The first Superboy comic

[Lee Semmens]

As for what Daniels wrote in Superman: The Complete History, he may not have been allowed by DC (or their lawyers) to say that Siegel wrote the story, particularly if the book was commissioned by DC.

Isn't that ridiculous? He either did or he didn't. Love him or hate him, facts are facts.

But that's just the point, DC are not interested in the fact of whether or not Siegel wrote the first Superboy story, they have steadfastly denied him and Joe Shuster credit for the creation of Superboy and are not going to admit in print that they did (and certainly not in any book that has been commissioned or approved by them), as they may potentially lose many millions in their current legal wrangle with Siegel's heirs.

That is why, at the start of each episode of Smallville appears the carefully phrased byline: "Superman created by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster", not "Superboy created by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster".

People who are more knowledgeable (or have access to the facts) than I am in this area seem to be generally in consensus that Siegel wrote the first Superboy story, which is good enough for me, although admittedly I'd be more comfortable with citations of their source or sources, but one very rarely sees footnotes, even in scholarly publications about comics.

It is of course quite possible that part of the story at least may have been rewritten by someone else (maybe the part that you, Aldous, think to be un-Siegel-like), more likely than not by the editor, in this case, Jack Schiff.

[Permanus]

It's odd that there's even an argument about who created Superboy, when you think of it, because he's clearly identified as the same person as Superman, only younger. It's the same guy. How would it look if I wrote a book called The adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn When They Grew Up and claimed to have come up with the characters myself?

[jamespup]

And then sue the estate of Samuel Clemens somehow!

[Johnny Nevada]

It's odd that there's even an argument about who created Superboy, when you think of it, because he's clearly identified as the same person as Superman, only younger. It's the same guy. How would it look if I wrote a book called The adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn When They Grew Up and claimed to have come up with the characters myself?

While in a literary sense they're the same person, from a legal standpoint, it's been ruled that Superman and Superboy are two distinct characters---thus the seperate legal battles over the two characters...

[Gangbuster]

My understanding of this whole shenanigan is as follows. Maybe it will help:

Siegel conceived of Superboy as early as 1938, but DC rejected the idea. He mentioned wanting to publish Superboy stories to the Saturday Evening Post in 1941. From my understanding, DC still refused, but while he was away at war, DC published his Superboy stori(es?) anyway, in More Fun Comics issues beginning in 1945. He and Shuster sued in 1946, and the matter wasn't settled until 1948; meanwhile, DC published "The Origin of Superman" in Superman #53 that excluded Superboy from the origin altogether. (John Byrne later used this origin as his justification that the "original" Superman was not Superboy.)

However, after the Siegels won the lawsuit giving them the rights to Superboy as a separate character, they sold the copyright to DC. Having the rights to Superboy again, DC published Superboy #1 in 1949 and re-included him into Superboy's origin, until the reboot in 1986. Superboy's copyright term expired in 2004 and the character returned to the Siegels, fueling the current battles over Smallville royalties.