Of course, there's no real large city called Metropolis, and the closest thing to it is the middle-sized Metropolis, Illinois. Actually, in the Superman stories,"Metropolis" is the generic name for the city that Superman is in. Since Siegel often had Superman expose corruption in government officials, it wouldn't do to always name them specifically, when Siegel could be sued. In the early to mid thirties, that city was Cleveland, Ohio, the sixth largest city in the nation at the time. (It was specifically named as his home town in Action#2. See picture above.)

Action #2 wasn't the only story that had Superman located in Cleveland, specifically. In Action #11, Superman stops two swindlers who are defrauding stock investors with stocks in a fake oil mine. Superman makes the oil really produce, as a prelude to defrauding Meek and Bronson, the two swindlers. The drill's foreman places a call to his bosses, Meek and Bronson---who live in the same city Clark Kent does---which was mentioned, specifically, as being in Cleveland. (See below.)

Later Clark, Lois, and George Taylor moved, upon Lane and Clark's return from Europe, and "Metropolis" was New York City.

Why Cleveland?

Cleveland in the thirties was an extremely tough town, with gangsters and corruption in government running rampant. Chicago had been more or less cleaned up in the previous decade, yet at the time Superman first went to Cleveland, 1932, there was an openly corrupt mayor, sheriff, and quite a few of the police force. Cleveland was actually one of the best places for Superman to start, a place that cried out for his help and, ummm, correcting influence.

It was so bad that in 1934-1935, the most famous lawman in the country, Elliott Ness himself, was called in as "director of safety" to help clean up the corrupt police department of Cleveland, and to clean the gangsters out. And perhaps...for another reason.

After all, if you had a super-strong vigilante who was taking the law into his own hands and thumbing his nose at the police, you would want the best lawman in the country on your side, too. Especially since the then-governor of Ohio, George White, whose bedroom Superman burst into in his first adventure to save someone about to be wrongfully executed, had ordered that no news reach the public about this extraordinary being.

Nor do I believe that it was the first visit of Ness to Cleveland. I think he made a two-day trip to Cleveland in 1933.

In the story later named "Wanted: Superman" from Action Comics #9, February 1939, Metropolis' police chief recruits a Inspector Reilly from Chicago, someone all the reporters had heard of, to try to capture Superman, since Superman in the previous adventure had destroyed some of the city's slums so that newer, cleaner housing could be built by the government. The reporters' awed reaction---"Hear of him? I should say I have!" "Why, he's the Chicago Dick who--Wow! This is an unusual announcement!"-- makes me suspect that Reilly is Siegelese for Ness, or at the very least, one of the Untouchables who worked with Ness.

Please note that Clark's reaction to Ness is not one of unalloyed awe..."Of all the conceited windbags..." In fact, it's hard to recognize Ness in the bragging persona of "Captain Reilly", compared to the generally quiet Ness. Yet we would suspect Siegel would take some effort to disguise Ness, and in later years, Ness would take to drinking and womanizing a bit, as well as getting involved in a hit-and-run accident. The awe that the reporters (save for Clark) held "Reilly" could be best explained if he were Elliott Ness, who stopped Al Capone. Ness might have been a bit patronizing, also---probably thinking that Superman was probably just a brawny bruiser with a bulletproof vest underneath his odd clothing, who faked his "flying". Also remembering how Ness/Reilly was saying he would capture Superman within two days, Clark was naturally miffed.

Ness/Reilly didn't, of course, but he came within one minute of exposing Clark as Superman. Clark had never had such a close call in his early career, and only dumb luck, in the greed of an amateur detective eager for an award turning out the lights, gave him his chance to evade his identity being shown to all the world. Ness/Reilly wasn't the only one who was overconfident in that adventure.

To name some other Cleveland residents who appeared in the stories---the police chief in the panel above was called "Chief Burke" by Siegel, but the real police chief at the time was named George J. Matowitz, an old-time political appointmee.

The mayor of Cleveland at the time, who Clark is calling to complain about the high traffic mortality rate in Cleveland (it was the second in the nation in the thirties, another reason we know Cleveland was the initial "Metropolis") was three-time mayor Harry L. Davis, once governor of Ohio, but by anyone's standards a bit corrupt in allowing gangsters and gamblers to get their way in Cleveland. Later in that adventure Superman terrorized Davis into getting tough on reckless driving in Action#12---but it didn't last, and Ness had to do his own campaign a few years later.

