Before Superman

The weird and wonderful stories of the ancestors of today’s comic-book and cinematic superheroes.

Superhumans—humans who’ve evolved into creatures stronger, smarter, and more gifted than we have any reason to be—first showed up in science-fictional narratives during the genre’s emergent Radium Age. Originally published between 1902 and 1928, the stories and excerpts anthologized in this volume by Joshua Glenn feature the likes of Marie Corelli’s Young Diana, who, having been rendered super-alluring via a rejuvenation experiment, seeks revenge on a sexist society; Thomas Dunbar, one of the first lab-created superhumans; Zoo and Yva, superwomen who contemplate the extermination of us mere mortals, thanks to George Bernard Shaw and H. Rider Haggard; and Alfred Jarry’s André Marcueil, a scientist who develops a super-sexual capacity.

Hugo Gernsback gives us Ralph 124C 41+, a benevolent super-genius inventor who dwells atop a New York skyscraper. M.P. Shiel tells the story of Hannibal Lepsius, a homeschooled prodigy turned amoral tech-bro; and Karel Capek gives us Rudy Marek, an inventor who, having developed super powers, wonders whether civilization will survive his latest invention. Thea von Harbou’s genius scientist, Rotwang, is even less conscientious in his scheming; as is Arthur Conan Doyle''s ever-irascible Professor Challenger, here in one of his final outings. Finally, Jean de La Hire’s Nyctalope, a popular French super-powered crimefighter character, makes an appearance; and so does Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan of the Apes… though reduced to miniature size.