Otto Binder: the writer behind Supergirl, Krypto and Brainiac

Who is Otto Binder? From science fiction to comics

Otto Oscar Binder was born on August 26, 1911, in Bessemer, Michigan, into a family from Austria that settled in Chicago in 1922. With his older brother Earl, he developed a passion for science fiction. The two brothers signed their work together as “Eando Binder,” for “E and O,” their initials, and published their first short story in 1932 in Amazing Stories. Over the years, Otto ended up writing under that name on his own.

Around that time, he invented a robot, Adam Link. In “I, Robot,” published in January 1939, the machine tells how it was wrongly accused of killing its creator. A young Isaac Asimov read the story and, two months later, began his own robot series. In 1950, his publisher titled his collection I, Robot, released in France as Les Robots, over his objections. Asimov later acknowledged it: Otto's story came before his.

Binder also wrote for Thrilling Wonder Stories, a magazine edited by Mort Weisinger. Remember that name: at DC, Weisinger would later edit the Superman titles.

At Fawcett, the pen behind Captain Marvel

Binder broke into comics in 1939 at Harry “A” Chesler's studio, where his brother Jack worked as an artist. He then joined Fawcett, the publisher of Captain Marvel, a hero launched in February 1940 in Whiz Comics #2 by Bill Parker and C. C. Beck: thanks to the wizard Shazam, young Billy Batson turns into a super-powered adult. Editor Ed Herron handed him the hero: according to Binder himself, his first Captain Marvel comics story appeared in Captain Marvel Adventures #9, cover-dated April 1942.

With Marc Swayze, he created Mary Marvel, Billy's twin sister, in Captain Marvel Adventures #18, cover-dated December 1942. With C. C. Beck, he introduced Black Adam, the wizard's former Egyptian champion who went over to the side of evil, in The Marvel Family #1, in December 1945, then Tawky Tawny, a talking tiger, in Captain Marvel Adventures #79, in December 1947.

According to the count by E. Nelson Bridwell, a writer and editor at DC, Binder wrote 986 of the roughly 1,740 Marvel Family stories, more than half of them. In the 1940s, Captain Marvel outsold Superman, and that success would cost Fawcett dearly.

The Fawcett-DC lawsuit and the move to Superman

Superman was born in 1938 in Action Comics #1, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. To his publisher, Captain Marvel was nothing but a copy: the same strength, the same cape and a secret identity hidden behind a reporter's job. So in September 1941, the companies that would later form DC took Fawcett to court. The trial didn't open until March 1948.

The first judge recognized the imitation but sided with Fawcett, because some Superman strips published in newspapers had not been protected by copyright. In 1951, Judge Learned Hand's appeals court ruled in DC's favor. Fawcett chose to settle: in 1953, the publisher agreed to pay $400,000 and never to publish Captain Marvel again.

Fawcett then shut down its comics line and laid off Binder. He had already been writing for DC since 1948; starting in 1954, he became a regular writer on the Superman titles. A final nod: DC licensed Captain Marvel in 1972, and in Shazam! #1, cover-dated February 1973, Binder briefly appeared as a character.

Otto Binder at DC: Jimmy Olsen and his transformations

At DC, Binder reunited with Mort Weisinger. In 1954, riding on Jimmy's success on television, DC launched a series devoted to Jimmy Olsen, the young reporter at the Daily Planet. The first issue, cover-dated September-October 1954, featured three stories written by Binder and drawn by Curt Swan. That issue introduced the signal watch, the ultrasonic device that lets Jimmy call Superman.

Binder wrote many of Jimmy's transformations there, often with Swan. In #22, cover-dated August 1957, a machine evolves him into a man of the future with a super-brain. In #31, in September 1958, he becomes Elastic Lad, an elastic boy. In April 1960, in #44, a magic potion even turns him into a werewolf.

The duo also created Lucy Lane, the sister of Lois Lane, in #36, cover-dated April 1959: she would remain Jimmy's love interest, through breakup after breakup, until the end of the series. These gadget-filled tales are typical of Superman's Silver Age.

1955: Krypto, the dog from Krypton

In 1955, Binder gave a companion to Superboy, the teenage version of the hero. In Adventure Comics #210, cover-dated March 1955, “The Super-Dog from Krypton!” was written by Binder, penciled by Curt Swan and inked by Sy Barry. A white dog with superpowers wreaks havoc in Smallville, and Superboy discovers the Kryptonian rocket that brought him there.

On Krypton, Jor-El had tested a prototype rocket by putting his son's puppy inside. Knocked off course by a meteor, the rocket drifted through space before landing on Earth. At the end of the story, Krypto leaves again to explore space, and Superboy is left alone.

The absence didn't last: four issues later, in Adventure Comics #214, cover-dated July 1955, Binder and Swan brought him back. Krypto became a regular in Superboy's adventures, then in Superman's, and would join the Legion of Super-Pets. In 2025, he made his live-action film debut in Superman.

