Abstract
This chapter presents an excerpt from Gerard Jones’ book, Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book (2005), which details the fact that, as science fiction fans, Siegel and Shuster were much taken with Philip Wylie’s novel Gladiator (1930)—one of many early twentieth-century cultural expressions of the idea of the superman. Wylie, however, had a sour and satirical take on the idea of the superior being. He posited that any superior being would be thwarted and defeated by the powerful forces of mass stupidity and venality. If Siegel and Shuster borrowed key ideas from Gladiator, they also transformed those concepts in significant ways, creating a character that embodied a much more positive view of human possibilities.
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