Superman #1

Dates

Cover date

[Summer 1939]

On sale

May 18, 1939

Pages

68

Editions and covers

• Original edition

  Source ↗

Creators

Stories

• Two Page Origin of Superman · 2 pages

  A rocketship, carrying an infant, rockets from the planet Krypton as it blows up, and lands on the Earth where a couple named the Kents find the baby inside the rocket and eventually adopt him. This infant boy grows up to be Superman.

• Clark Kent Gets a Job · 4 pages

  Clark Kent applies for a job at the Daily Star, but is turned down until Superman stops a lynching and Clark phones in the story. Then Superman gets singer Bea Carroll to confess to the murder of Jack Kennedy.

• The Coming of Superman · 11.67 pages

  Superman breaks into the Governor's mansion to stop the execution of Evelyn Curry, and Lois is kidnapped by gangsters, no thanks to that spineless milksop, Clark Kent, but is rescued by Superman! In his next assignment, Superman tackles a corrupt Senator in Washington.

• Revolution in San Monte · 12.67 pages

  Clark Kent and Lois Lane board the steamship Baronta, bound for San Monte in South America to cover the war brewing. He and Norvell join the San Monte Army so that the Man of Tomorrow can prove the war is being fomented by munitions manufacturers.

• Scientific Explanation of Superman's Amazing Strength--! · 1 pages

  Superman's strength is attributed to the lighter gravity found on Earth, and is compared to the ant and the grasshopper, both insects whose strength and jumping ability, by comparsion, would be considered super strength.

• The Blakely Mine Disaster · 12.67 pages

  Clark asks editor Taylor for the assignment at a cave-in the Blakely Mine, a mine notorious for its unsafe working conditions. However, when he disguises himself as a miner, he is caught and taken to Blakely, who is entertaining guests at a party. Blakely decides to move the party into the mine, showing to all present that conditions and fail safe measures are more than adequate for the worker's safety.

• Superman Plays Football · 12.75 pages

  Learning that the football coach of Dale University, who is desperately trying to save his job, has hired professional thugs to play against Cordell University, Superman kidnaps Cordell's bench warmer-player, Tommy Burke, and takes his place in the big game, foiling the plot and allowing Cordell to win the game.

• Untitled · 1 pages

  Features photos and biographies of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman.

• Biff Dugan · 2 pages

  After Superman eludes Sergeant Blake by changing to Clark Kent, Clark blackmails the detective into allowing him a jailhouse interview with Biff Dugan. When Dugan escapes, Clark switches to Superman and returns Dugan to his cell.

Characters

Reprinted in

Millennium Edition: Superman 1 (2000), Famous First Edition (1974), The Superman Archives (1989), Superman #1 [Masterpiece Edition] (1999), Superman 1 (Facsimile Edition) (2022), Superman 1 (Facsimile Edition) (2025), The Superman Chronicles (2006), Superman: The Golden Age Omnibus (2013), Superman: The Golden Age (2016), DC Finest: Superman: The First Superhero (2024), Superman from the Thirties to the Seventies (1971), Superman from the Thirties to the Eighties (1983), Superman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told (2004), Superman: The 85th Anniversary Collection (2023), Superboy (1949), Superman Annual (1960), The Great Comic Book Heroes (1965), The Great Comic Book Heroes (1977), The Super Heroes (1980), DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World's Favorite Comic Book Heroes (1995)