Gladiator is an American
science fiction novel first published in 1930 and written by
Philip Wylie. The story concerns a scientist who invents an "alkaline free-radical" serum to "improve" humankind by granting the proportionate strength of an ant and the leaping ability of the grasshopper. Eight years later, both metaphors were used to explain Superman's powers in the first comic of his series. The scientist injects his pregnant wife with the serum and his son
Hugo Danner is born with
superhuman strength, speed, and
bulletproof skin. Hugo spends much of the novel hiding his powers, rarely getting a chance to openly use them. The novel is widely assumed to have been an inspiration for
Superman,
[1] though no confirmation exists that Superman creators
Jerry Siegel and
Joe Shuster were influenced by it.
[2] The concept of a human having the proportional strength of an insect is also the basis of the
Spider-Man series.
A copy of the book can be seen on
Hollis Mason's shelf in one panel of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons'
Watchmen.
Story
The story begins at the turn of the 20th century. Professor Abednego Danner lives in a small, rural
Colorado town, and has a somewhat unhappy marriage to a conservative religious woman. Obsessed with unlocking genetic potential, Danner experiments with a tadpole (which breaks through the bowl he's keeping it in), and a pregnant cat, whose kitten displays incredible strength and speed, managing to maul larger animals. Fearing the cat may be uncontrollable, Danner poisons it. When his wife becomes pregnant with their first child, Danner duplicates his experiment on his unknowing wife.
Their child Hugo almost immediately displays incredible strength, and Danner’s wife realizes what her husband has done. Though she hates him, she does not leave him, and they instead raise their son to be respectful of his incredible gift and sternly instruct him never to fight, or otherwise reveal his gifts, lest he be the target of a
witch-hunt. Hugo grows up being bullied at school, unwilling to fight back. However, he finds release when he discovers the freedom the wilderness around his hometown provides, unleashing his great strength on trees as a manner of playing.
Hugo finds success in his teenage years, becoming a star football player, and receives a college scholarship. He spends summers and free time trying to find uses for his strength, becoming a professional fighter and strongman at a boardwalk. After killing another player during a football game, Hugo quits school.
Danner then journeys to
France and joins the
French Foreign Legion fighting in
World War I, where his bulletproof skin comes in handy. Upon returning home, he gets a job at a bank, and when a person gets locked inside the vault, Hugo volunteers to get him out if everyone will leave the room. Alone, Hugo rips open the vault door, freeing the man. The banker's response is not gratitude but suspicion. Hugo is deemed an inventive safecracker who was otherwise waiting for an opportunity to rob the vault. Not only is he fired and threatened with arrest for the destruction of the vault, but he is taken away and (ineffectually) tortured. He withstands all attempts at getting him to tell how he opened the vault, escapes, and lifts a car into the air (a feat echoed in the first appearance of
Superman on the cover of
Action Comics #1).
Next, he attempts to have an influence in politics, but becomes infuriated with the state of affairs and the bureaucracy of
Washington. Still seeking a goal for his life and a purpose for his powers, he joins an archeological expedition headed for
Mayan ruins. Finally finding a friend in the scientist heading the expedition, Hugo reveals his gifts and origin to him. The wise archeologist sympathizes with Danner and suggests some courses of action for him to take. That night, during a thunderstorm, Danner wanders to the top of a mountain, debating what to do. He asks God for advice, and is struck dead by a bolt of lightning.
Philosophy
Although the book was written during the heyday of
pulp action heroes and as the
superhero genre was emerging, at no point does Hugo Danner put on a costume or seek to be a
vigilante, or much of a hero of any kind, realizing the futility of such a move. Instead, it is the story of someone with incredible gifts unable to find his place in the world.
[citation needed]
There is wide speculation about how much of what is happening in the story is indicative of feelings held personally by author
Philip Wylie. The death of the protagonist by lightning while he asked questions of God likely echoes some of the feelings Wylie was known to have about religion.
[citation needed]
Adaptations
Films
The novel was made into a
comedy movie in 1938 starring
Joe E. Brown and released only two months after Superman first appeared on newsstands.
