Issue 1 - Superheroes (3)

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Issue 1

SHREVEPORT

 Though there has been some debate, most histori-

ans agree that the first American comic book laid

out in panel form was The Adventures of Obadiah

Oldbuck. The book was first published in 1837,

but it wasn’t until 1841 that a version written in

English came about for Britain. And one year later,

it made its debut in America.

 Some have given the book, The Yellow Kid, credit

for being the first American comic book. It much

more resembled the comic books we know today,

and it even coined the term “comic book” as found

on its back cover.

 It wasn’t until 1901 that the first full-color comic

book came out. It was titled The Blackberries.

 As the years passed, and the popularity of comic

books grew, beloved characters such as Little Or-

phan Annie and Mickey Mouse came out with their

own comic books for fans.

 In the early 1930s, comic books introduced heroes

such as The Phantom and Dr. Occult and in 1938,

Detective Comics (a.k.a DC) introduced the first

official superhero—Superman. It is from Super-

man that the term “superhero” was coined and it

paved the way for future superhero comics such as

Batman, Captain America and the Fantastic Four.

The debut of Superman in “Action Comics No. 1”

is so legendary that today it fetches around $3

million.

 The Library of Congress contains the largest col-

lection of comic books known with over 6,000 ti-

tles and 100,000 issues. However, they are still not

open to the public.



Batman

 Artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger were
both in their early 20s when D.C. Comics
asked Kane to come up with a superhero
crimefighter. Kane drew up his character,
Batman, from inspirations such as Zorro, ear-
lier heroes such as the Phantom and the
Shadow and even from Leonardo da Vinci’s
drawings for human flight.

 Adam West from the 1960s Batman television
series purposefully said his lines slowly so that
the camera would focus on him longer. West
was discovered in a Nestle Quick commercial.
When the producers of the TV series wanted a
mixture of drama and good humor they found
it in West. West was offered the role of James
Bond, but had to turn it down because of his
commitment to Batman.

 There isn’t really a Gotham City in the U.S.,
but there is a Gothem City in New Jersey.
Co-creator of Batman, Bill Finger, almost
decided on “Civic City” for Batman’s stomp-
ing ground, but decided the name just didn’t
feel right. So he flipped through a New York
City phone book for inspiration and found the
listing “Gotham Jewelers.”

 Though most unseasoned Batman fans would
hardly recognize the name, Kevin Conroy is
actually the man that has played Batman the
longest. He has been dubbed “The Voice of
Batman” and has played the Dark Knight for
twelve years in seven cartoon series, six video
games and five animated movies.

 There is a small town in Turkey called
Batman. The residents there sued Warner
Brothers for copyright infringement when The
Dark Knight was released, but the case was
quickly dismissed.

 Before the Michael Keaton-version of Batman
came out in 1989, the average American
ranked Batman very low on the comic book
character list. He was even less popular then
Betty Boop and Chicken Little and four times
less popular than the California Raisins.

 Many of the things we automatically associate
with Batman did not make their appearance
until several issues into the series. For exam-
ple, Gotham City was not even mentioned
until issue #48; the bat signal didn’t appear
until issue #60; and the Batcave didn’t appear
until almost a decade after Batman was first
introduced.



Spider-Man

 When Stan Lee first came up with Spiderman,
he broke all the rules as far as superheroes go,
but Lee decided he had nothing to lose. Sales
for the Amazing Fantasy comic books were
plummeting and Lee was informed that the
15th issue would be the last. He decided that
this was the perfect time to introduce a new
kind of superhero—one that wasn’t rich,
wasn’t debonair and one that was a teenager
without being another superhero’s sidekick.
Lee also stated that he wanted a hero that
“would lose as often as he’d win.” From this
came one of the most beloved superheroes of

all time—Spider-Man.

 At first, publishers rejected the idea of Spider-
man, believing both the name and the idea to

be too scary and, therefore, wouldn’t take off.

 To put a twist on the story, the writers of
Spiderman introduced a clone by the name of
Ben Reilly. When it was revealed that the
Spiderman that readers had come to know and
love for the past 20 years was actually a clone
and that the real Spiderman was Ben Reilly,
readers were outraged. The writers immedi-
ately began to backpedal stating that it was all
a hoax, but it was too late. Such an uproar was
made about it that Spiderman comic sales
dropped by 60% and most of the writers lost
their jobs over it. From then on, whenever
anything went wrong in the comic book world,

it was always referred to as a “clone saga.”

 Spiderman has had numerous on-again, off-
again relationships and we’re not talking about
just with the ladies. On several occasions he
has collaborated with Thor, Daredevil, Captain
America and even Ghost Rider, but then
preferred to work alone. He was asked to join
the X-Men but turned down the offer and then
attempted to team up with the likes of the Fan-

tastic Four and the Avengers, but was rejected.

 Fifty-six Spider-Man suits were made for the
2012 film The Amazing Spider Man. One hun-
dred sets of lenses for the suit were also on
hand including those with variegated tints for
nighttime and daytime.

 Hostess ran a series of print ads in the 1970s
with Spider-Man using their pastries to fight
off bad guys. When villains such as the
“Homewrecker” started causing mischief, Spi-
der-Man would simply hurl a fruit pie at them.