Superman license plates approved by Ohio Legislature to be available in early October

7/6/2013

CLEVELAND — Ohioans will soon have a chance to buy a Superman license plate honoring the comic superhero created by two northeast teenagers in the 1930s.

The license plate with the iconic Superman “S’’ insignia and the words, “Truth, Justice and the American Way,” will be available in early October, The Plain Dealer reported.

State Rep. Bill Patmon got language authorizing the license plate included in Ohio’s recently passed $62 billion, two-year state budget — after his earlier attempts to get the plate approved were delayed.

“Now, Clark Kent is out of his phone booth,” the Cleveland Democrat said, referring to Superman’s alias.

The comic superhero was dreamed up by teenagers Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster while they were attending Glenville High School during the Great Depression, but it took more than five years to get the comic featuring Superman’s first appearance published.

The plate will cost $20 in addition to the typical registration fee of $34.50 plus local taxes. Ohioans wanting to replace existing plates with the Superman plate will pay $20 plus an $11.75 plate replacement fee and a $4.50 replacement sticker fee. A portion of the $20 will go to the Siegel and Shuster Society.

People from other states will not be able to buy a commemorative version of the plate, according to the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

Michael Olszewski, president of the Siegel and Shuster Society, is eagerly awaiting the plate’s debut.

“This is the kind of thing the Siegel and Shuster Society was created for, to tell everyone that a couple of ordinary guys from Cleveland did something extraordinary,” Olszewski said.

In 1938, Superman kicked off a multibillion-dollar industry that eventually included comics, films, television, toys and souvenirs. The most newest Superman movie, “Man of Steel,” debuted recently.

The license plate originally would have contained the slogan “Ohio: Birthplace of Superman,” but DC Comics and its parent company, Time-Warner, objected to the term insisting that Superman was born on the fictional planet Krypton.

The current slogan was reached as a compromise.

Irving Siegel, cousin of Jerry Siegel, loves the plate’s design.

“I now think that ‘Truth, Justice and the American Way’ is appropriate because it’s what Superman is all about. And it was Jerry’s quote.”