06/10/2026
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman!
This is a 1987 VHS tape release of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Superman was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster. The two met in 1932 while attending Glenville High School in Cleveland and bonded over their love for fiction. Siegel self-published science fiction stories in a magazine called Science Fiction: The Advance Guard of Future Civilization. Shuster often provided illustrations for his comics. They shifted to making comic strips, and showed their work to several newspaper distributors, but the two were met with rejection, publishers urged them to create something which was more sensational than anything already on the market. Hearing their advice, Siegel created Superman; a man given supernatural strength and bullet proof skin against his will by an evil scientist (his origin story changed in 1933: he became a “scientist-adventruer” from the far future when humanity has naturally evolved “superpowers.” The story further evolved in 1934: in the distant future, when Earth is on the verge of exploding, the last man surviving sends his three year old son back in time to the year 1935. The time machine is discovered on a road by Sam and Molly Kent who adopt the young boy, but his parents and the adoption staff notice he has unusual capabilities such as superhuman strength and impenetrable skin.)
After their Superman got rejected by Consolidated Book Publishers, Siegel assumed the root of their consistent rejection was due to Siegel and Shuster being young and unknown, so Siegel began searching for a different artist. After finding out what Siegel was doing, Shuster burned the rejected Superman Comic. They continued to collaborate on other projects, but it was fair to say Shuster was through with Superman (for now). Siegel would attempt to publish his work with the help of two other illustrators between 1933-35: first Leo O’Mealia then Russell Keaton, however, these were rejected as well. Eventually Siegel and Shuster reunited, and the story of Superman was finalized: he was now an alien from the planet Krypton. They eventually found work, although their desperation led them to establish some unfavourable deals with publishers. The duo’s revised version of Superman appeared in the first issue of Action Comics, published on April 18, 1938, which was a huge success!
