He certainly didn't have the social skills and savvy of Bob Kane who actually did little work on his creation once it was a hit (he had a stable of ghosts) and kept all the spotlight on him (and most of the money), pushing co-creator Bill Finger in the shadows (and poverty), not giving him a byline eventhought Finger was the one who came up with most of the elements on Batman. Even the defining visual aspects were Finger's! Bob Kane original idea for Batman was pretty much a clone of Superman with a red costume and a domino mask. Finger was the one to suggest the cowl, the darker look, the bat-gloves (inspired by the Black Bat from the pulps). Finger was the one who made him a detective character and created most classical bat-villains (inspired by Dick Tracy's).

It's funny that you say that and then bring up 'Men of Tomorrow'; IIRC, from that book, if Siegel had just shut up, neither he nor Bob Kane would've gotten *anything*... and without Bob Kane as precedent, I wonder where the fight for creators' rights would be today?

If Siegel and Shuster hadn't fought as hard as they did, we would've had at least 20-30 years of precedent of not paying any creators any dividends at all. (I imagine Stan Lee would've broken it for himself, in some way, but I still think we'd be worse off for it.)

The truth is, sometimes comics creators get greedy and short-sighted just like the companies that hire them. The difference tends to be that the big companies hire better lawyers.

Actually I think the reason Superman was rejected over and over, was (if you take a look at archives 1 and 2)
because the drawings were super crude and the stories super lame.

Yes and no. I don't know if I'd say the stories were 'super lame' but I do think if you compared the Superman storyline from Action 1 with contemporary comic strips like Flash Gordon or Brick Bradford (which is probably a more level playing field with Superman in terms of quality) and it isn't anywhere near as proficient

I think the comic book medium ultimately served Superman better and I think Siegel's writing worked better in that medium.

In short, they were the original geeks. We owe them a tremendous debt.

Reading Gerard Jones' Men of Tomorrow, I get the impression that Siegel was something of a hothead with a chip on his shoulder and I think that proved to be his downfall. He listened to people, mostly lawyers, who fed his discontent instead of telling him that DC held all the cards and would crush him like a bug, which they did.

But I disagree with John Seavey in that I do think that DC did still screw Siegel and Shuster. The success of the character was evident--and huge-- within 18 months of Action Comics 1 going on the stands. It's true that companies and corporations don't have an obligation to their employees but I do think they might have offered something better than they did-- some kind of profit participation or increased share in the character, much like United Press Syndicate did with Bill Waterson and Calvin and Hobbes years later. Instead, DC kept giving Siegel and Shuster a lot of empty promises and bum steers during those first few years. DC hardly acted as model corporate citizens in this affair. And Superman is the ultimate work for hire nightmare.

So I think it's both: Siegel could have come out of the situation probably a whole lot better if he had been more agreeable and to a large extent was the architect of his own destruction, but DC probably could have shown more largesse as well.

"Aggressively marketed"???
Really?

As soon as ACTION COMICS it the stands it was a hit.
They certainly didn't have to "aggressively" market it!
It sold by itself! DC/National even asked other creators in their employ to run with the ideas and concepts of Siegel and Shuster and come up with other superheroes. Other companies followed. The movie and tv business came to DC, not the other way around.

You got to remember that Siegel and Shuster were pretty young and poor at the time they sold Superman, they had no idea that their ideas could mean big money. They didn't have an agent and even less a lawyer they could never think to afford. DC were businessmen with lawyers on retainer.

The comic book medium was very new at the time. No one before them had ever created a character that sold comic books as Superman would. It was unthinkable to even consider that a comic book character could be made into a movie or serial. TV wasn't even a medium back then.

If you wanted to make money doing comics in those days, you had to get into newspaper strips and syndicates, not comic books that were considered as poor substitutes with no future. That's what Siegel and Shuster tried at first. To get a syndicate to buy their Superman strip. They didn't get any syndicate interested. And the first issue of Action comics was made of pasted up strips.

Sure DC gave them a chance and a job. Superman was an overnight success as soon as it was published. BUT when the character was licensed to other mediums (syndicated strips, movie serials and later TV), Siegel and Shuster SHOULD have gotten their share of it. It is now customary for the creator of a character to get clauses regarding licensing and merchandising. Back then, it wasn't even a concept! No body could even imagine such a thing, not even science fictions fans and creators like Siegel and Shuster.

I think the first pension Siegel and Shuster got was about $25 000 a year IIRC. Ridiculous for two invalids old men that had make DC make millions on their characters. They got this because, like you so well putted it, they were shamed into this, by a media campaign lead by Neal Adams. DC accepted reluctantly because it was just before the first big movie (The Salkins produced SUPERMAN THE MOVIE with Christopher Reeves) and they didn't want to loose a multi-million investment on bad publicity and public outcry.

Later, the pension was raised by new, more considerate administrations. My point was, DC was many years late into recognizing the major contribution of these two teenage boys to the success of a multi-million enterprise. Before Neal Adams took to crusading for them, Siegel and Shuster were living in poverty condition while a big company and their fat cat administrators got rich just managing the creations they got for pennies from two teenagers who didn't know better.

Only later, after DC had aggressively marketed, promoted, and spun their original idea off into other media, did they begin to get the idea that they'd been "screwed", and they've been claiming it ever since. But a lot of people worked on making Superman such an enduring character in so many media--sometimes, the people who develop a concept are just as important as the people who create it.

And, while DC might have been shamed into giving Siegel and Shuster a pension, they did do so, and they increased it over the years until it was a very fair sum of money to give two guys who hadn't worked for DC for thirty years and had spent part of the subsequent period filing baseless lawsuits against the company.

I still think the Siegel and Shuster Superman stories are the best ever written.

Even if they had received a million dollars each in recognition, they would still have ended up at the poor end of a rotten deal.

Jerry Siegel worked all over the place in the late 60s and early 70s. I think he did afew stories for Warren (Creepy and Eerie) and he definately worked at Marvel. I remember seeing his name on a few western... but maybe I'm getting mixted with Gardner Fox who was fired at the same time at DC with most of the stable of veteran writers when they tried to form a union.

I know Siegel did wrote some of the Human Torch solo stories in STRANGE TALES. I think he only 2 or 3 of them, about the time they introduced Plantman.

You know what issue of Cerebus? I'm quite curious.