Aventures #10/1939
Aventures #10/1939 (dated 7 March 1939) marks the first appearance of Superman in any French-language publication on French soil, introducing the character to continental European readers under the deliberately coined alias 'Yordi' — a name chosen by publisher Ettore Carozzo himself and one that would define the hero for French readers throughout the magazine's entire run through 1941. Although Le Journal de Spirou in Belgium had published Superman five days earlier under the equally adapted name 'Marc Hercule moderne,' the Aventures editorial team had mounted four consecutive weeks of preview announcements in issues #6–#9 of February 1939, making this the first franchise launch campaign for a superhero on French soil. Beyond its debut significance, the issue reflects a politically charged editorial moment: Carozzo, an Italian anti-fascist exile who had fled Mussolini's dictatorship, refused the translator's proposal to call the hero 'Le Surhomme' because of that word's association with Nietzschean far-right ideology then in power in both Italy and Germany. The character's French alias 'Yordi' — with Clark Kent appearing under that identity — thus carries a quiet act of editorial conscience embedded in its very naming.
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Aventures was a French weekly children's illustrated paper launched in the mid-1930s by Ettore Carozzo, proprietor of La Librairie Moderne in Paris, who created it alongside a sister title, Jumbo, following the commercial success of Le Journal de Mickey. The Superman strip reached the title via French press agencies that had acquired syndication rights to the McClure Syndicate daily strips, which had only begun American distribution on 16 January 1939; Aventures was thus adapting strips barely seven weeks old. The name 'Yordi' resulted from a specific production constraint: Carozzo wanted an 'exotic'-sounding name fitting a being from another planet and proposed 'Jordi' — the first name of the son of a friend who had fled Francoism — but the lettering team noted that the letter J was technically difficult to hand-letter in the strip's style, so it was rendered as 'Yordi.' By 1939, Carozzo also renamed his company SAGE (Société Anonyme Générale d'Édition), the same corporate identity under which Aventures #10/1939 was published.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover-dated 7 March 1939 — the first issue of Aventures to carry the Superman daily newspaper strip, making it the first French-published Superman comic on French territory.
- Superman appears under the French alias 'Yordi' (with Clark Kent indexed as the secret identity); the name was coined by publisher Ettore Carozzo and chosen over 'Jordi' for technical lettering reasons.
- The issue is a reprint of the Jerry Siegel (script) and Joe Shuster (art) Superman daily newspaper strip from the McClure Syndicate, sourced from strips dated 16–20 January 1939, under the original title 'Superman Comes to Earth.'
- The French translation in Aventures omitted or softened politically charged language present in the American strips — for example, the Daily Star's 'progressive newspaper' descriptor was rendered as 'le journal le mieux informé' (the best-informed newspaper).
- Aventures ran previews and promotional announcements for the incoming Superman feature across issues #6–#9 of February 1939, representing an unprecedented marketing campaign for a superhero property in France.
- The Belgian journal Le Spirou had published a Superman strip five days earlier (2 March 1939, issue #9/1939) under the name 'Marc Hercule moderne,' with Clark Kent renamed 'Marc Costa'; Aventures' 'Yordi' iteration was thus the second French-language Superman adaptation but the first in France proper.
- Publisher Ettore Carozzo refused the title 'Le Surhomme' for political reasons — as an Italian anti-fascist exile, he did not want the name associated with the Nietzschean 'Übermensch' concept embraced by fascist governments in Italy and Germany.
- The physical format of Aventures issues of this period was a single large newsprint sheet folded twice, producing 8 pages of color and black-and-white content, and featuring other American strip imports alongside Superman/Yordi, including The Phantom (Le Fantôme du Bengale), Secret Agent X-9 (L'Agent Secret X-9), Tim Tyler's Luck (Raoul et Gaston), and Red Barry.