In "When We First Met", we spotlight the various characters, phrases, objects or events that eventually became notable parts of comic lore, like the first time someone said, "Avengers Assemble!" or the first appearance of Batman's giant penny or the first appearance of Alfred Pennyworth or the first time Spider-Man's face was shown half-Spidey/half-Peter. Stuff like that.

Reader Mike B. wrote in to ask, "What about the first superman open shirt reveal?"

When Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster started the Superman feature in Action Comics #1, the transformation between Clark Kent and Superman was not even addressed. It was just exit Clark and enter Superman...

It would not be until Action Comics #5 that Siegel and Shuster even mentioned that Clark Kent was, indeed, transforming into Superman. The interesting thing is that these transformations tended to happen at Clark's apartment....

Although, of course, sometimes the captions would note that he changed outside a night club, like in Action Comics #6 (by Siegel and Shuster)...

It was Action Comics #7 (by Siegel and Shuster) that we first got a shot of Superman changing, but it was without any real detail at all...

That leads into the following issue and, I guess you could argue that this, then, would be the first appearance of Superman opening up his shirt to show the Superman costume underneath...

However, I think we all can agree that there is a little bit more to it than just him sliding the shirt off while he is in his apartment. There has to be more of a dynamic aspect to it, right?

Action Comics #10 goes the other direction and goes back to the costume change happening off-panel...

I adore the bit in Action Comics #11 (by Siegel and Shuster) where we see Superman pretty much strip down to just his underwear while changing....

Isn't that fascinating that they would take that approach with his changing?

In the following issue, with Paul Cassidy stepping in for Joe Shuster, we see Superman once again appear to get naked first before he THEN transforms into his Superman costume...

And I dig the bit in the following issue (probably by Cassidy, as well), where we see Superman taking off his socks...

It would be funny if they just had a page where we see Superman removing each article of clothing in each panel. First one sock. Then the next panel, the other one. Then his necktie in one panel and his vest in the other. So on and so forth.

Okay, so we have sort of kind of already gotten the first time Superman took off his shirt to show his costume underneath, but we're about to see the first appearance of the closest version to the classic depiction of this idea...

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In Superman #1, Siegel and Shuster added a four-page story that led into the reprinting of the original story in Action Comics #1. I don't know whether they were recreating what had originally been the beginning of that story before DC Comics split it up (as it was all originally a comic strip that DC cut up to make it fit as a comic book feature, which is why the story abruptly ends in Action Comics #1 before picking up in Action Comics #2. In any event, we see Clark transform into Superman and it is close enough to the classic "open shirt reveal" that I'm counting this as the first appearance...

It probably wouldn't be until Superman #11 (by Jerry Siegel and Leo Nowak) that we got precisely the classic image...

The changing in Superman #1, though, was close enough to count it as the first.

Thanks for the suggestion, Mike!

If anyone else has a suggestion for a future When We First Met, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!