Curt Swan: the artist who defined Superman's face

Curt Swan before Superman: from the Army newspaper to the DC offices

Curt Swan's real name was Douglas Curtis Swan. He was born on February 17, 1920, in Minnesota, in the United States, into a family of Swedish descent. As for the city, sources are split: Minneapolis according to Wikipedia EN and MNopedia, the encyclopedia of the Minnesota Historical Society, and Willmar according to Superman Homepage and Wikipedia FR.

During World War II, he drew for Stars and Stripes, the U.S. Army newspaper. There he met France “Eddie” Herron, a writer at DC, who steered him toward the publisher. His training didn't amount to much: a few months at the Pratt Institute, thanks to the G.I. Bill. For everything else, Swan taught himself.

DC hired him in December 1945. His first published drawings appeared in early 1946 in Boy Commandos, then in Newsboy Legion and Tommy Tomorrow. He wasn't drawing Superman yet. Apart from a short detour into advertising in 1951, he would stay at DC until his death: fifty-one years in all, according to MNopedia.

1948: a first Superman story, ten years after the hero's creation

The first Superman story drawn by Swan appeared in Superman #51, cover-dated March-April 1948: it's the third story in the issue, “The Man Who Bossed Superman,” inked by Steve Brodie. The cover, however, is by Wayne Boring. Back then, artists' names weren't printed: this attribution comes from research carried out much later.

So when Swan came along, the hero was already ten years old. Superman was born in 1938 in Action Comics #1, and his creators are Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Before Swan, it was Shuster, then Wayne Boring, who set the character's look in the comics. The face Swan would establish came later, from the late 1950s on; the invention of the hero belongs to others.

The following year, he moved on to the hero's youth. The first Superboy story attributed to him, “A Zoo for Sale!”, appeared in #5, cover-dated November-December 1949, from a script by Bill Finger. The first issue, dated April 1949, had been drawn by Sikela, Dobrotka and Roussos; Swan then alternated with John Sikela on the series.

Batman, 3D and Jimmy Olsen: Curt Swan's 1950s

The 1950s placed Swan at the heart of the Superman family. In Superman #76, cover-dated May-June 1952, in “The Mightiest Team in the World,” written by Edmond Hamilton and inked by Stan Kaye, Superman and Batman meet for the first time in a comic-book story; the cover is by Win Mortimer. Swan himself, though, regarded the one-shot Three-Dimension Adventures of Superman (1953), whose cover he drew, as the real start of his work on the hero.

The series that made his name came in 1954. Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #1, cover-dated September-October 1954, brings together three stories written by Otto Binder; Swan drew all of them and did the cover with Stan Kaye. He drew the series until 1966 and saw it himself as the breakthrough of his career. Its hero, Jimmy Olsen, is the young reporter at the Daily Planet and Superman's friend.

It was in this same series that he and Binder created Lucy Lane, the sister of Lois, in #36, cover-dated April 1959. Supergirl, on the other hand, isn't his: Kara Zor-El was created by Otto Binder and Al Plastino in Action Comics #252, cover-dated May 1959, for which Swan penciled only the cover, inked by Plastino. Likewise, he had only done the cover of Superman #123 (August 1958): the Super-Girl in that story is the work of Dick Sprang.

Krypto, the daily strip and taking over from Wayne Boring

In 1955, Swan took part in another birth. Krypto, Superboy's dog, made his first appearance in Adventure Comics #210, cover-dated March 1955, in “The Super-Dog from Krypton!” Otto Binder wrote the story, Swan and Sy Barry drew it, and the cover is by Swan. So the dog wasn't Siegel and Shuster's idea.

Swan also drew Superman for the newspapers: the daily comic strip, from June 18, 1956, to November 12, 1960, according to Wikipedia EN and Paul Gravett, or from 1958 to 1961 according to MNopedia. In the comic books, he gradually took over from Wayne Boring as the main artist, with a Superman who was more human, more approachable and more expressive than his predecessor's imposing version. Sources disagree on the year of the handover, somewhere between 1955, 1957, 1958 and the early 1960s. Just remember that his Superman dominated the comics from the late 1950s to 1986.

According to Superman Homepage, the only source that reports the remark, Swan wanted to draw Superman as a “nice guy,” a genuinely decent man. The so-called “classic” Superman of licensed merchandise, with the S logo on his chest, often comes from DC's 1982 Style Guide, drawn by José Luis García-López, and not from Swan's pages. In the succession of Superman's eras, Swan's name sits between those of Shuster and Byrne.

The Silver Age: imaginary stories, Kandor and a race against the Flash

In the early 1960s, Swan drew stories that played with the myth. In Superman #149, cover-dated November 1961, Jerry Siegel, the hero's co-creator, wrote “The Death of Superman!”, a three-part imaginary story in which Luthor kills Superman with kryptonite. Swan penciled the interior and did the cover with George Klein; as for the inks on the pages, sources waver between Klein and Sheldon Moldoff. Don't confuse this story with the 1992 Death of Superman, which isn't his work.

With Edmond Hamilton, he then took the hero to Kandor, the miniature city. In “Superman in Kandor,” published in Superman #158, cover-dated January 1963, Superman and Jimmy Olsen become two crime-fighters, Nightwing and Flamebird. It's the first appearance of the name Nightwing, long before Dick Grayson's Nightwing, who appeared in 1984 in Tales of the Teen Titans #44, by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez. Swan co-created the name, not that particular character.

