Here’s a fun new idea for all y’all. Until the 1970s, and even later by some standards, comic books were largely complete crap. The Golden Age of Comic Books defines the era from 1938 – 1956; thousands of comic books were published and almost every single issue was utter shit.

Once in a great while, I aim to cherry-pick and mock an occasional issue from the vast Golden Age catalog. Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #1 – “Superman, Champion of the Oppressed”! What better way to highlight a shitty, old comic than with the one of the most famous comic books of all time? The whole bloated, stupid thing is over 60 pages long and the Superman story only covers the first 13. BUT, that being said, this is considered the first superhero comic, and it contains Superman’s very first appearance (among other who-cares superheroes), so it’s a big fucking deal. A near-mint copy sold on eBay in 2014 for over $3,000,000, so people go nuts over it.

Time to make fun of it!

Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #1 [June, 1938]
Written by: Jerry Siegel
“Superman, Champion of the Oppressed”

Since this thing has 11 stories, and only the first one is a Superman story, I’m only going to cover the Superman story! I wanna hold onto all the sanity that I can, you know.

The very FIRST panel! Exciting! “As a distant planet was destroyed by old age, a scientist placed his infant son within a hastily devised space-ship, launching it toward Earth!” Oh boy! Scientists and spaceships! What a crazy fantasy!

The baby is taken to an orphanage, and it’s quickly discovered that the baby’s strength is “millions of years advanced of their own”. We see baby Superman lift a chair over his head! Impressive!

When he gets older, he finds himself able to leap 1/8th of a mile! He can hurdle a twenty-story building! He can raise tremendous weights! He can run faster than an express train! Which in 1938 can go, what, 15 mph? Clark, as it turns out he is named out of nowhere, decides that he wants to use his powers to help mankind. Thus, Superman is created! “Champion of the Oppressed. The physical marvel who had sworn to devote his existence to helping those in need!” Oh boy! Let me grab a cherry phosphate from the malt shop and eagerly return to the fantastical story!

Superman, as you can see from Exhibit A, can be mostly compared to bugs.

After the writer of Action Comics #1, Jerry Seigel, who was likely born before Lincoln got assassinated, compares Superman to bugs, we continue with the ACTION! The story begins with Superman jumping around town holding a woman who has her hands tied behind her back and her mouth covered by a bandana. He leaves her by a tree and doesn’t even have the decency to help her before he fucks off to the “governor’s estate”.

I would have called on the rotary phone, but I cannot afford one yet!

At the governor’s estate, another man answers the door (presumably the governor’s assistant or his life partner). When Superman demands to see the governor this instant, and the man does not comply, Superman busts the door off its hinges, picks the man up and takes him upstairs. The governor’s “sleeping room” is barricaded by a steel door. “Try and knock this door down,” the man says with a wry smirk. Superman does! The man is flabbergasted! Bamboozled!

The governor is sleeping nice and cozy in his jammies. “What’s the meaning of this?” he asks, rather calmly. “Evelyn Curry is to be electrocuted in 15 minutes for murder! I have proof here of her innocence – a signed confession!” Superman desperately yelps at him.

The butler arrives in the room (yes, certainly, “the butler”) brandishing a pistol. “I warn you, take another step and I shoot!” he says, and then he shoots before Superman takes another step. The bullet bounces right off of him. “The is no time for horseplay!” Superman says, keeping his urgency at a setting just slightly above annoyed. Meanwhile, a little clock appears in the bottom left of a panel: “A life hangs in the balance. 12 minutes to go.” Is this where the ACTION comes in? My heart is palpitating!

This blank piece of paper is good enough for me!

And, just like that, Evelyn Curry has been pardoned by the governor! “Thank God! I told you I was innocent!” No DNA evidence around to clear your name Evelyn. You had to settle for the long shot of a possibly illegitimate written confession! Congrats.

Superman disappeared suddenly, but he left a note: “You’ll find the real murderess bound and delivered on the lawn of your estate.” Aha! The twist I wasn’t expecting! The next morning, at the newspaper Clark Kent works at, he’s happy to see that Superman wasn’t mentioned at all in the morning’s top story.

SUPERMAN?! HA HA…NO! HE’S NOT ME IF THAT’S WHAT YOU’RE IMPLYING HERE!

While the governor’s office is in a tussle about this Super kind of a Man that just popped out of nowhere at the governor’s house, the editor at the Daily Star calls Clark Kent into his office. “Did you ever hear of Superman?” the editor asks him pointedly. Clark Kent yells his response at him with the subtlety of a speeding bullet and/or locomotive. The editor asks Kent to handle the Superman reporting. “Listen Chief, if I can’t find out about this Superman no one can!” says Kent with pep in his step!

A fellow news reporter gives Kent a tip that there’s a wife-beating happening at 211 Court Ave.! I want to know who made THAT phone call! And why they decided to call the paper instead of, like, maybe the cops? Superman shows up to 211 Court Ave. and makes short work of the perpetrator.

The man tries to stab Superman, but the blade bends against his tough skin! ACTION, BABY! The man faints before Superman can give him “a lesson he’ll never forget”. Then Superman starts beating the woman himself! “MORE FOR ME, HAHAHAA!” Wait, that didn’t happen!

