Action Comics #21 (DC, 1940)

This was only Superman's ninth full appearance on a cover of Action Comics! And, counting Superman comics, it's the Man of Steel's 12th cover full appearance overall. It was rendered by his co-creator Joe Shuster, and is the earliest published story page or cover by Joe Shuster we have ever offered! Any original art of Superman by Joe Shuster from this era is a rare treasure indeed, but a cover is simply unheard of! What a Super find! A word on the cover's inker: while it is not certain whether Shuster or one of his studio colleagues inked the piece, we have most often seen the cover inks for #21 attributed to Paul Cassidy and will stick with that attribution here. The World War II setting is also noteworthy -- while the United States had not entered the war at that point, scenes such as this show that the goings-on abroad were very much on the public's mind.