How much of the Superman mythos did Siegel and Shuster create?

[Horatio_Hellpop]

Asylum wrote:

Not that I wouldn’t be surprised if it was completely overlooked by everyone that a woman created kryptonite, but what exactly does that article say and does it give a source? Just curious.

Here’s a blurb from the article, Woolfolk’s obituary by Alan Kupperberg:

Back home I happily perused the new CBG*–until page 56–and the first item in the regular "Clipping Service column–Norman Tippens of The Daily Press of Hampton, Virginia, reported December 6 the November 27 death of Dorothy G. Woolfolk. In an August 1993 article in the Florida Today newspaper, she said she was invlved in the introduction of Kryptonite to the Superman mythos. She was DC’s first woman editor and indicated in that article that she had found Superman’s invulnerability was boring. “She told the newspaper she reasoned that since Superman came from the planet Krypton, he would be helpless before a piece of Kryptonite. She also was instrumental in developing the personality of Lois Lane and directing a wardrobe makeover for Clark Kent.”

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*CBG=The Comics Buyer’s Guide, a fan/trade newspaper for the comics industry. Kupperberg refers specifically to #1417, January 12, 2001 issue.

[CalMeacham]

Incidentally, it’s been alleged that Siegel and Shuster partly based Superman (without giving credit) on Philip Wylie’s novel Gladiator, which is actually a pretty good book.

Yes – upon that and on the Aarn Munroe stories that were written by John Campbell. (In the graphic novel Watchmen they acxknowledged the link by putting a copy of Gladiator on Night Hawk’s shelf) One place this is alleged is in Jim Steranko’s History of Comics. I borrowed it for the opening chapter of my book. Seigel and Schuster reviewed Gladiator for their SF fan magazine, so they were certainly aware of it.

It’s hard not to think that S & S borowed a lot of things from Doc Sabge – Doc had a Fortress of Solitude in the arctic, too (George Pal even opened his odd Doc Savage movie with it). The ads for Doc Savage in the pulp magazines had Superman wriiten in bold type across the top. Steranko reproduces one of these ads in his book.

“Lois Lane” might owe something to The Shadow’s “Margo Lane”.

[Baldwin]

“Lois Lane” might owe something to The Shadow’s “Margo Lane”.

I’m sure you’re familiar with the geneology Philip Jose Farmer created, where he links together all sorts of fictional characters, from Doc Savage to Sherlock Holmes to Captain Blood, relating them all by blood with a small group of ancestors who were all irradiated by a meteorite. (If I recall correctly.) Anyway, somewhere in there he speculates that Margo Lane and Lois Lane were sisters.

All I know about “borrowing” material is that when you do it, it’s plagiarism, and when I do it, it’s homage.