Jerome Siegel

Jerome "Jerry" Siegel was born on October 17, 1914, in Cleveland, Ohio, and died on January 28, 1996. He is best known as the co-creator of Superman, the character who essentially launched the superhero genre, alongside his childhood friend and artist Joe Shuster. Siegel's path into comics began in the early 1930s, when he and Shuster self-published the first Superman story in a fanzine before selling the concept to DC Comics. Beyond Superman, Siegel's signature work includes co-creating the mystical detective Doctor Occult and, with artist Bernard Baily, the grim supernatural avenger the Spectre. He also played a key role in populating DC's future by creating ten of the earliest members of the Legion of Super-Heroes. His key collaborators were Shuster and Baily, though he also wrote extensively for titles like *Action Comics* and *Detective Comics*, sometimes under the pseudonyms Joe Carter or Jerry Ess. Later in life, Siegel and Shuster fought for and eventually regained credit and financial recognition for their creation. Their legacy is secure: they were inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1992 and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1993.