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cream/ow pages; QES certified - criteria given: preferred staple placement + exceptional staple area + superior cover edges
Joe Shuster cvr/art; 1st published appearance of Lex Luthor (Spring 1940); with this issue appearing on newsstands 1 week before Action #23; COMIC BOOK IMPACT rating of 8 (CBI)


Superman #4 is a vital op-culture artifact as the first appearance of Lex Luthor in the comics. It wasn't meant to be that way, though. This issue just happened to hit the newsstands a little earlier than the Luthor story in Action #23. (He was just "Luthor" back then.) "Superman versus Luthor" still has the Man of Steel recognizing Luthor as a former foe. It helps that Luthor sports a shaggy mop of red hair in these early appearances. (Despite the panicked guy on the cover, there wouldn't be a bald Luthor until one was accidentally drawn for the daily Superman comic strip.) Technically, that means Superman #4 has Lex Luthor making his first appearance in his second Superman story.

This classic comic rushes Luthor into his third story, too. The opening tale of "Superman versus Luthor" has the villain using an earthquake machine that he swiped from a scientist. "Luthor's Undersea City" has the evildoer raiding oil wells to fuel his hobby of creating dinosaurs from his secret headquarters. Both stories feature Luthor in his original role as a thuggish "genius" who mainly relied on stolen technology. For further historical importance, this issue has Clark Kent starting his new job as a reporter at the Daily Planet. (He'd been working for the Daily Star.) His boss is still George Taylor, though. The character of Perry White would later be brought over from the Adventures of Superman radio serial.
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