Showcase Presents: Superman, Vol. 1

Showcase Presents: Superman #1

by Jerry Siegel, Bill Finger, Otto Binder

Collects a series of adventures of the Man of Steel as he confronts an assortment of villains, using his powers to protect the universe.

Genres: Comics, Superman, Graphic Novels, Dc Comics, Superheroes, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics

560 pages, Paperback

First published September 28, 2005

About the author

Jerome "Jerry" Siegel, who also used pseudonyms including Joe Carter, Jerry Ess, and Herbert S. Fine, was the American co-creator of Superman (along with Joe Shuster), the first of the great comic book superheroes and one of the most recognizable icons of the 20th century.
He and Shuster were inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1992 and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1993.

Reviews

[Adam Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

This monster sized 560-page collection contains 17 months of Superman stories from June 1958-November 1959.

To enjoy this book, you have to understand Superman of this era. The Superman Stories of the early Silver Age are not primarily considered about Superman's rogue's gallery or finding some challenge that's physically equal to the Man of Steel. Very few stories in this book are about that. What made Superman stories interesting to folks in the late 1950s was that the books were about Superman. Superman has a ton of superpowers and is the type of scientific genius/troubleshooter who could give modern-day Batman a run for his money.

But the guy's got problems. He wants to maintain his identity as Clark Kent and keep his job at the planet. He's got countless villains after him and Kryptonite seemed to be plentifully available. Superman's problems are different, though, so more people will empathize with Peter Parker being bullied then Superman having his head turned into a lion.

Simply put, Superman is pretty interesting guy and complaining about quality of villains is like whining about the quality of opponents the Harlem Globetrotters play. No one is there to see the Washington Generals. Same thing with Superman. Who cares if he's taking on Sinister Thug #20. The writers make it seem interesting.

So what does this book have? It features issues of Both Superman and Action Comics. The Action Comics story would usually be 12-13 pages long. The Superman books were longer but usually came with three stories eight-to-nine pages in length.

Superman firsts and old favorites: DC's decision to begin in 1958 wasn't arbitrary. Some pretty amazing things happen right off the bat. Action Comics #241 introduces the arctic Fortress of Solitude. In the course of the book, we see the first appearances of Brainiac, Metallo, Supergirl, the bottled city of Kandor, and the adult Bizarro. In addition, Luther comes in for several appearances. All very amazing stuff to see all these firsts.

Comedy: People always talk about unintentional humor in these books, but I think there's plenty of intentional humor, such as in "Superman Joins the Army." when a headstrong Captain is determined to have Superman drafted and treated exactly like any other soldier. Hilarity ensues. There's the story where Superman forgets his identity of Clark Kent, so he adopts another identity as a British man-name of Clarence Kelvin. Superman in this book has its serious moments but is far more light-hearted.

Emotion: There are some pretty moving moments in the book. There's the story in which the Kents (deceased during the Silver age) travel forwards in time to meet their boy. Superman gets all emotional and takes them to the Fortress of Solitude. They're disappointed when they found the room dedicated to Superman's parents is for Jor-el and Lara. However, Superman had a special one for his Earth Parents. Superman says to them, "I have two sets of parents and love them both dearly...I can never thank you enough for having adopted me." Very sweet. Another favorite scene is when Superman finds himself with a head of a lion. Lois Lane's interest in Superman often seems shallow and a little creepy but when she kisses him while he's got the head of lion, it's absolutely beautiful.

Untold Tales of Superman and Imaginary Stories: Some of the Superman magazines included Untold Tales of Superman. These range from so-so to fascinating. None is better than, "The Girl in Superman's Past" that has a college-aged Clark Kent considering ending his career as Superman to be with a beautiful girl in a wheelchair in a beautiful story. There's also a full-length Adventures of Superman that was dedicated to imagining Clark Kent's life had Krypton not blown up. It's an early pre-cursor to the Elseworlds stories that DC has released in recent years.

Not every story is "Super" but most of them are great and these 17 months of comics are highly entertaining. See Superman battling Lex Luthor as the Kryptonite Man and Jimmy Olson has a crazy battle with Superman with a nice surprise twist.

