In 1961, the Superman title had an average monthly circulation of 820,000 — second only to Disney’s Uncle Scrooge, with its 853,928 headcount.
The rich, stingy duck was self-explanatory, but many of those nearly a million Superman readers weren’t entirely clear on who this strange visitor was and how he came to be. His origin was not constantly referred to, neither in 1950s comics nor in The Adventures of Superman TV series.
To introduce the biography, artist Al Plastino provided a nice little five-panel summary of Superman’s typical daily non-journalistic activities — saving: a city bus from plunging into the river, shrugging off a nuclear blast, spying on a jewelry robbery with his X-ray visX-raysmashing Lex Luthor’s giant robot and razi, ng slum dwellings.
Editor Mort Weisinger used this opportunity to summarize the increasingly elaborate Superman lore that had been added to the superhero’s background since 1938—the indestructible baby blankets that became his costume, his dog Krypto, his cousin Supergirl, his foster parents’ general store, his career as Superboy in Smallville, Kryptonite, Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, and Lana Lang.
I was generally aware of Superman’s origin because my grandmother told me what she recalled of it from the 1948 movie serial, in surprisingly vivid detail.
But the issue included a house ad for a related title that would be published the next month — the 25-cent giant Secret Origins. That one included the provenance of the Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, the Martian Manhunter, Green Arrow, the Challengers of the Unknown, and the Superman-Batman team — absolutely irresistible.
I had just turned 7 when my grandfather dutifully took me to the local newsstand in Effingham, IL, to pick up Secret Origins the week it came out.
But it wasn’t there. It had sold out instantly.
I was so crestfallen I burst into tears on the spot, then I was ashamed of myself for having cried. But I rarely remember ever having been more disappointed.
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