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Showcase Presents
Showcase Presents Showcase TP Vol 01 by Various, Schiff, Jack (2012) Paperback
Excellent Book
Paperback
First published July 10, 2012
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45 people want to read
About the author
Arnold Drake
322 books10 followersArnold Drake was an American comic book writer and screenwriter best known for co-creating the DC Comics characters Deadman and the Doom Patrol, and the Marvel Comics characters the Guardians of the Galaxy, among others.
Drake was posthumously inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2008.
Drake was posthumously inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2008.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 4, 2021
This is where it all began for many of the greats of the DDC universe. So many of the best of the DC heroes got a start in Showcase and then spring boarded to their own series. Very nice collection of this series beginning issues. Recommended
June 6, 2024
When DC first debuted their Showcase line of thick, black and white reprint trade paperbacks back in 2005, I hated them. “Why were they black and white?,” I lamented. But over the years, the line—which ran 11 years until 2016, pretty much at the rate of two per month—has kind of grown on me, and I find myself drawn to the more obscure ones: Enemy Ace, The War That Time Forgot, Bat Lash, and now this one, with the almost oxymoronic title, Showcase Presents Showcase. It reprints issues 1 through 21 of the seminal DC tryout title that started in the 1950s and lasted until the ‘70s, with various incarnations since (including this one). For the most part the reproduction is crisp and clear, so it’s almost like a bargain-basement artist’s edition. This one includes the early high-concept stuff (fireman, frogmen, manhunters, and outdoor tales) before settling on the rebirth of The Flash with issue #4, followed by Jack Kirby’s Challengers of the Unknown, then Lois Lane, Space Ranger, Adam Strange, and Rip Hunter, Time Master. DC was very timid in this era when it came to new titles; both Flash and Challengers required four issues each before they earned their own titles, with Adam Strange settling into Mystery in Space after three Showcase issues. DC didn’t even put the #1 on covers back then; a first issue was viewed as too risky to warrant space on newsstands. Flash got his own book with issue #105, restarting the Golden Age Flash’s numbering. The Challenger stories interested me most in here, with pristine Kirby art, some of it inked by Wally Wood, and the Lois Lane stories are a hoot, definitely setting the stage for her own wonky, long-running title. You can find these Showcase volumes online relatively cheap (depending on the title), and they—thankfully—reprinted some pretty obscure series.
April 15, 2018
I am finally over my fascination with SHOWCASE. The first 21 issues are all disappointing to some degree. The Schwartz characters did not really find their gold until they were in their own comics, or in MYSTERY IN SPACE in the case of Adam Strange, and the first comic full of stories about Lois Lane (#9) is awful, though the next Lois issue (#10) rebounds nicely. As for the others, characters such as the Challengers of the Unknown (despite Jack Kirby's participation), Space Ranger, and Rip Hunter never were the best books of their era. and most of the fascinating-seeming one offs such as Fire Fighters, Kings of the Wild, and Frogmen are really not all that good. This would be a 2 star book if not for the Schwartz characters whose stories are easy to find in other and better collections. This book is for poor saps like me who have waited all their lives to read early SHOWCASE only to find the wait was not worth it.
February 3, 2019
A fun review of old silver age comics. The firefighters, spies cops, the early superheroes space heroes, Sci fi heroes.
Makes me wish we had more non superhero heroes in the comics.
Makes me wish we had more non superhero heroes in the comics.
February 27, 2013
In Ouroboros fashion, DC’s line of black and white reprint comics returns to its roots.
Back in 1956, National Comics (DC) had more ideas for comic books than they had publishing slots to put them in, and readers asking for dozens of different concepts. So they came up with Showcase, a series where a concept would be tried out for an issue or three, and if all went well, would be promoted to its own continuing title. The first issue featured the subject they’d gotten an overwhelming demand for–firefighters!
“Fireman Farrell” was about the son of a famous firefighter who follows in his father’s footsteps. In the first story, he graduates from firefighter school. Then he battles a circus blaze, and appears on a TV program modeled after Edward R, Murrow’s “See It Now.” The foils in each story are foolish men who ignore Farrell’s wise advice about fire safety and must be rescued. Sadly, this was not turned into a continuing series, but Fireman Farrell has made cameo appearances in DC comics ever since.
The second and third issues featured animal stories (one with great Joe Kubert art) and frogmen respectively. But it’s issue #4 that really hit the stride.
For Showcase #4 is the first appearance of Barry Allen, the Silver Age Flash. And with him, the semi-official beginning of the Silver Age of comics. In the late 1940s, superheroes had gone out of fashion, but the crime and horror comic books that had ascended for a while were crippled by the Comics Code. The clean, morally clear world of superheroes was more easily adapted to the new rules, and Carmine Infantino’s art suited a super-speedster well.
After the Flash, there’s Manhunters (detectives), the Challengers of the Unknown (non-powered adventures), Lois Lane (Superman’s girlfriend), the Space Ranger (outer space hero with the flimsiest secret identity ever), Adam Strange (planetary romance) and Rip Hunter, Time Master (time travel.) And that brings us up to issue #21.
This book has a lot of history value; many of these characters went on to long careers. However, they got their own Showcase volumes, so if you own all of those, there’s a lot of overlap. This volume would be excellent for the new reader who wants to see where much of DC’s history comes from for a reasonable price. There’s some fantastic art in here.
