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The Death of
Superman Clark Kent was never a rich man. He may have been Superman, but when it came to his job at the Daily Planet, Clark was really an ordinary guy with a working man’s salary. As a street reporter, Clark Kent was probably making no more than $45,000 dollars a year, even though living expenses in the large city of Metropolis were much higher. by Mark Macias
No wonder Lois Lane never wanted to date Clark Kent – he couldn’t even afford to buy her a decent dinner. But 76 years after Superman was born on paper, the comic hero’s assets are worth an estimated $1 billion dollars. Not bad for a man who was raised on a rural farm. And with so much money and influence at stake, the battle over who owns that empire is about to go to court. In January 2008, the US courts are expected to hear the case of Siegel vs. Time Warner Inc. It will be a high profile lawsuit that even Clark Kent would want to cover – and a typical David versus Goliath story. An elderly woman versus the media giant, Time Warner Inc. – whose portfolio includes CNN, AOL, Time and People magazines. And that elderly woman happens to be Joanne Siegel – the real-life model for Lois Lane. In the early 1930s, Joanne was
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a teenager, smitten by a creative boy named Jerry Siegel. From his powerful imagination arose the comic hero, Superman, an extraterrestrial superhero who would combat the evils of this world. Jerry envisaged this hero with the letter S splashed across his chest, in a skin-tight costume, with a scarlet cape. Jerry asked his friend, Joe Shuster, to draw Superman and his evasive love, Lois Lane. Joanne agreed to pose for that sketch in Joe’s apartment, spread herself across a blanket on the floor and imagined Superman carrying her in his muscular arms. She married Jerry thirty years later. Today, Joanne is 89 years old, and fondly remembers living in Cleveland, Ohio. “Jerry and Joe didn’t have much life experience,” she told Portfolio Magazine. “They lived in a dream world. They thought that life was like