Would a woman do THIS? *puts on some lipstick*

Superman puts on his civilian clothes before the police arrive. They asks him what the FUCK he’s doing here in this house. Kent replies “Looks as tho our friend Superman had dropped in to pay a visit!”, which doesn’t answer the cop’s question AND makes him look more guilty. What if this guy didn’t read the paper this morning?

Next, a nervous Clark Kent asks the dashing lass Lois Lane out on a date, and she groans and moans and sort of agrees. While on the date, he asks her why she keeps avoiding him at the office, and she tells him it’s because he smells like poop! That’s rude, why would she say that?! Yeah, she really did say that, I don’t have to prove anything to YOU.

BUTCH MATSON’S GETTIN’ UPSET!!

A random tough guy tries to cut in on their dance, and Clark has to restrain himself to maintain his cover as “pathetic ’30s nerd”. When the guy gets too pushy, she slaps him, and Clark gets his rocks off a little on that! Woo baby! Lois storms out, tells Clark that the real reason she doesn’t want to go out with him is because he’s a “spineless, unbearable coward”. Even this early on, Lois Lane’s got moxie!

Mr. Tough Guy storms out of there too, he’s not going to let some broad tell him what’s what! But, what “Butch Matson”, who sort of has his hair slicked back like Lenny from Laverne & Shirley, doesn’t realize is that SUPERMAN is keeping an eye on him. Butch and his thugs put on their best Humphrey Bogart hats and drive their shitty late ’30s Chrysler piece of shit, following Lois Lane’s taxicab. One panel’s caption: “Butch forces Lois’s taxi into a ditch!” Well that’s pretty fucking harsh, isn’t it? Talk about your disproportionate responses!

After a struggle, the hoodlum roughniks get her into their car.  As they zoom down the road, they catch a glimpse of OUR CAPED CRUSADER standing in the middle of the road like some sort of raving lunatic. “Ha! Ha! Watch me scare him out of his wits!” says Butch Matson, flooring it. Superman leaps over the car just before it hits him. “Butch! Step on the gas! He’s chasing after us!!!” says Butch’s bowtied comrade. “IT’S THE DEVIL HIMSELF!” screams Butch Matson.

Noo!! Not my piece of shit 1938 Buick Special! I just put 13 cents of gas in it!

Sorry, Bowtied Comrade, stepping on the gas is no use.

Everyone runs away from the car as Superman totals it with Crush-Cars-Into-a-Cube powers, but he’s not going to let Butch off that easy.

Jesus Christ, make up your mind.

After chasing him down, he gives him a wedgie from the top of a utility pole. And then leaves him there to starve and die, I presume!

Superman catches up with Lois Lane. He flies her back to the to the city and “deposits her upon its outskirts”. Before he leaves, he tells a completely speechless and stunned Lois to not print this little episode in the paper the next morning.

At the office of the Daily Star, Lois Lane’s editor thinks she’s been taking crazy pills, and she’s ignoring Clark harder than ever before. Even funnier still, there’s a war going on in a South American country called “San Monte” and Clark’s editor tells him to pack the fuck up and fly down there, War Zone Boy.

Instead of going to fake-ass San Monte, Clark goes to Washington D.C. to snap a photo of a “furtive man” speaking to a Senator Barrows, where a likely bout of illegal activity is taking place! Political intrigue! Clark learns that it’s Alex Greer, the Slickest Lobbyist in Town!

Next we see Superman clinging to the side of a fucking skyscraper, listening through a window into Senator Barrows’ residence. Apparently, this slick Alex Greer malefactor is paying Barrows a rather handsome sum in order to ensure that a bill is passed to put America at war with Europe! The World War II Involvement Bill! So it was Alex Greer and Senator Barrows who orchestrated the bombing of Pearl Harbor three years later, eh?? I knew it!

Superman rudely accosts Greer as he leaves the residence. “Who is behind you in corrupting Senator Barrows?” Superman demands of the dandy fop! “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” the slick lobbyist professes! Superman will have none of it, and he takes him for a ride!

Faster than a speeding bird! More powerful than a fuckin’ bug!

And then Superman starts fucking with him a bit, running on telephone wires, telling him that birds sit on them without being electrocuted “…unless they touch a telephone-pole and are grounded! OOPS! Almost touched that pole!” I actually laughed at that! I actually laughed the very first Superman comic, holy shit guys.

Superman carries Greer to the Capitol building, and the story ends with Superman asking Greer if he thinks they can leap to the building from afar (Greer is out of his mind with fear at this point), and then missing entirely! TO BE CONTINUED!

Final Thoughts

Shit, maybe I should read Issue #2! I didn’t know any comic book made before 1960 actually, like, continued onto the next installment. Wowie Zowie!

It’s going to take everything in me to admit this, but this was surprisingly not the completely, time-wastingly awful experience I expected and would’ve bet many dollars upon! I also didn’t realize how much stuff showed up in this very first story that would remain canon for the next 80 years: Clark Kent, Lois Lane, their professions…uh, and I guess that’s it!

And if you think I’m going to be boondoggled into reading any of the other ten stories in this comic book at all, you’re plumb bananas. That shit ain’t jake.