| What
if I told you that there was a superhero who could go toe to toe
with the man of steel? Or that this hero’s teenage years
were filled with enough angst to make Spider-Man’s adolescence
appear well-adjusted? What if this hero possessed the speed of
the Flash, the Hulk’s rage, Batman’s fortune and grim
vision, could stride a battlefield like Captain America, master
the denizens of the deep like Aquaman and be feared and mistrusted
by society like the X-Men?
You would be intrigued. You’d wonder where this hero came
from and risk several dozen paper cuts flipping through your Overstreet
trying to track him down.
And if I told you this hero was named Hugo Danner, odds are you
never heard of him.
And his creator? Siegel and Schuster? Stan Lee? Bob Kane? Wil
Eisner?
Philip Wylie.
Who?
Exactly.
In 1930, one year before The Shadow, three years before Doc Savage,
six years prior to The Phantom, eight before Superman, the superhero
was created by one man, author Philip Wylie. His creation, Hugo
Danner, did not blast across the pages of a comic book but rather
a novel (and not a graphic novel) called Gladiator, which tells
the story of Danner’s journey as the strongest man alive.
Danner grows up in rural farm country. Sound familiar? He can
bend steel, leap forty feet in the air, is impervious to all harm
except an artillery shell, fights as WWI’s first and only
super soldier. Sound familiar? Danner must hide his strength from
a mistrustful society. Sound familiar? Has his teenage years marred
by a tragedy he caused. Sound familiar? And dedicates himself
to fighting for truth and justice. Sound familiar?
Gladiator is all of these things and so much more. This novel,
which should be required reading for anyone who has thrilled to
the exploits of caped crusaders, not only single-handedly creates
the superhero, it somehow manages to encapsulate the themes and
motifs of just about every comic ever printed since. All in one
slim novel with no costumes and no eye-catching artwork. This
is a staggering achievement. Gladiator is the mythical nutshell.
Listen to Danner’s inner musings, year’s before comic’s
Golden Age, and see the creation of an industry:
"What
would you do if you were the strongest man in the world, the strongest
thing in the world, mightier than the machine?" He made himself
guess answers to that rhetorical query. “I would --
I would have won the war. But I did not. I would run the universe
single-handed. Literally single-handed. I would scorn the universe
and turn it to my own ends. I would be a criminal. I would rip
open banks and gut them. I would kill and destroy. I would be
a secret and invisible blight. I would set out to stamp crime
off the earth; I would be a super-detective, following and summarily
punishing every criminal until no one dared to commit a felony.
What would I do? What would I do?"
And there it is, the blueprint of a genre, springing from the
mind of one man. The birth of the superhero and the supervillain.
Siegel and Schuster have claimed that Gladiator was the inspiration
for Superman and, reading Wylie’s masterpiece, it is not
hard to see the truth of that claim.
Gladiator has rarely been adapted to comics, has never appeared
on the silver screen in a multi-million dollar movie franchise,
nor on television in an animated series or prime time. There are
no merchandising lines or theme parks. And I can’t help
but wonder if this is because Wylie’s vision became a self-fulfilling
prophecy, so uncannily predicting everything that followed that
comic creators shied away from it lest they be considered plagiarists.
What Edgar Allan Poe did for the mystery story and H.G. Wells
for science-fiction, Wylie did for superheroes. Gladiator reads
like a comic book, a great comic book, on par with the original
Superman, Batman, Stan Lee’s best, Watchmen, Sin City, Dark
Knight and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It has all the drama,
daring, heartbreak and adventure comic readers could ever want.
The novel’s place in the history of the genre is unquestionable,
but it is important to note that the story stands on its
own as one heck of a superhero ride.
The novel is currently available from University of Nebraska Press
and simply must not be missed. The writing is edgy, crisp, and
fast-paced, with surprising disregard for the conventions and
morals of the 30’s. Hugo Danner is no squeaky-clean Superman
but rather comes across as gritty as Frank Miller with a world
view that would make The Punisher smile, coupled with a compulsion
to do the right thing that would put Peter Parker to shame.
As an exciting superhero story, Gladiator delivers. As a piece
of history, the novel rises above and beyond all expectation.
Here is another excerpt from the latter part of the novel when
Danner is still agonizing over how to best use his gifts for the
betterment of mankind. His newfound mentor offers a suggestion,
the clarity of which sends chills up and down the reader’s
spine:
Hugo
gasped -- “You mean -- other men like me?”
‘“Exactly. Not one or two. Scores, hundreds. And women.
Perfect bodies, intellectual minds, your strength. Don’t
you see? You are not the reformer of the old world. You are the
beginning of the new. The New Titans! Then -- slowly -- you dominate
the world. Conquer and stamp out all these things to which you
and I and all men of intelligence object. In the end -- you are
alone and supreme."
In the end, Gladiator stands alone and supreme as an unparalleled
work of speculative fiction and Hugo Danner and Philip Wylie deserve
a place of honor in the great pantheon of heroes which they created.
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