The book's not without its flaws. My personal pet peeve is "*choke*" being used repeatedly to show emotion. But other than that, this really is light and unbelievably fun. Silver Age Superman is a courageous, funny, smart, and sweet Superhero, and definitely makes for some worthwhile reading.

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection contains more than fifty Superman comics from the late fifties. Most of them written by Otto Binder or Jerry Coleman but some by Bill Finger who is best known for his Batman work and two by Jerry Siegel the creator of The Man of Steel.

The most astonishing fact is maybe that there are almost no Supervillains in the stories. We meet Brainiac who shrinks Krypton City and a couple of times Lex Luthor and a minor villain called Metallo but that‘s it. In nearly all stories there is some magic involved or his secret identity is in danger to be discovered or there is some other curious event told from his past. How he became Clark Kent. Why it is necessary to have a secret identity and so on.

Most of the stories are really quite stupid and it is probably not possible to enjoy them if you had not read them as a child. But here I think the interesting thing is you have to be more or less a nine year old child. For a seven year old one they are too complicated for an eleven year old too simple. I have only autobiographical evidence for this but I think it is true. At eleven I had switched to Marvel and would read Superman from then on only for sentimental reasons.

The most stupid story is about a pair of crooks that manage to convince Superman that they are his long dead foster parents who travelled with a Time Machine to the present to see the grown up Superboy. Now Superman is known for his strength not for his brains but this is really hard to swallow.

But most of the stories are quite enjoyable. As a child I loved the ones best that dealt with Krypton and now I see I still do.

By far the best story is the one that tells about the girl Superman actually wanted to marry „The Girl in Superman‘s Past“ by Bill Finger and Wayne Boring. And this one story shows how ridiculous his liaison with Lois Lane is. He really does not care much for her. In one story he teaches her a lesson by pretending that he looks in his secret identity like Alfred E. Neumann. Will she still want to marry him? Guess. In another story she is happy to marry another guy with super powers.

Nice.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Silver Age Superman is pretty zany. Most people will roll their eyes at the stupid stories and impossible plots. I, however, enjoy looking at them and finding the absurdities and contradictions.

For example, why would Batman go to such lengths to play a prank on Superman? (He flies to the Arctic, hollows out the giant key to the Fortress of Solitude, hides inside and thus sneaks into the Fortress and leaves "clues" for Superman over the period of a few days). Does Batman really have that much downtime that he can hide out in the Fortress of Solitude for three days (not counting however many days he was inside the key waiting for Superman) while Gotham City goes to hell? What kind of "friend" is Superman that once he figures out who the clues are from he tricks Batman into thinking they are both going to die in a kryptonite cave in?

The Superman in these stories may seem like a psychopath in action, but an oddly emotional psychopath. He's often choked up when things seem to go badly for him or his friends. *choke*

It is clear many of these stories are written to (lamely) answer questions readers at the time probably had. Like "When did Superboy become Superman"?

I think my favorite story was where Superman was turned into a Lion headed man. From that point on he only used his powers for lion-related issues for some unspecified reason.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

These stories are wild. This volume includes some very key moment in Superman history such as the first Fortress of Solitude, the first Braniac, the first Supergirl, and more. What was surprising to me is how much of what we know about modern Superman mythology came from the Silver Age, rather than the Golden Age.

These stories are nutty and the logic in some of them, well, there is no logic really. Just nutty stuff, but that's part of what made the Silver Age so fun. You aren't going to find too many serious stories, and modern readers may find the stories a little too silly, but overall this was a fun read.

[tara bomp · Rating 3 out of 5]

pleasingly goofy and enjoyable. like reading comfort food. a few really silly ones here, my fav being Jimmy Olson wishing for superman to "mate" his parents

[Jerry (Rebel With a Massive Media Library) · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I liked the artwork and the dialogue, the stories overall were a bit dull, which made this one hard to finish.

[Travis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Man, this was fun!
Great stories from back when Superman could fly to other planets, make diamonds by squeezing a piece of coal and had nothing better to do then mess with Lois Lane when she started to get uppity.
Lots of aliens, mad scientists and super villains and not a speck of grim and gritty realism.

Nowadays there's very few Superman stories with any sense of wonder or that remind you that Superman is basically the coolest guy on the planet.

