The most well know and recognized comic book in the history of comics was first published on April 18, 1938 (cover dated June 1938). Inside its pages the world was introduced to Superman, his alter ego Clark Kent as well as Lois Lane. They actually go on a date. It doesn’t go well. At all.
Now, when I decided to do a post about the first appearance of Superman I suddenly realized I had never actually read Action Comics #1. I mean, I basically knew what happens in the Superman story in it. Because everyone who is even remotely a Superman fan talks about it. I’ve also seen a lot of images from it. But actually sitting down and reading it? No, I hadn’t.
So, I decided to rectify that situation and looked online to see what I could find. Apparently, it’s available on a lot of free online comic book sites but I will get to that in a moment. It’s also available on Kindle for only $.99 and that’s what I got first. However, I soon realized that copy only contains the Superman story, not the full comic.
I don’t generally quote directly from Wikipedia but in this instance it’s quicker because there is quite a lot more in the full comic:
Action Comics #1 was an anthology, and contained eleven features:
Action Comics 1 on Wikipedia
- “Superman” (pp. 1–13) by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.
- “Chuck Dawson” (pp. 14–19) by H. Fleming.
- “Zatara Master Magician” (pp. 20–31) by Fred Guardineer.
- “South Sea Strategy” (text feature, pp. 32–33) by Captain Frank Thomas.
- “Sticky-Mitt Stimson” (pp. 34–37) by Alger.
- “The Adventures of Marco Polo” (pp. 38–41) by Sven Elven.
- “‘Pep’ Morgan” (pp. 42–45) by Fred Guardineer.
- “Scoop Scanlon the Five Star Reporter” (pp. 46–51) by Will Ely.
- “Tex Thomson” (pp. 52–63) by Bernard Baily.
- “Stardust” (p. 64) by “The Star-Gazer”.
- “Odds ‘N Ends” (inside back cover) by “Moldoff” (Sheldon Moldoff).
Yeah, not sure I even want to read all of them but a couple do sound interesting. “Zatara Master Magician” is intriguing because he is Zatana’s father. Also, “The Adventures of Marco Polo”? Definitely need to check that one out.
Anyway, back to checking out the online comic book readers to see the whole thing. There are a lot but the one I like the best so far is on Action Comics (1938) #1 on Comic Online Free. With the bonus that when I dug around a bit I found several other older titles I want to check out. Love it when that happens.