three suspects offer flimsy telephone alibis that cannot be verified. Superman ducks into an adjoining parlor, whispers a scheme to Sergeant Casey, and hides an object under his red cape. Casey walks back into the drawing room and loudly declares Burkley under arrest, claiming that a camera hidden inside the parlor mantel clock had snapped a photograph of Burkley pulling the trigger! Burkley panics, draws a revolver from his coat, and confesses that he framed Lois when she accidentally walked in on the robbery. Superman disarms Burkley with a flick of his wrist, revealing to Casey that there never was a hidden camera at all, just a calculated bluff to force the guilty party to reveal his hand.

Robert Reed

The rest of Superman number six is packed to the gills with that same high energy pacing. In story six d, The Rulers of Gateston, Clark and Lois travel to a small neighboring industrial town where an editor named Jim Tirrell was murdered by a protection mob run by Brute Bashby. The syndicate tries to force factory owner Calvin Chalmers to pay ten percent of his revenue. But when Lois discovers that local civic committee leader Morton Twist is the secret boss behind Bashby, Superman pulls a terrifying trick. He forces Twist and Bashby into a car rigged with an explosive trigger on the emergency brake, daring them to set the handbrake until they squeal their confessions to the police chief!

Simon Carver

And in issue six e, Mission to San Caluma, we see international intrigue tied to disaster relief. An earthquake and tornado ravage the South American country of San Caluma, and Clark is assigned to cover the departure of American relief vessels. A crooked opportunist named Mumsen plans to starve the populace into installing him as dictator. During the investigation, a petty hotel burglar slips into Clark's room while Clark is changing into his uniform! The thief discovers Clark is Superman and attempts to extort annual hush money. But as the criminal runs into the hallway to shout the secret identity to the lodgers, he trips at the top of the stairs, tumbling down to his death before he can utter Clark's name!

Robert Reed

Talk about a close shave! But the absolute standout of the backup stories is six g, The Construction Racket. It kicks off with the catastrophic collapse of the brand new Grimes Brothers department store on its grand opening day, killing shoppers and crushing the builder. Clark arrives on the scene and visits Globe Construction, only to find the firm's president strangled and shot at his desk. Clark uses his microscopic vision on the corpse's neck, spotting distinct throttle bruises showing that the killer only has four fingers on his right hand!

Simon Carver

Clark traces that clue to a rival industrialist, Mr. Jackson, whose right hand is missing a finger. Jackson has bribed Mayor Hansen to accept fraudulent materials for the city's massive new Municipal Stadium. On dedication day, thousands of spectators pack the concrete stands. Superman drags Jackson and Mayor Hansen into the observation box to force them to witness their crimes, when suddenly, the entire stadium begins to tremble with sickening groans. Concrete pillars fracture, and steel girders snap like matchsticks!

Robert Reed

Here comes the most harrowing split second choice in early Superman history. Falling roof girders are collapsing right over Lois Lane in the press box, while across the arena, a multi ton balcony section is tumbling directly into the crowded children's section! Lois looks up, sees the impending catastrophe, and shouts across the roar of the crowd: Never mind me, save those children! Superman strains every muscle, holding up the collapsing concrete grandstand until the frightened kids scramble to safety, but when he digs frantically through the rubble of the press box, Lois is pinned beneath twisted steel, barely clinging to life.

Simon Carver

That hospital sequence on page fourteen is astonishingly strange and powerful. The doctors announce that Lois is suffering from massive internal bleeding and will die within minutes without an immediate blood transfusion. But no donor matches her type. Clark slips into the room and offers his own blood. When the nurse attempts to slide the syringe into his forearm, the needle buckles against his skin. Clark surreptitiously uses his own hardened fingernails to tear a slit in his impenetrable flesh, allowing the tube to be inserted. The attending physician is flabbergasted, crying out that Clark's alien blood miraculously conforms to all four human blood groups! The transfusion not only saves Lois's life, but infuses her with vibrant energy, leaving her sitting up in bed within seconds, completely restored.

Robert Reed

You talk about an unforgettable ending! That blend of hard boiled civic crusading, incredible sci-fi concepts, and pulp romance is why these early Siegel and Shuster books are capturing the imagination of millions across the country. And speaking of what lies ahead, Simon, our next standard broadcast is going to plunge back into the murky alleys of Gotham City, covering the historic Batman number four from the winter of 1940!

Simon Carver

Indeed, Robert. And for our listeners tuning in over the short wave bands, our next specialized program is going to tackle an assignment that I suspect will prove exceptionally controversial among the funny pages faithful. We encourage all of our listeners, whether you are listening beside the hearth in Chicago or huddled near a short wave receiver under the dark skies of Europe, to send your letters, comments, and debate points to our transmission desk at distinguishedcomicsradio@gmail.com. That address once again is distinguishedcomicsradio@gmail.com.

Robert Reed

From the KDCR broadcast booth in Chicago, where the winds are whipping off Lake Michigan and the printing presses are roaring into the night, this is Robert Reed signing off. Keep your chin up, keep your powder dry, and stand tall for the red, white, and blue.

Simon Carver

And from London, where the stars still shine bright above the darkened avenues of democracy, this is Simon Carver signing off the thirty second broadcast of Distinguished Comics Radio. Good night to you all, and keep reading.