Jerry Siegel's & Joe Shuster's Science Fiction

By Jerry Siegel

High quality reprint of “the Reign of the Super-man,” the very first “superman” story by Gerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Not a comic book, but a short novel in the style of the pulps, it tells the story of Bill Dunn, a down-of-his-luck man who acquires superpowers through a radical experiment. The story has all the main elements of the superman myth: a bald super-villain, an unknown element coming from space that mutates human beings, telescopic-vision, aliens, and an indomitable quest for absolute power. It was originally published on Science Fiction – The Advance Guard of Future Civilization #3 (Jan. 1933), one of the very first fanzine to be created, which Siegel and Shuster developed with a typewriter and mimeographic machine for printing. Also collected for the first time: “Goober the Mighty”, Siegel’s Tarzan parody, Stiletto Vance the vain detective, and other raw gems the creators of Superman developed for the Torch, the High School newspaper they worked for.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blue Monkey Studio
• Release date: May 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370024230

Book preview

Intro

Story & Art by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster Edited by C. Sesselego, E. Civiletti

Restoration by E. Civiletti

Cover by E. Civiletti, L. Livi

Designed by Emiliano Civiletti

Click to email Licorne Prints

Jerry Siegel’s & Joe Shuster’s Science Fiction - The Advance Guard of Future Civilization - Featuring The Reign of the Super-Man © Licorne Prints (a BMS division)

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Additional art in this book © Blue Monkey Studio

Science Fiction #3 featuring the original tale Reign of the Super-Man is currently in the public domain

All characters TM and ® 2016 by their respective trademark holders. This is an academic work. Additional Golden Age art, ©, ® and TM appear as historical example for scholarly purposes. All rights reserved. Blue Monkey Studio makes no representation of any rights to said ©, ® and TM.

The stories, characters and incidents mentioned in this magazine are entirely fictional. The underlying code used to create this epub is internationally protected by law as a literary work. All artwork, videos and sounds are internationally protected as audiovisual work. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Contents

Credits

Human and Superhuman

The Reign of the Super-Man

The Prehistory of the Super-Man

The Early Works of Jerry Siegel

Professor Sights Stupefying Vision

Renowned Detective Deducts Deductions

Editor Receives Math Puzzle From Author

Attention M

Vance Deserts Crime For Literary Contests

Vance’s Breath-o-scope Solves Mystery Puzzle

‘Izzie Murphy,’ Slithering Sleuth, Solves Thrilling Live Corpse Murder Mystery

Detective Tries Composing

Goober The Mighty Discovers Countless Foes In Wilderness

Untitled Poem 1

Goober, The Mighty, Returns To Page With Breath-Taking Story Of Battle In Jungle

Two Torch Sleuths Murdered, But Only Dead From Neck Up

Untitled Poem 2

Five Men And A Corpse

Lois

Repartee

Bms Books

Human and Superhuman

Anthropologically speaking, the conceptualization of the superhuman comes along human self-perception.

As one perceives his own existential condition, he is also able to mentally project that perception into the definition of its opposite: the superhuman.

The superhuman is, then, the condition that differs from human and that realistically could bring it to its negation and ultimate annihilation…

…Unless, of course, the superhuman becomes the prototype of humanity’s individual aspirations and social gain.

In the wake of the ancient cultures, superhumans are heroes and demigods with supernatural abilities. They do not kill monsters because it is cool, they do so because they make the world at man’s measure, keeping, at the same time, human beings within the rules made by the gods.

In the modern era, the concept of the superhuman is completely overturned. In short, Nietzsche define the Ubermensch (Thus Spoke Zarathustra – 1896) as the sole creator of a new set of values for humanity. He must be able of transcending the ancient concept of god as the moral regulator for human behavior and determine new rules for all. Would he fail, nihilism will prevail.

Nietzsche also states that the Ubermensch is the goal humanity must aspire to. As God is dead, man remains as his own judge and jury, a role he cannot take if he does not reach a superhuman condition.

The concept was so rich that the intellectuals of the beginning of the 20th century quickly took position to promote or criticize the idea of the super-man while writers could not resist to make it their own.

George Bernard Shaw’s play, Man and Superman (1903), depicts a revolutionary man considering himself above human concerns, as he refuses the Victorian morality.

James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) hints at the Ubermensch in its first chapter, while Jack London’s Sea-Wolf (1904), Iron Heel (1908) and Martin Eden (1909) are a criticism to Nietzsche’s superman concept, and promote a Darwinian depiction of exceptionally gifted persons as social drivers of change.

Summarizing, while the western society of the early 20th century was ready to accept characters (and role-models) that re-interpreted the heroes of ancient times, perhaps because they had been part of literature for a long time, or else because they were heroes of a different era, that same society was still deciding if it was ready to accept the more modern concept of the superhuman.

It was difficult to understand if Nietzsche’s Ubermensch was pros or cons