The widow of Superman co-creator JERRY SIEGEL who was the model for the creation of Lois Lane, JOANNE SIEGEL has passed at 93.
According to Cleveland Plain Dealer, Joanne Siegel met both her future hubby Jerry and fellow Superman co-creator artist Joe Shuster in Cleveland during the 1930s when she was a teen.
Shuster contacted her after she placed an ad in the Plain Dealer offering to model, but didn’t realize that she would become the inspiration for Lois Lane.
Despite many women in the Cleveland area claiming they were the basis for Lois Lane, Jerry Siegel insisted it was Joanne.
Creating an early version of The Man of Steel in 1934, Siegel and Shuster were rejected by every newspaper comics syndicate.
When fledgling DC Comics needed something for their fledgling new Action Comics 1 they realized the potential for such a fantastic character and the comic mag streeted in 1938 creating a worldwide sensation
Following a divorce from his current wife Bella, Jerry then wed Joanne in 1948.
Despite making millions from the character both Siegel & Shuster quit DC at the height of their fame and fortune in a dispute over the rights to Superboy – "The Adventures of Superman When He was a Boy".
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Siegel, being somewhat self-destructive, then left a wake of failed endeavors in his wake during the 1950s and 1960s as his collaborator Joe Shuster fell legally blind.
With the prompting of artist Neal Adams spearheading a campaign when Warner Bros. was preparing Superman: the Movie in the mid 1970s, DC Comics finally gave the Superman creators a lifelong stipend.
After Jerry Siegel died in 1999, the remaining Superman heirs filed for partial ownership of the character.
In 2008, a federal judge ruled that the families do own a large share of Superman, based on what they brought to the publishers originally in 1938 but as the Superman character became more refined and the legend developed, the Superman heirs have retained little of what constitutes the modern- day character the world is most familiar with.
Yet despite Joanne’s passing, the heirs litigation is still ongoing, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Funeral arrangements are pending for her mother, daughter Laura Siegel Larson, said.