Davis was replaced by the much more honest Harold Burton in 1935, a move that was applauded by the papers, and we may be sure, by Clark Kent in particular. It was Harold Burton who called Ness back to Cleveland, to rid the police force of corruption, as Cleveland's "safety director". (One suspects Burton also wanted Ness to either expose Superman, or at least give a plausible reason to the rest of the world why the gangsters were slowly leaving Cleveland.)

If it seems Metropolis in the comics was evolving from a corrupt town, full of corrupt officials and gambling, to a much more benign town...you'd be right.

So was Cleveland...thanks to Ness' and Burton's legal influences, and doubtless due to Superman's extra-legal influence.

Superman also declared war on gamblers in Cleveland, and if anything, Siegel's story underestimated the hold gamblers had on Cleveland. Although he drove some of the major gamblers away from Metropolis/Cleveland, in Action #16, human nature being what it is, more gambling halls sprung up in their place, and his war on such only stopped things temporarily. I'm not sure who the "Commisioner Watson" who resigned was supposed to be---there was a corrupt county sheriff of that decade who protected the gamblers when Superman and Ness made Cleveland proper too hot for them, but if so, he didn't resign. More research is needed...

Ness, in later years, also declared war on gambling.

Cleveland was also a fascinating place if you were a reporter, also. Paul Bellamy, son of Edward Bellamy, the author of LOOKING BACKWARD, was editor in chief for the CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER, and there were excellent reporters such as Clayton Fritchley, who became a good friend of Elliott Ness, and who wrote for the NEWS AND PRESS, and Wes Lawrence and Ralph Kelly of the Cleveland PLAIN DEALER. Clark Kent and Lois undoubtedly knew all of them.

Bellamy couldn't have been George Taylor, though, Clark's first editor, because Bellamy stayed in Cleveland into the forties, and Taylor went with Lois and Clark when they were transferred to another paper, called the Daily Planet by Siegel, belonging to the same newspaper chain, but in New York City. (The newspaper chain thought Taylor, Lane and Kent worked so well together that they moved them together, circa 1938.) He was soon replaced after the move by the editor called Perry White at the Planet, retiring. Of course, Taylor could be a pseudonym for a managing or city editor under Bellamy...or maybe it was an entirely different paper entirely. Of course, The Daily Star, Siegel's pseudonym for the real paper Clark and Lois worked for, was named for Shuster's memory of the fine Toronto newspaper, the Daily Star.

I'm going to identify as much as I can, but not the name of the real paper they worked for, or the real actual names that "Clark Kent" and "Lois Lane" were pseudonyms for.

It's worth noting that Ness several times pursued the "Mad Butcher" or the "Torso Killer"---a mad serial killer who butchered at least twelve victims during the thirties, a type of killer that was quite new in the thirties, but all too familiar to us today, unfortunately. Quite frankly, neither Ness, who usually fought gangsters with understandable motives, nor Superman, who didn't think that sort of way either, and wasn't accustomed to random, purposeless crimes, were the best types to run down this kind of serial killer, so new to the American scene.

Ness at the end was convinced the Butcher was Dr. Francis Sweeney, but couldn't prove it. Then, in August 1938, Sweeney did an act that is shrouded in mystery. He voluntarily entered an asylum and had himself voluntarily committed for the rest of his life. He wasn't a prisoner, per se. He could leave when he wanted to. Nevertheless, he voluntarily stayed institutionalized for most of the rest of his life. Why? Ness didn't have any evidence on him that was worth presenting to the journey, and Sweeney had a Congressman as a relative who could make trouble for Ness.

Well, I can't prove it...it wasn't mentioned by Siegel...but I think we can deduce that Superman finally was also convinced of Sweeney's guilt, and dealt with things...in his own way...much as he did with a cruel munitions manufacturer, a few years ago....

He made it clear what would happen to Sweeney if he didn't institutionalize himself. That's the only thing that really explains Dr. Sweeney's voluntary self-institutionalization.

Hey, Superman was mellowing. A few years earlier, he would have given the Mad Butcher "the fate you deserve, you torturing devil!"--and killed him.

I suspect it was one of Clark's last deeds at Cleveland, after returning from Europe as a war correspondent, gathering his things for the move to NYC.

