Action Comics No. 196: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

Action Comics No. 257 features the Superman story "The Reporter of Steel," written by Otto Binder and pencilled by Wayne Boring. The cover art, done by Curt Swan, features Superman in his Clark Kent alias and the villain,Lex Luthor.

The comic also contains the Congo Bill story "The Man-Ape Skin Diver!" and "The Three Magic WIshes!" starring Supergirl.

The character of Superman first flew into action in 1938. The costumed superhero was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, two Jewish teenagers from Cleveland Ohio, who used, among other things, classical mythology and the era's popular science fiction and adventure writing for inspiration.

With his debut in Action Comics #1, Superman became an instant sensation with audiences, inspired by the "Man of Tomorrow's" virtue and heroics at time when the Nation was slowly emerging from the economic catastrophe of the Great Depression and moving closer to World War.

Born on the doomed planet Krypton, Superman was sent to Earth as a child, where our world's yellow sun granted him extraordinary powers such as flight, super-strength, near-invulnerability, as well as other extraordinary abilities including heat and X-Ray vision. As an adult living in the city of Metropolis, the alien, born Kal-El, protects his identity by assuming the persona of Clark Kent, a "mild-mannered" journalist.

Fighting for "Truth and Justice," Superman birthed a cultural fascination with superheroes, and has become one of the most recognizable and influential fictional characters in history. In addition to comic books, the character has been explored in all forms of media, including radio, television, and film, and has been used to promote a variety of successful consumer products, educational initiatives and public service campaigns.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date made: 1959-10
• publisher: National Comics Publications, Inc.
• maker: National Comics Publications, Inc.
• maker: Action Comics
• Object Name: Book, Comic
• Object Name: comic book
• Measurements: overall: 10 in x 6 1/2 in; 25.4 cm x 16.51 cm
• place made: United States: New York, New York City
• Subject: Superman
• Subject: Comics
• ID Number: 1988.3095.31
• catalog number: 1988.3095.31
• nonaccession number: 1988.3095
• catalog number: .31
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.