Sometimes supermen just pop up out of nowhere.

In his 1940 novel Slan, A. E. Van Vogt posited a recently evolved race of new men who lived hidden within society, and the most isolated and lonely of this persecuted and underappreciated lot was a boy who was in reality a latent superman of physique, science, and intellect who was destined  for glory.  It was a neat, if poorly written power fantasy, but it's particularly interesting from the point of view of Future Past in that Slan became the Catcher in the Rye of the nerd set of the 1940s with sci-fi aficionados, who already saw themselves as the disregarded vanguard of the future, adopting the slogan "Fans are Slans." 

For most, this was simply a bit of adolescent bravado covering up a sense of inadequacy, but a few fans started taking the idea way too seriously.  In fact, one lot called the Cosmic Circle run by a bloke named Claude Degler tried to start a commune in the Ozarks where the nascent supermen could gather and breed to begin the reign of Homo Superior, which just goes to show that if you let day dreaming run too far you end up getting fitted for a tinfoil cap.

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