The comics always exaggerated how public Superman's deeds were. Many of the reporters had heard rumors of Superman, but treated them much as later reporters would treat rumors of Bigfoot or UFOs. Clark played a key role in downplaying credulity of those reports. In fact, one of the sources of friction between Lois and Clark was that Lois knew Superman existed, and others derided it---like editor George Taylor, who, after she told him of her first encounter with Superman, said,

"Are you sure it wasn't pink elephants you saw?"

Clark/Superman's attitude was more like this in the first Superman story---relief at not being mentioned. (you also see Ohio Governor George White, who had met Superman face to face, conferring with his aides. Evidently, despite having met Superman face to face he had decided to keep Superman's existence secret, until authorities could capture him and prove his existence. Otherwise he might look like a credulous, easily panicked fool, believing in fantastic things, without evidence. Just as a politician today might hesitate about admitting he saw a UFO. Other politicians and authorities took their cue from White, until Superman could be captured...which was never.)

We see it again and again in the early stories. Most people are unaware of Superman's existence, or at most, think he's a myth. Again and again we see it. Lubane, a munitions manufacturer, once remarked,

"Still referring to a mythical Superman, eh? Superstitious fools!"

Or self-appointed "agent" of Superman, Nick Williams, who said,

"I figured that seein' as Superman is probably just a myth---"

Or in Superman #4, the last story, as a crook stammers,

"G-Gosh--I thought he was a myth---really didn't exist."

Or this reaction from a crooked blackmailing publisher from Action #18.

After Superman became a famous fictional character, on comics, cartoon, and movie serial, even those who had met him face to face would no longer talk about it, for fear of mockery, of being taunted (or even committed) for being unable to seperate fact from fiction. So Siegel and Shuster's public accounts of his deeds helped in the long run to keep his deeds even more secretive, paradoxically.

Sometimes Siegel and Shuster got a few of the details wrong, anticipating, since they often wrote the stories years after the fact. For instance, in "Superman Champions Universal Peace!" in Superman #2, Metropolis is referred to as in New York, even though Clark was still working for the Daily Star, Siegel's pseudonym for the Cleveland paper. One of the Ultra-Humanites' henchmen is referred as being taken to Sing Sing, closer to NYC than Cleveland. Actually, at the time of the action of the story, he was still working in Cleveland---yet by the time the story actually was written and saw print, Superman had relocated in New York City. Siegel and Shuster, in their rush to fill the growing demand for Superman stories, grew careless about small details like that, and slipped up.

After Superrman left in mid-1938 for NYC, Cleveland got a new protector, Superman's fellow JSA member, Jim Corrigan, alias the Spectre. (Siegel, who also chronicled his adventures, took to calling Corrigan's city "Cliffland", a too-obvious pseudonym.) It's worth noting that one of the policemen that Elliott Ness made a public example of for drinking while on duty was Michael Corrigan, and dismissed him. That may be where Siegel got the name for his pseudonym for the brave Cleveland police detective---whose story really began--when he died. (No, I have no idea how Siegel heard of it.) Or it may be that Michael was a relative of Jim's. The Spectre's adventures tended to be on a mystical plane, and rarely intruded on city politics like Superman's did, though.

After the Spectre was mystically locked in Corrigan's body in the mid-forties, Cleveland was blessed with normalcy for a few decades...but it wasn't going to last.

Then, in the seventies, Cleveland became the home of a duck---a duck dressed in clothing, smoking a cigar, whom some said could even talk---who claimed to be from another reality---and he met a beautiful redhead, named Beverly---

And rumors about him caused a hilarious comic book and an awful movie...

But that's...another story.

PARTIAL LIST OF SOURCES:

Of course, TARZAN ALIVE and DOC SAVAGE: HIS APOCALYPTIC LIFE by Philip Jose Farmer.

Much of Elliott Ness's Cleveland years was told in ELLIOT NESS: THE MAN BEHIND THE MYTH.

A lot of information about Cleveland's history in the thirties was given in CLEVELAND: CONFUSED CITY ON A SEESAW.

Those interested with comments, suggestions, things I have forgotten, things I messed up, contact me at...
E-Mail:al.schroeder@nashville.com

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Speculations Copyright © Al Schroeder. Superman is owned by DC Comics, Warner Communications, and the Siegels. All other characters copyrighted by their respective owners.