Superman the offer. Siegel and Shuster submitted their work in late February and were paid $130 (AFI $) for those 13 pages. In early March they signed a contract (at Liebowitz's request) in which they released the copyright for Superman to Detective Comics, Inc. This was normal practice in the business, and Siegel and Shuster had given away the copyrights to their previous works as well. Superman was finally published on April 18, 1938, in the first issue of "Action Comics". The magazine sold very well, and feedback from readers showed it was because of Superman. Siegel and Shuster read pulp
Superman beyond the comic books. Superman, Inc. merged with DC Comics in October 1946. After DC Comics merged with Warner Communications in 1967, licensing for Superman was handled by the Licensing Corporation of America. The Licensing Letter (an American market research firm) estimated that Superman licensed merchandise made $722 million in sales globally in 2017. 44.7% of this revenue came from the North American market. For comparison, in the same year, Spider-Man merchandise made $1.4 billion and Star Wars merchandise made $2.4 billion globally. The earliest paraphernalia appeared in 1939: a button proclaiming membership in the Supermen of America club. The