This dynamic cover appears on the newsstands on this date in 1938 -- the first issue of Action Comics and the debut of Superman 83 years ago! The image of a hero smashing a big car is one of the most homaged images in comics, to the point where its full impact is lost...

Superman debuted in 1938, the tail end of the Great Depression and it's meaningful that the car which he's smashing to bits is a big, fancy green sedan. It's a car for wealthy people, it's a type of car not one in a thousand kids who read these comics ever saw in real life...

In his excellent The Great Comic Book Heroes, in discussing the differences between Batman and Superman, used this great turn of phrase -- that Batman was the product of the raw deal, and Superman was the product of the New Deal. Effectively, Superman promised a better future...

Feiffer:
"Villains, whatever fate befell them in the obligatory last panel, were infinitely better equipped than those silly, hapless heroes. Not only comics, but life taught us that. Those of us raised in ghetto neighborhoods were being asked to believe crime doesn't pay..?

"Tell that to the butcher! Nice guys finished last; landlords first. Villains by their simple appointment to the role were miles ahead. It was not to be believed that any ordinary human could combat them. More was required. Someone with a call...

"When Superman at last appeared, he brought with him the deep satisfaction of all underground truths: our reaction was less "How original!" than "But, of course!"

Superman's debut is famously action-packed: He stops a wrongful execution, wales on an abusive husband, and bashes up the aforementioned car and its owner, racketeer Butch Matson.

But these are the tip of the iceberg, I'd like to tell you about Superman's original nemesis...

Clark is summoned to the office of his editor, George Taylor, and given an assignment to stir up some content by covering a South American military scuffle. Surprisingly, tho, Clark seems to sense another side to the story and heads to the nation's capitol...

Arriving in DC, Clark finds a hawkish Senator Barrows sponsoring a duplicitous bill -- under the guise of assistance to San Monte, the bill promises to completely embroil the nation in the War in Europe, and to some mystery figure's financial benefit...

Superman confronts the lobbyist Greer, terrifying him into revealing his employer's identity -- Norvell, a war profiteer who's not afraid to get rough. Superman's rougher, tho, and devises an ironic punishment -- he'll force Norvell to FIGHT the war he profits from!

Which you have to admit is a pretty good punishment. To prevent the profiteer from deserting, Superman joins the San Monte army alongside him, and drags him repeatedly to the front to experience the terror and indignity of war, firsthand.

It's when Superman is engaged with a fighter plane that Norvell declares that the Man of Steel is his nemesis -- and he is! This original incarnation of Superman *is* the foe of war profiteers, racketeers, strongmen, thugs, goons and slobs. The Nemesis of Injustice, this guy!

Norvell surrenders and changes his ways, but Superman is already busy putting other bums to the sword -- he collects the commanding generals involved in the war and threatens to brain them unless they halt hostilities immediately. Guess what -- it works!

A lot of Superman's first five years is involved in giving crooks a taste of their own medicine. He fights gangsters, racketeers, politicians, con artists, scandal sheets, landlords, quacks, millionaires, bosses, business owners and -- and I cannot stress this enough -- the cops.

By 1943, Superman is a different character. He's patriotic, law-abiding. In the comics, he chastises a vigilante for working outside of the law. In the strips, he endorses the fairness of Japanese-American internment camps. There are notorious caricatures. It can be disheartening

In Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, he describes a Superman who "always says yes to anyone ... with a flag." The author's mentioned previously that he thought of his Batman as the Golden Age incarnation, and I have always imagined this Superman as being the *fink from '43*

We know why this shift happened -- National took greater control of the reins when Siegel left for the Army in 1943, and washed this character clean of any red-leaning inclinations, little guy sympathies, Tom Joadism. That don't sell Krypto-Ray Guns.

Or, in other words, like Feiffer said up above "Villains ... were infinitely better-equipped than those silly, hapless heroes. Not only comics, but life taught us that."

Just so I don't go out on a bummer, it's also the 83rd anniversary of this, Joe Shuster's promise that the Lois-Superman stuff was gonna be steamy as hell.