[3]
Comics
The story was adapted for
Marvel Comics in
Marvel Preview #9 (published in winter of 1976) by
Roy Thomas and
Tony DeZuniga, roughly following the storyline of the first half of the novel. (It is unknown if a continuation was planned.) It is billed "from the blockbusting novel 'Gladiator' by Philip Wylie" on the cover, with the story titled "Man God" inside. Thomas later created a character named
Arn "Iron" Munro in the
DC comic book Young All-Stars, the son of Hugo Danner, who had faked his death and later returned to Colorado and became a parent.
The novel was adapted into a four issue prestige style
comic book by acclaimed writer
Howard Chaykin with art by Russ Heath. The series was published by
Wildstorm, a division of DC Comics, in 2005. The story was retitled "Legend", although the covers of the first two issues include a large blurb saying "Inspired by Philip Wylie's Gladiator". The setting of the story was moved forward to the second half of the century, and the
Vietnam War replaced World War I, but the story remained largely intact.
Publication history
The hardcover novel was first published by
New York City,
New York's
Alfred A. Knopf in 1930, with
book club editions that same year from
Book League Monthly.
Gladiator has remained in print through several decades, with editions including hardcovers from
Shakespeare House (1951), and
Hyperion Press (1974,
ISBN 0-88355-124-1, with an introduction by
Sam Moskowitz), and
paperback editions from
Avon Books (1949 and 1957),
Lancer Books (1958, 1965, 1967, 1973, and 1985),
Manor Books (1976), the
University of Nebraska Press imprint
Bison Books (2004, with an introduction by
Janny Wurts,
ISBN 0-8032-9840-4),
Disruptive Press (2004), and
Blackmask (2004,
ISBN 1-59654-013-3,
ISBN 978-1-59654-013-2).
References
External links
* * *
The Joe E. Brown movie is loosely based on the original story:
In this version Lucien Littlefield plays the scientist who gives Joe E. Brown superhuman abilities. He is named "Danner" after the inventor of the process in the original book. Joe E. Brown's character is named "Hugo Kipp". "Hugo" comes from theGladiator" in the book, but the last name is different.
Joe E. Brown throws a discus.
Some of the other characters in this story.
Joe E. Brown wrestles Man Mountain Dean, a famous wrestler who plays himself in this movie.
And triumphs, thanks to his superhuman ability.
June Travis, as the girl who loves him, is pleased and thrilled at his magnificent triumph.
Although not actually based on the comic book Superman, who had just begun to appear on the newstands when this movie came out, there are some similarities even though the hero in this story never quite reaches the level of success that Superman does. Something that could also be said of the Gladiator of the original story
And now to take a look at the book it was based on. And the story that Superman was based on it.
The Phillip Wylie novel GLADIATOR contains some similarities to Superman, but there are also some striking differences. The "Superman" in GLADIATOR is a miserable failure who accomplishes nothing and ends up dying in his first adventure. Superman, on the other hand, was a tremendous success in his adventures whose career has continued to this day.
Superman had a love interest in Lois Lane, while Wylie's Gladiator didn't seem to have any kind of a girlfriend at all. This book cover shows him surrounded by beautiful girls, and he's still all alone. A non-achiever in more ways that one, in just about any way he can look, in fact.
This guy's an all-around failure.
It's also clear that Superman resembles other characters besides Wylie's. The business of the hero traveling to a planet with less gravity and thereby having greater strength than that planets inhabitants, and being able to leap great distances ( as the earliest Superman stories had it - he wasn't described as flying till later ) had already been used by the Edgar Rice Burroughs character John Carter, while Lester Dent's Doc Savage not only had already been called a "Superman" but a "Man Of Bronze" ( Superman was the "Man Of Steel" ),
Ad for DOC SAVAGE magazine.
but had a "Fortress Of Solitude" before Superman had one. Some people also thought that Clark Kent and Lois Lane had been named after Doc Savage, whose first name was "Clark", and Margo Lane, the girlfriend of The Shadow.
Not only that, but Superman was at least partly inspired by movie heroes such as Douglas Fairbanks, and Lois Lane owes much to movie heroines such as Glenda Farrell and Lola Lane, by Siegel and Shuster's own statements.
Superman was frequently depicted as standing with his hands on his hips, a pose taken from Douglas Fairbanks.
The classic Superman pose, still in use.
It should come as no surprise that the movies influenced Superman in the comics. They've been an influence on all the other superhero comics ever since.
As for whether or not Phillip Wylie's story influenced Superman, that depends on which story you want to believe.
Joe E. Brown Pictures:
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