Though Superman hasn’t always been the most popular superhero (these days, Batman, Spider-Man, Wolverine and heck, probably Iron Man and a few other Avengers most likely outpace him in that department), he was the first superhero, and superhero comics as they exist today wouldn’t without Superman. Even beyond the blatant knockoffs that cropped up in the wake of his immense popularity shortly after his debut (issues of his comics routinely sold in the millions throughout the forties), Superman can be pointed to as either a direct or indirect inspiration for nearly every superhero that followed. The entire field of superhero comics, the most dominant form of sequential art in American comic books, exists because of Superman.
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