1938 - September

 Action Comics #4, September 1938

Cover: 

• The cover shows a dark wooded area where a person who is dressed as a member of the Canadian Mounted Police, while looking at a man cowering on the ground, is about to pull a gun out of its holster.
• The cover has no apparent connection to any of the interior content.
• The cover is signed by Leo O’Mealia, this time without the middle initial of “E”.
• There is no mention of Superman on the cover.

Story: 

• “Untitled” - 13 pages, credited to “Jerome Siegel and Joe Shuster”
• First story in the anthology-style book

Fabulous Firsts: 

• First time Superman uses grease-paint to impersonate someone else
• First appearance of Clark Kent’s apartment
• First appearance in a story of a red “S” on Superman’s chest (in one panel)

Origin:

• This story contains no mention of Superman’s origins.

Costume:

• The costume is essentially the same as it was in the previous story (blue suit, blue boots, red shorts, red cape, yellow belt (unseen in this story), triangular yellow emblem with yellow “S” on the chest, although in one panel the emblem looks shield-shaped with a red “S”).

Powers:

• Super-Strength
• Super-Speed
• “Great” Leaping Ability

Characterization:

• Superman behaves erratically in this story.
• From ignoring the innocent bystander injured in a hit-and-run situation, to jumping into a train for no apparent reason, to drugging a perfectly innocent individual just so he could impersonate him, Superman’s actions are irresponsibly all over the place.
• Superman is called the “champion of the weak and helpless,” but seems bent on stopping and punishing injustice at the expense of those who are victimized.
• Superman is concerned about a speeding train killing him.

Supporting Cast:

• Unnamed Drunken Irresponsible Driver
• Unnamed Hit-Skip Victim
• Members of a Swiftly-Gathered Crowd
• Unnamed Train Engineer
• Unnamed Train Attendant
• Coach Randall, football coach at Dale University
• Professional Thugs
• Tommy Burke, Cordell University football player
• Mary, Tommy’s girlfriend
• Various Cordell University Football Players, mostly unnamed, but four are called Stevens, Burns, Lewiston, and Ray Martin
• Oliver Stanley, football coach at Cordell University
• Unnamed Cordell University Assistant Football Coach
• Unnamed Sports Editor of the “News”
• Excited Unnamed Football Radio Announcer
• Wallace Dodd, Tennis Champion

Synopsis:

After witnessing a hit-and-run incident, Superman chases down the perpetrator whose car has stalled in front of an oncoming train. After initially saving the perpetrator (who then promptly dies of a heart attack), Superman sneaks onto the train and overhears a plan by the football coach of Dale University to hire two thugs to play on his team in order to “take out” the best players on the Cordell University team.

Superman decides to stop these nefarious acts by drugging Tommy Burke, a Cordell bench player who had recently been dumped by his girlfriend, and using makeup to impersonate Burke. Superman (as Burke) wows the Cordell coach, starts in the big game, and promptly scores many touchdowns. In the meantime, the real Burke has been kidnapped and tied up, from which he escapes. At the game, the real Burke hears that his ex-girlfriend is impressed with “his” performance on the field, which leads them to get back together. Burke quits football and the Dale coach resigns.

Favorite Quotes:

• “You needn’t worry. You’re just rendered passive by a drug.”
• “Go away! – You bother me!”

Oddities and Analyses:

• Where to begin? This is a very odd story, and quite possibly the worst ever Superman story (with all due respect to Mr. Siegel and Mr. Shuster).
• Superman does not attend to the victim of the hit-and-run. He doesn’t rush him to the hospital or offer any life-saving care. Instead, he races a train so that he can catch up with the driver of the car.
• I am not sure how long it took Superman to catch up to the car. It is clearly daytime when the accident takes place and clearly nighttime when he makes it to the car.
  
• Superman fears that the train will kill him. Does he not yet know the extent of his invulnerability?
• Superman saves the driver from the train, but the driver almost immediately dies of a heart attack. This isn’t so strange, but Superman apparently just leaves the dead driver on the side of the road as he goes onto his next “adventure.”
• Again, instead of racing back to check on the struck pedestrian back in the city, Superman, for no apparent reason, decides to sneak onto the train through a window.
• It is almost as if there should be another page of story between the heart attack panel and the getting-on-the-train panel. There is no narrative flow here at all.
• Once Superman has heard the coach’s plan, why doesn’t he stop them there and then? Why not tail the hired thugs and make it so they don’t join the Dale team? That would have been a much better plan than what he did.
• And what he did is this: Superman stabs an innocent man with a hypodermic needle filled with some drug to make a person sick and lethargic for days! Superman seems to think it’s no big deal, as he simply takes Tommy Burke’s place on the Cordell football team.
  
  I feel that if the Superman of this era had heard of someone else doing this, he would have tracked down the perpetrator and beaten the snot out of him.
• This is Tommy Burke’s seventh year on the Cordell University football team. He must be on the Tommy Boy college plan.
• Superman witnesses the thugs tie up and kidnap Tommy, but does nothing to stop it. Yes, this is the same Superman who is called the “champion of the weak and helpless” on the first page of the story.
• Just before the game, we learn that this is for the championship. You’d think that would have been mentioned before. That also means that the Dale coach must have had a pretty good season, so why is he in danger of being fired if he loses?
• Although Clark is described as being a newspaper reporter, there is no mention of the name of the newspaper.
• This is the first Superman story where Clark’s editor does not appear.
• Lois Lane does not appear in this story.
• They had to wait an extra month, but readers finally get lesson one in “Acquiring Super-Strength”. However, Superman is not part of the mini-feature.

Apropos of Nothing:

• Cover artist Leo E. O’Mealia illustrates an “Inspector Donald and Bobby” feature in this issue.

All comic-related images are the copyright of DC Entertainment.