Superman is a fictional character, a comic book superhero widely considered to be one of the most famous and popular such characters and an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective Comics, Inc. in 1938, the character first appeared in Action Comics #1 (June 1938), and subsequently appeared in various radio serials, television programs, films, newspaper strips, and video games right up to the present.
As an influential archetype of the superhero genre, Superman possesses extraordinary powers, with the character traditionally described as "faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound." For most of his existence, Superman's famous arsenal of powers has included flight, super-strength, invulnerability to non-magical attacks of ordinary force, super-speed, various vision powers, super-hearing, and super-breath.