Will Eisner credited as playing...
Self - Writer • Artist, 'The Spirit'
- Narrator: In 1938, the first and greatest superhero of them all. Superman! Leaked from the pages of Action Comics #1, into the imaginations of children everywhere.
- Denny O'Neil: Faster than a speeding bullet, more power from locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings at a single bound.
- Narrator: Today, Superman has become a national icon. And that 10-cent comic could sell for over three hundred thousand dollars, but the Man of Steel nearly didn't published, at first. Only two people believed in him, his creators. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.
- Jim Steranko: In 1931, there were two 17 year old kids from Cleveland, Ohio. Who were obsessed with science fiction.
- Narrator: Jerry Siegel wrote the stories. And his pal Joe Shuster Illustrated them, the creations were never sold. Yet these poor Jewish kids dreamed that their sci-fi, fantasies would someday will bring them fame and fortune. In the 1930s, the big new trend in newspapers was the adventure comic strip.
- Michael Chabon: There was quality in the writing, there was quality in the drawing there was just a general air of capital Q quality associated with newspaper comics, that's what Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster wanted for themselves.
- Narrator: Siegel and Shuster zero combined elements of everything they're read, from comic strips to pulp magazines. He would be the last survivor of a dead planet. Rocketed to earth, like a science fiction Moses, with the strength of Hercules, fighting for the common man. Superman.
- Narrator: Many years later, Jerry Siegel wrote about his inspiration he recalled. 'I had crushes on girls who didn't care I existed. So it occurred to me, what if I was really terrific. Jumping over buildings or throwing cars around'. Superman was sent to every newspaper syndicate in the country... They all said no.
- Will Eisner: I wrote back to them and told them this very patronizing letter that they weren't ready for primetime that they should stay in Cleveland for another year until they developed their art style, because the art was quite crude. So much my great editorial judgement.