Hamilton and Swan also created Composite Superman in World's Finest Comics #142, cover-dated June 1964. In 1967, Superman #199, cover-dated August, told “Superman's Race with the Flash!”, a race between Superman and the Flash written by Jim Shooter, drawn by Swan and inked by Klein; its cover is the work of Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson. The forgotten powers of the era of editor Mort Weisinger also often took shape under his pencil.

Swanderson and the rest: the inkers who finished his pages

Swan was first and foremost a penciller. He laid down the drawing in pencil, and other artists went over it in ink: his pages therefore owe a great deal to his inkers. In the 1960s, his regular inker was George Klein, from 1962 to 1968 according to the 13th Dimension website; Eddy Zeno, quoted by Paul Gravett, sees the years 1962-1964 as a first high point for their partnership.

Next came Murphy Anderson, from 1970 to 1974, then again in 1988-1989. Readers nicknamed the pair “Swanderson.” The word refers to the duo, not to a third artist, and it was indeed Anderson who inked Swan, not the other way around.

In the mid-1980s, Al Williamson took over, in 1985-1986; Swan considered him his favorite inker. One last name is easy to mix up: Kurt Schaffenberger, with a K, inked Action Comics #583 in 1986. He's a different artist from Curt Swan, who penciled that very same issue.

The Julius Schwartz era: Kryptonite Nevermore, Faora and Superboy-Prime

In 1971, the era of editor Julius Schwartz began. Superman #233, cover-dated January 1971, published “Superman Breaks Loose,” the first chapter of “Kryptonite Nevermore”: Denny O'Neil wrote it, Swan penciled, Murphy Anderson inked. The issue's cover is by Neal Adams, not by Swan.

With writer Cary Bates, Swan co-created a whole gallery of characters: Faora, in Action Comics #471, cover-dated May 1977, but also Terra-Man, Vartox and the 1970s Toyman. He also drew Vixen's first appearance in Action Comics #521, cover-dated July 1981, without being her co-creator: Wikipedia credits the character to Gerry Conway and Bob Oksner. In “I Flew with Superman!”, published in Superman Annual #9, dated 1983, which he both penciled and inked, Swan put himself in the story and helped Superman crack a case.

In November 1985, DC Comics Presents #87 introduced Superboy-Prime: Elliot S. Maggin wrote it, Swan penciled, Al Williamson inked, and Eduardo Barreto did the cover. Twenty years later, the character found himself at the heart of Infinite Crisis, in 2005.

1986: Alan Moore, Curt Swan and the farewell to the pre-Crisis Superman

In 1986, after Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC was getting ready to relaunch Superman. To close out the era, Alan Moore wrote “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”, a two-part imaginary story published in Superman #423 and Action Comics #583. Both issues carry a September 1986 cover date, but they came out in June 1986. Swan drew the pencils; George Pérez inked #423 and Kurt Schaffenberger #583.

Issue #423 was billed as the “Historic Last Issue”: with the next issue, the series took the name The Adventures of Superman. This out-of-continuity story shouldn't be confused with “The Death of Superman!” from 1961, also drawn by Swan, or with the hero's death published in 1992. In France, it was reprinted in the collection Les Derniers Jours de Superman (“The Last Days of Superman”), published by Urban Comics in its DC Deluxe line in March 2016.

After Crisis, DC took Swan off the regular Superman titles. John Byrne relaunched the character with the miniseries The Man of Steel, and a new art style replaced the one readers had known for nearly thirty years.

Curt Swan's last pages and legacy

After that, Swan returned to Superman only now and then: in 1987, he drew the comic-book adaptation of the film Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, from a script by Bob Rozakis, sharing pencils with Don Heck. He died in June 1996, at 76, in Connecticut; sources waver between the 16th and the 17th, and between Wilton and Norwalk. His last five pages featuring the hero were published after his death in Superman: The Wedding Album, cover-dated December 1996 and released the week of October 6, 1996, the same week American television aired the wedding episode of the series Lois & Clark.

He had received the Inkpot Award in 1984; in 1997, he was posthumously inducted into the Eisner Awards Hall of Fame, the same year as Julius Schwartz. In 2018, Action Comics #1000, cover-dated June and on sale April 18, still ran a Marv Wolfman story built on his unpublished artwork. MNopedia writes that he “determined the look and feel” of the Superman universe in the two decades after 1970; historian Les Daniels, quoted by Wikipedia EN, calls him the hero's “definitive” artist in the early 1960s.

Television may have given him a nod. In the series Smallville, Christopher Reeve plays Dr. Virgil Swann, with two n's, in “Rosetta” (2x17, aired in the United States on February 25, 2003) and “Legacy” (3x17, aired in the United States on April 14, 2004). Den of Geek and Wikipedia FR see it as a tribute to the artist, with no known confirmation from the production.

Conclusion

Curt Swan neither invented Superman nor set his very first look. His contribution lies elsewhere: from the late 1950s to 1986, he gave the comic-book hero a more human face, from Jimmy Olsen to Kandor, all the way to Alan Moore's farewell story.

To go back to the origins, start with Siegel and Shuster. And to place Swan within the character's whole life, discover the complete history of Superman.