Curt Swan was born on February 17, 1920, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His received his art training in grammar school, given regular projects by his teachers who recognized his abilities. He was drafted in 1940 and spent the whole war in the army. While in the army he was assigned to Stars and Stripes, the G.I. magazine published by the army.

When he returned to the states in 1945, he began working at DC, with his earliest work on Simon & Kirby's "Boy Commandos", at $18 a page. He quickly discovered that it was alot of work and at the suggestion of a friend, he began to just pencil pages, leaving the inks to faster practitioners.

For the next few years he drew many different features including Tommy Tommorrow and Gangbusters. Slowly he began to draw Superman stories when the regular Superman artists (Wayne Boring, Al Plastino, Stan Kaye and for many covers, Win Mortimer). He did some Superboy stories, some Jimmy Olsen's and finally in 1953 he drew the 3-D Superman and shortly thereafter became one of the regular artists on the feature eventually doing hundreds of covers and stories with the red and blue suited hero. He drew the comic strip from the late fifties until it's demise in 1964.