My drug of choice during the hellfest that is 2020 has been reading (or re-reading in some cases) Golden Age collected editions.
So yes, I’ve been escaping from one crisis by reading comics created in the lead up and during the Second World War. Probably best not to examine that too far!
Naturally enough, I started at the beginning of all things super heroic with Superman’s earliest adventures in Action Comics. This was courtesy of the lovely Golden Age Omnibus DC put out some years ago.
(If you want to chase it up, it looks like DC has recently reprinted it with a new dust jacket design, check it out at Reed Comics if you’re in the UK: https://www.reedcomics.com/superman-the-golden-age-volume-1-omnibus-hardcover).
There’s a few things I noticed when re-reading Supes’ story in Action Comics #1 (and yes, I probably am the last person to notice these!):
Superman’s costume has lots of little details:
- The big one is the S-shield/chest emblem. On the cover it really is the shape of a shield rather than the simpler shape it becomes later.
- In the story itself, the S-shield changes design to a simple all yellow triangle.
- On Superman’s sleeves, there’s some sort of wrist cuff/design element – check out the image to the right.
- Superman’s boots are blue and merge into his leggings. However, it looks like they have a lot of details on them. Makes me think of something like Greek or Roman sandals.
It’s quite hard to make out these details as there is a lot of shading in the artwork. The dark blue colouring of the costume itself doesn’t help either. It’s fair to say that the costume seemed to have a lot more details going on than the plain version we’re most used to.
We’re straight into the action!
After the origin of Superman story, we’re chucked straight into the action as the main story itself opens almost mid-flow. No explanation of what’s going on, little to no introduction of characters, just straight in and away we go!
Superman doesn’t mess bout!
It’s well known that at the start Superman was a no nonsense kind of guy. Yes, he is a lot less powerful than he became. Still, I wouldn’t want to mess with this guy!
Superman showing his early debating style 
You don’t want to mess with this Superman!
Social Justice Warrior
The above images also neatly demonstrate the tone of a lot of the early stories with Superman sorting out society’s ills – in this case domestic abuse. He also tackled slum housing, child poverty, corrupt officials & politicians and gambling.
It’s a continued story
It took a second reading of this before it dawned on me. This story is directly continued in Actions Comics #2. I was convinced that continued stories just did not happen in the Golden Age. Yet here we are right at the start with one!
Next up…
Let’s take a look at Batman’s first appearance in Detective Comics #27!
