Showcase Presents: World's Finest, Vol. 1 by Edmond Hamilton

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Superman and Batman together. What could be better? They were the original Super Friends. In an era when team ups were rare, Batman and Superman began to team up on average six times a year. This book collects Superman/Batman stories from the 1950s through 1960.

It all begins in Superman #76 in 1952 when nine years after it happened on radio, Superman and Batman teamed up on the page. Two years later, the first Superman-Batman team up story appeared in World's Finest #71 and from there on out, Superman and Batman would team up in the bimonthly publication for decades to come.

This book collects 41 12-13 page Superman/Batman stories and they are a treat for the young and young at heart. Superman and Batman and Robin team up in a variety of cases. They have three great battles against Lex Luthor and one of those also includes the Joker and there are a couple of appearances by the early Batwoman. They also fight aliens, monsters, and in an era with few real supervillains they come up with quite a few foes who are capable of giving the World's Finest team a run for their money. My favorite was the Duplicating Man.

The length of the stories was a blessing and a curse. The stories couldn't be too complex, but they also couldn't get bogged down or drawn out. Mostly writers like Edward Hamilton and Bill Finger succeeded in coming up with fun yarns.

Of course, there's some repetition with Batman getting superpowers temporarily a few times and both heroes scrambling to save their secret identities. But as the stories were originally written for kids and written over six years, that's to be expected. Yes, there were plot inconsistencies and some events stretched credulity (such as Bruce Wayne going to work as a newspaper reporter.)

However, when it's all said and done, these are some of the most fun stories I've ever read, and they capture the fun and excitement of the Silver age of comics very nicely.



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