After Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s Man of Tomorrow ignited comics’ Golden Age, others carried the torch, illuminating Superman’s flight path for the 1950s and beyond. One such man was Robert J. Maxwell (aka Richard Fielding). A pulp writer-turned-producer, Maxwell brought Superman to the air waves in 1940 in a long-running radio program which introduced Jimmy Olsen, green kryptonite, the Superman/Batman team, and other vital Superman elements. The trailblazing Maxwell guided Superman to the silver screen in 1951 in Superman and the Mole Men, and a spin-off television series soon followed, The Adventures of Superman (1952–1958). Both starred husky actor George Reeves as the Man of Steel. Reeves made Superman a household name, and during the 1950s he popped up in everything from Kellogg’s cereal commercials to a fondly remembered episode of I Love Lucy. Another such man was Whitney Ellsworth. A former cartoonist, Ellsworth joined the DC (then National) Comics New York City staff in 1940 and later became the company’s first editorial director. Ellsworth eventually trekked west to Hollywood to work on Maxwell’s Superman TV series. And Mort Weisinger was left behind. Throughout the 1950s, DC editor Weisinger labored, under Ellsworth’s editorial direction, to fine tune a well-oiled Super-“locomotive” that chugged along, adventure after adventure, through comic books, radio, TV, a newspaper strip, and a range of licensed products, with artist Wayne Boring’s beefy rendition of Superman becoming the hero’s signature look. When TV’s Adventures of Superman closed shop in 1957, Ellsworth continued to work in Hollywood, leaving the Superman titles in Weisinger’s hands. And that’s where our story begins. This chapter’s essays, interviews, and special features explore Superman editor Mort Weisinger’s expanding “Superman mythology.”
Wayne Boring’s 1982 recreation of the cover to Superboy #1. TM & © DC Comics. Art courtesy of Heritage Comics.
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