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Joe Shuster was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. At age 9 he and his family moved to Toledo, Ohio, where he met and befriended his future partner Jerome "Jerry" Siegel. Siegel and Shuster were both avid science fiction fans, publishing a fanzine in the mid-1920s. It was during this period that they read Philip Wylie's book, "Gladiator", about a mysterious character with superpowers and invulnerability. They created a strip for their fanzine featuring a super-powered villain, but later made him into a hero. In 1936, they tried, unsuccessfully, to turn it into a daily comic strip. About the same time, both young men got a job working for DC-National (now DC Comics), working on such titles as Doctor Occult, Slam Bradley, and Radio Squad.

In 1939, DC editor Sheldon Meyer decided to give the two young men a chance, and published their character Superman a new comic title, "Action Comics". Superman was an almost immediate hit, spawning his own eponymous title within a year, then going on to be featured in virtually every type of media.

In 1946, Shuster and Siegel sued DC for a share of the rights to Superman. The case dragged on until 1948, when the two men settled for royalties only on the Super boy character. They were also required to sign away any future claims to the Superman character.

Shuster was bitter about his treatment, and decided to leave the comics field. In 1975, after the Superman movie raised new interest in the character, the two men once again sued DC for recognition and royalties. DC, with much prodding from publisher/editor, re-instated Siegel and Shuster's name on the masthead as creators, and awarded the two men an annual stipend of $35,000. Shuster died in 1992, nearly blind and still bitter about the treatment he'd received.

IMDb Mini Biography By:
Mike Konczewski

Welcome to Superman North and thank you for dropping by. I am a Canadian from Toronto, Ontario who as a child loved all my Superheroes including Superman.

The goal of this web page is to focus on Canadian contributions to Superman and shed light on Joe Shuster, his Toronto roots and his future legacy that he will leave to fellow Canadians.

Why do I call my website Superman North? Well it is simple... I am a great fan of the the Superman universe. The other reason is that Superman was in part created by a Canadian Joe Shuster, which painfully some Americans will not admit to. I saw a a special documentary called Look, Up In The Sky and it falsely stated that Superman was created by two American kids from Ohio. When I heard that I got angry at that major slap in the face to us Canadians. Granted Joe Shuster did live in America at the time that should not take away from Joe's true Canadian background which the documentary failed to mention. The hardest part of the documentary was that not even a sentence had any Canadian connection to Superman. The documentary also failed to mention that the origins of the Daily Planet was in fact The Daily Star which still stands today as The Toronto Star. The other thing was Toronto was the basis of the now famous Metropolis, which Joe Shuster stated in an interview before his death. I as a proud Canadian kid, now an adult loved the fact that Superman had Canadian roots and it inspired me that if Joe Shuster could make an icon I could too. My other love is the show Smallville which added the Kara/Supergirl character played by Laura Vandervoort who was born here in Toronto. This brings the world of Superman back home. Ironically Laura was born when Supergirl the motion picture premiered. The sad part is that our very own Canadian Walk of Fame in downtown Toronto does not even have a star for Joe Shuster who created the Superman icon.