Although it’ll be interesting to see how they’re going to make a movie out of it, The Gotham Group has optioned the book, Secret Identiry: The Fetish Art Of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster, with a eye to making a movie version. The book revealed how Shuster was the artist behind The Nights Of Horrors, a 16-volume, mob-finanaced series of underground comic despicting everything from S&M to brutal torture. They were sold under the counter until a crackdown on comics in 1954.
Adding to the movie potential is the fact that a group dubbed the Brooklyn Thrill Killers said that the comics were their inspiration for a crime spree that involved whipping women, humiliating vagrants, beating one man to death and drowning another.
While some have felt the book has brough Shuster into disrepute, its author, Graham Yoe, says “To me, it’s part of his legacy, the idea that in addition to the great character of Superman, he had this whole different side to him, and did brilliant work, in secret.”
It could certainly be an interesting film, but as little is known about how Shuster felt about what happened, it will take a fair bit of speculation to turn it into a movie. Either way it could certainly give a different spins to all the comic book adaptations that regularly hit the multiplexes.