“Because cartoonist Joe Shuster and I, who co-originated Superman together, will not get one cent from the Superman super-movie deal.” “Why am I putting this curse on a movie based on my creation of Superman? Frustrated, Siegel tried to sue again in 1965, and lost, and that was the end of his work with DC. He sued, and got a decent settlement - but that was the end of his career writing Superman comics, and the “by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster” credit was removed from all future comics.Īfter ten years of freelance work, he was allowed to come back to DC in 1959, where he worked on Legion of Super-Heroes stories and was regularly humiliated by his editor, Mort Weisinger. The first lawsuit, in 1948, was about ownership of Superboy - Siegel claimed that he’d come up with the idea, and that DC started publishing Superboy stories without his knowledge, while he was serving in World War II. If they, and the executives of Warner Communications which owns National, had consciences, they would right the wrongs they inflicted on Joe Shuster and me.” I consider National’s executives economic murderers, money-mad monsters. “The publishers of Superman comic books, National Periodical Publications, Inc., killed my days, murdered my nights, choked my happiness, strangled my career. He was poor, and he was forgotten, and he was very, very angry.

There was no credit that said “Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster” on the comic books, the spinoffs or the merchandise, and he watched the company executives grow rich on his creation. He’d last worked for DC Comics ten years earlier, writing stories about Bizarro and Jimmy Olsen for the standard page rate, and parted on bad terms. He ruined our lives, deliberately, though Joe and I originated Superman, which enriched Liebowitz and his associates.”Īt the time, Siegel was 61 years old, living in California and working as a clerk-typist, with a side hustle writing stories for Italian Disney comics.

“Jack Liebowitz, a member of the Board of Directors of Warner Communications, stabbed Joe Shuster and me, Jerry Siegel, in the back. Siegel had just learned that somebody was making a multi-million dollar Superman movie, and it did not sit well with him, and he wanted people to know that. That’s the beginning of a ten-page typewritten manifesto penned in 1975 by Jerry Siegel, the co-creator of Superman.

I hope the whole world, becoming aware of the stench that surrounds Superman, will avoid the movie like a plague. I hope loyal Superman fans stay away from it in droves. I, Jerry Siegel, the co-originator of Superman, put a curse on the Superman movie! I hope it super-bombs. Re: THE VICTIMIZATION OF SUPERMAN’S ORIGINATORS, JERRY SIEGEL AND JOE SHUSTER

Jerry siegel joe shuster