Comic-Con 2026

Jerry Siegel, writer of Superman with artist Joe Shuster, has attained legendary status through fans' enduring love of the character. Since 1975, the Superman saga, chronicled by comics luminaries such as Neal Adams, Jerry Robinson, and others, has portrayed Superman's creators as hapless victims of a greedy corporation once managed by Jack S. Liebowitz and owned by Harry Donenfeld. Early Superman artwork and comics read in concert with published materials and documentary evidence paint a more complicated picture of the legal and personal circumstances behind the production and management of Superman. The historical record, much of it only recently unearthed through court exhibits and the collector market, blurs the familiar mythology of Superman's creators as victims and his corporate owners as villains. Attorney Mark S. Zaid and historian Andrew Fogel (Center for Jewish History) will reveal this hidden history, with comics writer and editor Mark Waid (Kingdom Come) presenting Siegel's own words. This roundtable asks the audience the thorny question: Do we have the whole story?