First superhero with superpowers

The first comicbook superhero with superpowers was Superman, created by writer Jerry Siegel (USA) and artist Joe Shuster (Canada/USA) and first published in Action Comics #1 in 18 April 1938 (but dated "June" on the cover). Prior to Superman, comic-strip or -book heroes had extreme strength (Popeye, Conan the Barbarian) or heightened psychic abilities (Mandrake the Magician, Doctor Occult) or were regular humans with notable intelligence or cunning (The Phantom, The Clock, and action heroes such as Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers and Dick Tracy). Superman made his comics debut with out-of-this-world abilities that left him invulnerable to knives and allowed him to run faster than an express train and leap tall buildings in a single bound; in later issues, he demonstrated heightened senses (including X-ray vision), super strength and the ability to fly. Superman was created in 1933 in the short story "The Reign of the Superman" in Siegel's self-published Science Fiction: The Advance Guard of Future Civilization #3 fanzine. In the story - which was illustrated by Shuster's drawings - the character is depicted as a bald, telepathic super-villain bent on world domination, and was inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's idea of the Übermensch ("super man"). He was later re-conceived as an altruistic alien and remodelled on the actors Douglas Fairbanks Jnr and Harold Lloyd. Superman's alter ego Clark Kent was named after movie stars Clark Gable and Kent Taylor.