Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird…it’s a plane…it’s…Oh, it is a bird and a plane…never mind.

Sometimes real life is not as thrilling or glamorous as it in the comics. That is the case for two shy, bookish teenagers, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. They aren’t athletic or popular, and they are even afraid to talk to girls. On top of that, they are living in the midst of the Great Depression. To escape reality, the boys lose themselves in the comic book adventures of Tarzan, Flash Gordon, and Buck Rogers. They even begin creating their own comics. After failing to get their first work published, the boys put their heads together to come up with the ultimate hero. This person will be everything that Jerry and Joe aren’t: strong, fast, handsome, and famous. He will be faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive; he will be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. He will soon become the world’s first superhero.

Boys of Steel by Marc Tyler Nobleman, sheds light on the remarkable birth of Superman, and the true story of his two hard-luck creators.