A New Exhibition Showcases How Superman and Other Icons of Comics Wouldn't Exist if It Weren't for Cleveland

New York City is famously the birthplace of comics; it’s where the newspaper syndicates were based, where the first comic book was created and sold, and where DC, Marvel, and most of the other publishers were based for the first seven decades of the industry’s existence. It’s also where almost all superheroes live… even if they sometimes call it Metropolis or Gotham. But the truth is that from the earliest days of comics, there was another significant location: Cleveland, Ohio. It’s where Superman is really from, and it’s also the origin point for Miles Morales, Jessica Jones, Black Lightning, American Splendor, Emmie & Friends, and many other characters, series, and creators. This is a history that’s world-famous in Cleveland, but fairly unknown everywhere else; now, however, a new 4,000-square-foot exhibition at Cleveland’s renowned Maltz Museum is dedicated to exploring and celebrating this colorful backstory. It’s an expanded version of a traveling exhibit, JewCE: Jewish Comics Experience, which originally opened in October 2023 at the Center for Jewish History in New York and has been travelling ever since. The exhibit has been renamed Icons in Ink at the Maltz and exclusively