The first supervillain naturally faced off against the first superhero, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. In the thirteenth issue of Action Comics, with a publication date of June 1939, Superman met:
the Ultra-Humanite!
Until then, Superman had been battling natural disasters, economic injustice, and human evildoers who couldn't possibly match his strength. His antagonists in his first year included a wife beater, kidnappers, warmongering munitions dealers and their lobbyists, the owner of an unsafe mine, a hit-and-run driver, gamblers trying to fix a college football game, crooked stock brokers, and a fraudulent licensor of the valuable Superman trademark.
The Ultra-Humanite looked like he could be a real threat. Like Superman, he represented a further stage in human development. But while Superman was physically superior, this villain was physically debilitated--confined to a wheelchair, his hair sparse and white. The Ultra-Humanite claimed intellectual superiority to the rest of humanity. And while Superman was waging a "one-man battle against the forces of evil and oppression," the Ultra-Humanite was out for power.
Yet I can't help but note that Superman tracked down the Ultra-Humanite through a racket called the "Cab Protection League." Was this ultra-genius really expecting to achieve "DOMINATION OF THE WORLD" by forcing one city's independent taxi owners into an association? I imagine him skulking in his lair, boasting to himself:
"Why, soon I'll be taking in $300 or even $400 a week! At that rate, how long could it be before I can finance my death-ray construction plans?
"Let's see...multiply by 52 weeks, carry the 2,...
"That can't be right. I'm an evil genius. Let me do this again...."
Yes, supervillains have come a long way since then! The NPR radio show On Point had a show this week about comic books of the 1940s and 50s, featuring David Hajdu, author of "The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America." It was interesting to hear how comics were more popular than TV or movies back then, until censors started cracking down.
ReplyDelete- John