Back in 1956, National Comics (DC) had more ideas for comic books than they had publishing slots to put them in, and readers asking for dozens of different concepts. So they came up with Showcase, a series where a concept would be tried out for an issue or three, and if all went well, would be promoted to its own continuing title. The first issue featured the subject they’d gotten an overwhelming demand for–firefighters!
“Fireman Farrell” was about the son of a famous firefighter who follows in his father’s footsteps. In the first story, he graduates from firefighter school. Then he battles a circus blaze, and appears on a TV program modeled after Edward R, Murrow’s “See It Now.” The foils in each story are foolish men who ignore Farrell’s wise advice about fire safety and must be rescued. Sadly, this was not turned into a continuing series, but Fireman Farrell has made cameo appearances in DC comics ever since.
The second and third issues featured animal stories (one with great Joe Kubert art) and frogmen respectively. But it’s issue #4 that really hit the stride.
For Showcase #4 is the first appearance of Barry Allen, the Silver Age Flash. And with him, the semi-official beginning of the Silver Age of comics. In the late 1940s, superheroes had gone out of fashion, but the crime and horror comic books that had ascended for a while were crippled by the Comics Code. The clean, morally clear world of superheroes was more easily adapted to the new rules, and Carmine Infantino’s art suited a super-speedster well.
After the Flash, there’s Manhunters (detectives), the Challengers of the Unknown (non-powered adventures), Lois Lane (Superman’s girlfriend), the Space Ranger (outer space hero with the flimsiest secret identity ever), Adam Strange (planetary romance) and Rip Hunter, Time Master (time travel.) And that brings us up to issue #21.
This book has a lot of history value; many of these characters went on to long careers. However, they got their own Showcase volumes, so if you own all of those, there’s a lot of overlap. This volume would be excellent for the new reader who wants to see where much of DC’s history comes from for a reasonable price. There’s some fantastic art in here.
July 22, 2012
Despite the odd title, this volume makes sense as it is reprint of the old Showcase series that DC used as a means of trying out new characters, so there would be at most three issues or so of adventures before a character could hope to get a series of his or her own, and most of the characters included here did get something. Given this was the series that introduced the Silver Age Flash, Challengers of the Unknown, Adam Strange, Space Ranger, Rip Hunter, and solo adventures for Lois Lane, it then makes perfect sense to learn the first character to get a solo adventure was...Fireman Farrell.
Actually, Farrell's story made me lose suspension of disbelief ever so briefly in the third of his three short stories where a woman was criticized for being stupid for suggesting teachers deserved a pay raise before the firefighters. As a teacher, I was curious as to why especially since Farrell's reasons for a firefighter pay raise had to do with the firemen having kids and not the dangers of their professions, which would apply to them and not, say, the teachers. And then I wondered why a local ballot initiative was on the national news. And this is all in a volume that includes a man running fast enough to pierce a time barrier, four guys in purple jumpsuits leaping around in crude, early Kirby artwork and fighting monsters, a futuristic hero with a secret identity despite the fact his transparent helmet does not even cover his entire face but still allows him to breathe and speak in space, a time traveler fighting dinosaurs and ancient Persians, instant teleportation across the galaxy, and the usual sexist adventures of Silver Age Lois Lane. Yes, it's the line about teachers that throws me off.
Truth be told, despite the cover, showing the Flash blasting through a giant hourglass, the volume as a whole seems more inclined towards science fiction heroes than superheroes. Many of the individual stories are probably available in current and future volumes of Showcase Presents, but here's a bunch all in one place for what reads like a nice anthology.
Actually, Farrell's story made me lose suspension of disbelief ever so briefly in the third of his three short stories where a woman was criticized for being stupid for suggesting teachers deserved a pay raise before the firefighters. As a teacher, I was curious as to why especially since Farrell's reasons for a firefighter pay raise had to do with the firemen having kids and not the dangers of their professions, which would apply to them and not, say, the teachers. And then I wondered why a local ballot initiative was on the national news. And this is all in a volume that includes a man running fast enough to pierce a time barrier, four guys in purple jumpsuits leaping around in crude, early Kirby artwork and fighting monsters, a futuristic hero with a secret identity despite the fact his transparent helmet does not even cover his entire face but still allows him to breathe and speak in space, a time traveler fighting dinosaurs and ancient Persians, instant teleportation across the galaxy, and the usual sexist adventures of Silver Age Lois Lane. Yes, it's the line about teachers that throws me off.
Truth be told, despite the cover, showing the Flash blasting through a giant hourglass, the volume as a whole seems more inclined towards science fiction heroes than superheroes. Many of the individual stories are probably available in current and future volumes of Showcase Presents, but here's a bunch all in one place for what reads like a nice anthology.
September 25, 2012
Not planning to add all my comics anthologies to goodreads, but this is a highlight of the genre. And you've got to love a title like "Showcase Presents Showcase". If we had Bertrand Russell's type theory we could annotate the different occurences of "Showcase" with their proper level, something like "Showcase(series 3) Presents Showcase(series 1)".
October 7, 2012
Not all of the stories in here are winners. But,it does present many first and early appearances of characters that became fan favorites in the DC universe.
November 7, 2013
I read Showcase Showcase at Circus Circus as I departed for Walawala, but got caught and had to go to SingSing.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews