Superman home on duty, The Leader history Darcy cartoons

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Superman, the creation of Cleveland Glenville high classmates Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, is back in his hometown for shooting of the new D.C. Superman movie starring David Corenswet and directed by James Gunn.

Superman could also be used to literally lifeguard Edgewater Beach Park where there had been an actual shooting between two teenagers Saturday. He could also stand guard on Public Square with the statue of Moses Cleaveland following a sword stabbing attack in front of the Terminal Tower at 5:00 AM the other day.

For the Edgewater shooting, Police have arrested a 17 yr-old teenage male for allegedly shooting an 18 yr-old male at 9:00 PM Saturday. In the Public Square stabbing, at 44 yr-old man has been charged with using a 20′′ sword to nearly sever the hand of 38 yr-old man who allegedly punched him in the face and tried to steal his handcart.

If only these two were more fictional scenes from a Siegel and Shuster Superman D.C. comic book. It's super that after all these years a Superman movie is actually being filmed in city that gave birth to the character thru the pens and minds of Siegel and Shuster.

At first, scene setting and filming had begun for the movie using the code name 'Genesis.' With that code name it would have been even more super if they could have set an opening scene for the movie using Jerry Siegel's childhood home in Glenville, which is still standing and real genesis of Superman.

This week storefronts, buildings and cars in Cleveland have been renamed for Metropolis including The Leader building on Superior Ave, which has become The Daily Planet newspaper building where Clark Kent works.

It's a fitting spot for The Daily Planet since The Leader Building was formally the Leader-News building, home of the Cleveland Leader and The News. At one time the Leader was literally Cleveland's leading newspaper, if only briefly, losing out to the Cleveland Press and The Plain Dealer, that was originally across the street from the Leader building.

When Dan Hanna bought the Leader newspaper from his father, Marcus Hanna in 1910, it was still operating out of a two-story building on the south side of Superior between the Old Arcade and the former mansion of Samuel Raymond, and across the street from the grand Hollenden Hotel that was built by Liberty Holden, owner of The Plain Dealer across the street on the north side of Superior.

In 1912, Hanna bought the Cleveland News and in 1913 he built the 14 story Leader Building now standing in for The Daily Planet. At the time The Leader was in a circulation race with The Plain Dealer that had overtaken it as Cleveland's leading newspaper. When Hanna first bought the Leader, The Plain Dealer was in the process of replacing it's own building with a new five story structure. If Hanna couldn't beat the PD in circulation, he would with new building floors.

At the time the 11 story Leader building was completed it was the largest office building in Cleveland. Where the Plain Dealer once stood is now part of the Cleveland Public Library. Ultimately the Plain Dealer would move into The Cleveland News building down the street east at 1801 Superior Ave.

The Plain Dealer would eventually become owner of what was left of The Leader when it closed as it had become owner of the Cleveland News and The Cleveland Herald. The Herald was Cleveland's first daily newspaper in 1835 after having been a weekly started in 1819, the second after the Cleveland Gazette & Commercial Register, which by 1820 became the Herald & Gazette.

Cleveland has had dozens of weekly and daily newspapers since its founding, many were short lived, but several survived at the same time, more than just the Plain Dealer and The Cleveland Press, the anniversary of the Press' final edition was last week. This just didn't use to be a 2 newspaper city, it was a 3 paper city, 4 paper city, 5 paper...

May the Daily Planet continue to publish and may the success of the new Superman movie fly up, up and away !