Superman is one of the most famous and loved superheroes in the world. He’s been around for more than 80 years, appearing in comics, movies, TV shows and many other adaptations. Even if someone has never read a comic they still know who he is because he’s that popular.
He may look like a regular person but his story, his powers and even the way he was created are full of surprising details. Whether you grew up watching him or are just getting to know him now, there’s a lot more to the “Man of Steel” than his cape and strength. In this article we’ll look at 7 lesser-known and interesting facts about Superman that even many fans don’t know.
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Superman was first imagined as a bald, telepathic villain who wanted to rule the world.
Superman wasn’t always created as a hero. At first, Jerry Siegel, a renowned American comic book writer, wrote a story in 1933 where Superman was actually portrayed as a villain. In that story, a mad scientist gives a homeless man special powers and the man becomes evil and tries to take over the world.
Later, Siegel and his friend Joe Shuster changed the idea and turned Superman into a good character with an alien origin, a secret identity, and a cape just like we know him today. According to Joe Shuster, some of Superman’s inspiration came from strong and adventurous heroes like Flash Gordon and Hercules.
They tried for years to get newspapers to publish their comic, but no one agreed. Finally a company that would later become DC Comics told them to turn their idea into a 13-page story for “Action Comics #1”. That comic became extremely valuable and one copy even sold for over $3 million.
2. The rights to Superman were sold for only $130.
Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, the creators of Superman, sold all the rights to their character for just $130 so they didn’t earn any extra money from Superman’s huge success. Even though they worked on the comics and were paid a regular salary, they didn’t get royalties because DC owned everything.
When Siegel asked the company for more money DC told him that they didn’t gain much from Superman and could replace them anytime. In 1947, Shuster and Siegel were fired after they sued DC. Siegel later came back in 1959 but only for a normal salary and without getting credit for creating Superman. He left again in 1965 and filed another lawsuit but that also didn’t work.
In the 1970s when a Superman movie was being made, Siegel publicly spoke out and “put a curse” on the film to pressure the company. This strategy worked, and DC’s parent company finally agreed to give both Siegel and Shuster yearly pensions and credit them again as Superman’s creators. After they died in the 1990s, their families continued fighting legal battles over Superman’s copyright for many years.
3. The United States government halted one Superman comic during World War II.
During World War II, the United States was secretly working on the Manhattan Project which was the creation of the atomic bomb. Because this was top secret, the government was very careful about anything in the media that might accidentally reveal sensitive information. The U.S. even had an Office of Censorship which encouraged newspapers, radio stations, and publishers to self-censor and avoid topics that could help the enemy.
This led to one specific case in 1944 where a Superman comic was temporarily halted. In that story, Lex Luthor was shown building an “Atom Smasher” weapon and officials worried it sounded too similar to real atomic research. Although the comic didn’t reveal any real secrets, the government still asked DC to delay its release. However, this was an isolated situation; there was no widespread banning or censoring of Superman comics as a whole.
4. The actors playing Superman are often said to face the “Superman Curse.”
The “Superman Curse” started because some actors who played Superman faced sad or unlucky events. George Reeves, who played Superman on a TV show in the 1950s, didn’t like the role and felt it hurt his career because people only saw him as Superman. In 1959, he was found dead from what looked like a self-inflicted gunshot.
Another tragedy happened to Christopher Reeve, the famous actor from the Superman movies. In 1995, he had a horse-riding accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. Even the child actor who played baby Superman in the first movie, Lee Quigley, died at the age of 14 after inhaling chemicals from a can.
Besides these cases, some other actors who played Superman didn’t face major health problems but struggled in their careers after leaving the role.
5. Superman is vulnerable to more than Kryptonite
Superman isn’t just weak to Kryptonite, he actually has several weaknesses. Green Kryptonite can seriously hurt or even kill him but other can also stop him.
For example, if he’s kept away from the sun, he loses his powers because the yellow sunlight is what gives him his strength. Magic can also affect him easily, which makes him weak against magical enemies. He can even be controlled mentally, as shown many times in the comics. And different colors of Kryptonite cause different problems for him too.
6. Superman is basically vampire repellent.
Superman may be weak to magic but vampires are actually weak to him. In a 2002 comic, Dracula tries to turn Superman into a vampire. He even manages to bite him (somehow) but the moment he does Dracula bursts into flames.
This is because Superman’s body is filled with energy from the sun and sunlight is the biggest weakness for vampires. So biting Superman is like a vampire taking a mouthful of pure sunlight.
7. A town in Illinois used Superman as a way to attract more visitors.
Superman’s fictional city is called Metropolis and there’s a real town in Illinois with the same name. In 1972, this town decided to call itself Superman’s hometown with support from DC Comics and the government. The local newspaper even changed its name to match Superman’s newspaper.
A Superman theme park was planned but never built. Still, the town celebrates Superman in many ways; police wear Superman badges, there’s a big Superman statue, a museum full of Superman items and a yearly Superman festival.
