Showcase Presents: Strange Adventures, Vol. 2

Showcase Presents

by Various

A massive new collection of science fiction tales from the 1950s, none of which have ever been collected before.

Genres: Fiction, Comics, Science Fiction

520 pages, Paperback

First published April 23, 2013

About the author

Various is the correct author for any book with multiple unknown authors, and is acceptable for books with multiple known authors, especially if not all are known or the list is very long (over 50).

If an editor is known, however, Various is not necessary. List the name of the editor as the primary author (with role "editor"). Contributing authors' names follow it.

Note: WorldCat is an excellent resource for finding author information and contents of anthologies.

Reviews

[tony dillard jr · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great time capsule of the late 1950s science fiction. 9 out of 10 stories are about aliens from another world. Some of them are benevolent. Most want to take over the Earth or destroy it outright. The other 10 percent of stories involved inter-dimensional travel, attempts to prevent the destruction of the planet (usually thanks to time travel), or some strange new invention that goes horribly wrong.

DC was able to capture the fears of a nation in the pages of Strange Adventures. The red scare. The cold war. Nuclear war.

But DC was also able to latch upon the wonder of the nuclear age. Space travel. The automation of industry. Hope that one day, universal peace could be achieved.

Legends of not just the publishing company but the golden and silver age of comics worked on this volume. Gil Kane, Gardner Fox, Carmine Infantino and many more. This was a beautiful collection of sci-fi comics.

But there was one trope that got old and it got old pretty quick. The main way that the aliens are able to communicate with earthlings is thanks to telepathy. If it wasn't for mind reading, the different races wouldn't be able to interact. There'd be no story. Thankfully, DC Comics understood this as one of their tales actually asked the question: how could humans and alien species interact without the use of mental telepathy?

After that story, you'd think that telepathy tales would be considered off limits by the editors. Unfortunately, that same old tired plot device was continuously used. OVER and OVER...

Okay, so Strange Adventures wasn't perfect. But it was a perfect representation of an imperfect time in American history. Communism made us crazy. But the hope of a better tomorrow showed a light at the end of the tunnel.

[John Yingling · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fun way to end my reading year. Mostly all 6-page stories, and full of adventure, thrills and good storytelling. And I can't say enough about the artwork; to me, this was the golden age of comic book illustrating. I'm so glad that the DC Comics people reprinted these volumes.

[Adam Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

A giant collection of Sci-Fi comic short stories from the mid-to-late 1950s. These stories were mostly between 5-8 pages long and needed to be particularly punchy and to the point. These definitely fit the bill, with some ideas being whacky, others being intriguing and others just being bizarre. Overall, these are very entertaining examples of the Sci Fi comic genre of the era and maybe a cut above the stuff that was being published in other magazines like Tales of Supsense. These comics had less monsters, and more different alien ideas. Fun read if you enjoy this era of sci-fi.

[Ethan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice collection of science fiction stories from the Late 1950’s originally published by DC comics.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like the previous volume, these comics aren't necessarily bad, per se so much as extremely goofy. Reading too many of them in one sitting will probably start to get to the reader. Suffice to say that the pattern holds: the hero is usually a bland Caucasian man somewhere between 18 and 40 (once in a while its a kid and exactly once it was a dog) finds himself dealing with some fantastic bit of science and finds a solution to the problem, generally within 6 pages. The science is often questionable. Aliens are frequently seen and may be good or bad (and in one case, seemingly indifferent), but unless the protagonist expresses any sort of greedy thoughts, he'll win out in the end. Government is always trustworthy. For the period (1957-58), it almost sounds downright Marxist.

As for the treats here, there was a Carmine Infantino drawn story to open where the aliens were dressed exactly the same as future DC space hero Adam Strange, Gil Kane drew a cover for a story of a man being grabbed by a giant alien before the Atom would see print, and the closest the book had to a reoccurring character seemed to open and close the book, namely a bland Caucasian man named Darwin Jones, head the Orwellian-sounding government agency The Department of Scientific Investigation.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

I still can't get enough of these bizarre 1950s visions of the future.