It looks like Superman literally beat Captain America to the punch when it came to the latter's most iconic image. Steve Rogers may be renowned for socking Hitler on the jaw, but a rarely-seen Superman story showed that the Man of Steel was the first superhero to intervene in World War II.
As one of the oldest and most patriotic heroes, Captain America is known to many fans as the most dedicated soldier in comics. Born a scrawny weakling and deemed a 4F failure, Rogers got a second chance to fight for America thanks to a Super Soldier serum that turned him into Captain America. With superhuman strength and a burning sense of righteousness, Cap jumped right into the fray of World War II and, as his cover implied, punched Adolf Hitler square in the mouth. The image of Captain America #1 remains imprinted on the minds of comic book fans everywhere.
And yet, it appears that Superman stole Captain America's thunder just months before the hero made his epic debut. Roy Schwartz of Is Superman Circumcised?: The Complete Jewish History of the World's Greatest Hero recently sat down with Screen Rant to discuss his book, as well as Superman and the comic book industry. When talking about the Golden Age, Roy revealed an interesting tidbit from the Man of Steel's earliest days:
Yes, Captain America famously punches Hitler in the face on the cover of his first comic...But the truth is that before then, on February 27th 1940, Siegel and Shuster published a two-page imaginary story in the pages of Look Magazine to tell how Superman would end the war.
He storms through the Siegfried line, the supposedly impenetrable fortification line between Germany and France, he twists Nazi candidates into pretzels, he punted the Luftwaffe out of the sky. He grabs Hitler and Stalin by the scuff of their necks. That story predates Captain America, Superman was the first to do that.
This anecdote may come as a surprise to even the biggest Superman fan. After all, Look Magazine hasn't been published in well over five decades. But the fact that Superman's original creators had the character intervene in WWII just before Captain America entered the comic book scene puts both heroes in a brand-new light.
The cover for Captain America #1 is one of the most iconic covers in comic book history, probably up there in notoriety with Superman's own Action Comics #1. But what made Captain America's debut so memorable was that it featured a fictional hero taking on a very real threat at the time. It was daring and gave Cap an edge over other heroes who remained mostly isolated to their own fictional universes. And while Superman's story didn't technically appear in a comic book, it's still a comic that did the same thing Captain America achieved infamy for. The Man of Steel may not have gotten the attention Captain America received for punching Hitler’s lights out, but nothing can take away the fact Superman technically did it first.