1958: the Legion, Brainiac and the city of Kandor

In 1958, Binder churned out one idea after another. In Adventure Comics #247, cover-dated April and drawn by Al Plastino, Superboy meets three teenagers from the 30th century: Cosmic Boy, Lightning Boy, the future Lightning Lad, and Saturn Girl. Members of a club, the Legion of Super-Heroes, they put him through membership tests. The Legion wouldn't return until December 1959, in a story by Jerry Siegel.

In July 1958, Action Comics #242, again with Plastino, pitted Superman against Brainiac, a green-skinned alien who shrinks entire cities, Metropolis included, and bottles them to repopulate his planet. On Curt Swan's cover, he already wears his electrodes on his skull; in the story, he is a bald scientist.

Inside his ship, Superman finds a miniaturized city from Krypton, Kandor. Lacking the energy to restore it to full size, he keeps it in his Fortress of Solitude. Brainiac, for his part, would change in nature: in 1964, in Superman #167, Cary Bates and Edmond Hamilton turned him into a computer in human form.

Otto Binder and the birth of Supergirl

Before Supergirl, there was a Super-Girl. In Superman #123, cover-dated August 1958 and drawn by Dick Sprang, Binder imagined a girl with Superman's powers, born from a wish Jimmy Olsen made on a magic totem. In the end, she sacrifices herself to shield the hero from a kryptonite meteor, and Jimmy wishes her away before it can kill her.

The real Supergirl arrived nine months later, at the back of Action Comics #252, cover-dated May 1959: Binder wrote it, Al Plastino drew it and Curt Swan provided the cover. Kara Zor-El, daughter of Zor-El, Superman's uncle, grew up in Argo City, a city of Krypton hurled into space, whose ground, turned to kryptonite, poisoned its inhabitants. Superman places her in the Midvale Orphanage under the name Linda Lee: she will be his secret weapon. The same issue introduced Metallo, but his story was written by Robert Bernstein.

She wasn't his first heroine: at Fawcett, he had already created Mary Marvel. Supergirl remained hidden from the public until Action Comics #285, cover-dated February 1962. Killed by the Anti-Monitor in Crisis on Infinite Earths #7, cover-dated October 1985, she vanished from continuity. A new Kara Zor-El arrived in 2004 in the story arc “The Supergirl from Krypton,” which reuses the title of the 1959 story.

Bizarro, Titano, Beppo: doubles and super-pets

Binder also imagined some astonishing creatures. In Superboy #68, cover-dated October 1958 and drawn by George Papp, a scientist's duplicator ray produces a flawed, chalk-white copy of Superboy: the first Bizarro. Credit for the idea is still disputed: Alvin Schwartz, writer of the Superman newspaper strip, always said he had invented it, and his Bizarro appeared in the strip right afterward, from late August to December 1958. In historian Mark Evanier's view, the Bizarro the public knows owes more to Schwartz.

Binder nonetheless grew the character: in July 1959, in Action Comics #254, Lex Luthor built an adult Bizarro, then, in April 1960, Action Comics #263 gave the Bizarros their own planet, Htrae, “Earth” spelled backward: Bizarro World. In Superman #127, cover-dated February 1959 and drawn by Wayne Boring, Toto the chimpanzee comes back from space a giant: he is Titano, whose eyes shoot kryptonite rays. Finally, in Superboy #76, in October 1959, Binder and George Papp imagined a monkey from Krypton hidden in baby Kal-El's rocket: the future Beppo.

He is sometimes credited with the Phantom Zone, the prison for Kryptonian criminals. Yet it first appeared in Adventure Comics #283, cover-dated April 1961, in a story by Robert Bernstein and George Papp that also introduced General Zod.

Otto Binder's legacy, from 1969 to 2026

The 1960s were darker. In 1960, Binder sank his savings into Space World, a magazine about space that ruined him. In 1967, his only daughter, Mary, died at 14, hit by a car. His last Superman story, “The Cage of Doom,” appeared in Action Comics #377, cover-dated June 1969, with Curt Swan. He then left DC and moved to upstate New York. He died in October 1974, at age 63.

In 1986, the reboot led by John Byrne made Superman the sole survivor of Krypton: Supergirl, Krypto and Kandor disappeared, for a time. In 2026, the Supergirl film, starring Milly Alcock, brought Kara and Krypto together on screen, two characters born from Binder's pen.

In the first episode of the Supergirl series, which aired in the United States on October 26, 2015, Kara saves a plane that skims past the Otto Binder Bridge. The first episode of season 3 of My Adventures with Superman, released in June 2026, shows the grave of Dr. George Otto Binder, the scientist who raised Bizarro, a nod to Binder and, probably, to George Papp, the artist of the first Bizarro. Binder himself was posthumously inducted into the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1999 and the Eisner Hall of Fame in 2004, and received the Bill Finger Award in 2010.

Conclusion

Otto Binder didn't invent Superman, but he gave him a good part of his supporting cast: a dog, a cousin, a city-collecting enemy and a botched double, all of whom movies and TV series still bring back.

To see where these creations fit in the hero's life, dive into the complete history of Superman. And to follow the dog born from his pen, discover everything about Krypto.