Amongst Superman’s many accomplishments: creating the comic book miniseries

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Of all the feats that DC’s Superman has accomplished in his career as it approaches its 90th anniversary, one is particularly unsung. Sure, we all know about the many times Kal-El has saved the world (if not reality itself, more than once), and we’re all familiar with that time he went toe-to-toe with Muhammad Ali — but whoever talks about the fact that, if it wasn’t for Superman, comic books might never have had a miniseries format?

As strange as it might sound, it’s true; the very first comic book intentionally published in the US as a limited run was a Superman comic, World of Krypton, which ran for three issues back in 1979… and we have, of all people, The Godfather author Mario Puzo to thank for it.

“The reason World of Krypton was published as a miniseries was, simply a need for Superman-related product to take advantage of the enormous amount of hype surrounding [1978’s Superman: The Movie],” writer Paul Kupperberg told TwoMorrows’ Back Issue magazine back in 2013. “Due to some screwy legal problems with the Mario Puzo screenplay, DC couldn’t do any direct adaptations of the film, so they had to go with original material based on the comic-book version — that’s why the Elliot S. Maggin novel, The Last Son of Krypton, which bears the Superman: The Movie logo and photos of Christopher Reeve on the cover, has nothing to do with the movie itself.

The material for World of Krypton wasn’t originally intended to be published as a stand-alone comic, however; instead, it was created for DC’s ongoing Showcase anthology series, which had launched characters including the silver age versions of  The Flash, Green Lantern, The Atom and others to great success — but in the 1970s, sales had fallen to the point where the series was cancelled before World of Krypton was finished. The publisher was left with a choice: either put the World of Krypton series into a drawer, never to be seen, or come up with a new venue to publish it while audiences were still excited about the 1978 smash-hit movie.

“World of Krypton was always intended to go hand-in-hand with the movie,” says Kupperberg, “and since there was no umbrella title like Showcase to put it out under, DC decided to publish it as a stand-alone miniseries.”

Sales on the project were strong enough that DC expanded its miniseries program in the following years, with evergreen projects such as Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen being published as a result. Never forget, though, that Superman did it first… well, his ancestors did, at least.