From Four Color To Silver Screen: The First Movie Superheroes

Film versions of comic books weren't always big-budget affairs: they were
originally screened as low-budget weekly chapter plays to kids in the 1940s.
From Four Color to Silver Screen: The First Movie Superheroes covers the
first live-action exploits of Superman, Batman, Captain Midnight, Spy Smasher,
Captain Marvel, Vigilante, and others! Comics historian Christopher Irving
(Comic Book Artist Magazine, The Blue Beetle: His Many Lives From 1939
to Today) ties the history of the serials in with the history of the comics,
in this full-color book that starts with the Superman cartoon shorts of 1940,
and ends with the lasting effect the serials had on the succeeding Superman and
Batman television shows. You'll learn the successes, the near-misses, and the
outright silliness of the first onscreen comic book characters.