The character of Superman is among the most recognizable fictional creations ever created. This is the issue that introduced him to the world at large. Writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster had been trying to sell Superman to newspapers for over five years. The two boys from Cleveland had been working together since the early thirties. Their first published work was a series of science fiction fanzines. One of those fanzines contained a story titled Reign of the Superman. The concept was similar to Superman in that a superior being walked among regular people, but there the visitor was a villain out to conquer the world. They reworked the idea and made the alien a hero. Form there, they started to try and sell it directly to newspapers. By 1938 they had managed to sell stories and art to the company that was quickly becoming DC. Among the characters they worked on were Slam Bradley and Dr. Occult. They had already tried to sell Superman to the folks that M.C. Gaines was currently working with, the McClure Group, but no one there was interested. During that process, a young Sheldon Mayer, who was working as an assistant to Gaines, became enamored of the concept. However, it was Gaines who took the idea to DC Publisher Harry A. Donenfeld and also the editor at DC, Vincent Sullivan. Together, they decided to put Superman on the cover of a new book they were going to publish. It would be titled Action Comics. From the publication of that title, superheroes started to quickly take off. Within two years they were dominating the comic industry. Superman was not featured on all the early covers of Action; he shared them with others like Zatara the Magician. Soon he became a permanent fixture on every cover. A year after his appearance in Action, Superman became the first character to have his own book. A year later he was also appearing in Worlds Finest where he shared covers with Batman. His first appearance on radio was February 12, 1940. Over the years the radio show would add many details to the Superman mythology such as Perry White and Kryptonite. By 1941, Superman was being seen on movie screens in the famous Fleischer cartoons. The pages are off-white to white. This issue is CGC-certified 7.5 (VF). CGC lists the restoration as moderate professional. The restoration on this copy is as follows: color touch, pieces added, reinforced and cleaned.