The version that appeared in 1938 told, in thirteen pages, an origin story that established the essential parameters of the character: the doomed planet, the infant sent to Earth in a rocket, the adoptive parents, the discovery of extraordinary powers, the choice to use them in service of justice while concealing them behind a mundane identity. The execution was compressed to the point of breathlessness—pages that would occupy an entire modern story arc were dispatched in panels—but the essential character was fully present and recognizable.
Siegel and Shuster sold the rights to Superman, along with the thirteen pages of that first story, to National Allied Publications for $130, or ten dollars per page. The transaction has become one of the most cited examples of a creator being paid an extraordinarily small amount for an idea of extraordinary value, and it eventually gave rise to decades of legal disputes as Siegel and Shuster sought to reclaim some portion of what they had created. At the time of the transaction, however, there was no way to know that Superman would become what he became. The payment was fair by the standards of the time, for work whose potential was undemonstrated.
What happened next was not predictable. The initial print run of 200,000 sold out. Reader response was strong enough that National Allied Publications began planning a dedicated Superman title. The character quickly became the company’s most valuable property and one of the most recognizable cultural figures in the world. Superman sales eventually approached one million copies per month. The superhero genre—a mode of storytelling that did not meaningfully exist before Action Comics No. 1—was established, and the issue that established it became, retroactively, one of the most significant publications in the history of American popular culture.