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

These classic Superman stories are always a great fun read. Simpler times and the comics reflected that. Recommended

[Paul Morrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Superman, Volume 1 - 560 pages of comic book reading. The stories were a little quirky and a little light hearted, but the art work was great. I remember reading some of these stories way back in 1959 (when they were first printed), when I was barely seven years old.

I'd spend hours looking at, admiring and studying the art work - eventually I would become a comic book story writer and artist myself, with my Pop Art comics - the Southern Hemisphere Super Heroes (SHSH) and Mind Boggling Science Fiction Stories... but that was many years later.

This current volume collects many of the Superman comics from 1959 drawn by some of my favourite artists - including Al Plastino and Wayne Boring. The collection is in black and white, unlike colour which was used in the original comics. No problems! The black and white allowed me to enjoy better the line work and the talent of these artists. The storylines were also simple, fun and enjoyable. In a world filled with pandemics, street violence and war, it was a good form of escapism - at least for a few moments.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't read comics as a kid. I was, admittedly, kinda curious about them, but Superfriends and Adam West convinced me that comics were painfully childish. And it's a pretty horrible thing when a 6-year-old considers something childish. I'm glad that the handful of comics I did read then weren't like this or I might never have gotten into this hobby. This was a tedious, slow read. Outside of some occasionally interesting high concept that got a shallow treatment, there's not much to enjoy here. As a historical document, it was kind of interesting though.

I'm stunned that these stories were published ten years after the current Spirit Archives volumes, and Eisner had been producing 500% better work a full decade before.

[Alan Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Silver Age Superman is more familiar. Black and white reprinting of those early issues

[C. John Kerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Superman was one of five DC super-heroes to be continuously published from the Golden Age on into the Silver Age. The others of course being Batman and Wonder Woman (the other two members of the Big Three or The Trinity as they are now called) and Aquaman and Green Arrow who had the good luck to be back up characters in comics featuring at least one of the others. So then the question becomes with these five where do you start when doing these collections. For Superman they decided to go with the first appearance of the Fortress of Solitude. This was probably a good choice. Besides the Fortress this volume also includes the first appearances of Supergirl, Lori Lemaris, Brainiac, Metallo and Titano as well as the re-introduction of Bizarro. This is a good volume. A lot of the stories are more human interest stories. One has to remember though that Superman was so powerful that coming up with a villain to match him was probably difficult. Thus we get stories where he is put into unusual situations (such as getting drafted or having to find out why he is banned from a certain town). There are other stories where he has to get around either a loss of powers or a physical alteration that would give away his identity. There are a few stories involving members of his rogue's gallery. Besides the aforementioned Brainiac and Metallo both Luthor and Mr. Mxyzptlk (I hoped I spelled that one right) also make appearences, though of this lot only Luthor appears more than once. Oddly enough two well established enemies, Prankster and Toyman make no appearances, I presume they have retired. Villains such as this simply weren't the main focus of Superman at this time. Still I enjoyed this collection. It is a snapshot of a period where the focus often seemed to be more on Superman interacting with people than of having to constantly save the world from some disaster or another. Or how he could use his powers to extricate himself from one situation or another. Superman's supporting cast often play leading roles in these stories, and Clark Kent is often as present as Superman. In fact in some stories the focus seems to be on Superman as Clark Kent. In summary several of these stories are of historical importance. Others are simply well-told stories which explore interesting situations for a superhero to be in. And yest there is the occasional dud. Still to me this volume is certainly a worthy addition to one's liberary.

[Helmut · Rating 3 out of 5]

Silver Age Superman

Entweder man mag ihn, oder man hasst ihn. Der Silver Age Superman ist eine hochgradig kontroverse Figur. Er hat so tolle Fähigkeiten wie "Super-Bauchrednerei" und "Super-Gedächtnis", hat scheinbar nichts anderes im Sinn als seine Geheimidentität vor Lois zu verbergen und ist ein echter Scherzkeks. Das ist nicht der "Man of Steel", der edle Charakter, sondern ein lieber, fast tolpatschiger Kerl, der zufällig Superkräfte hat, die er kaum gegen Supergegner einsetzen muss, sondern gegen die Widrigkeiten des normalen Lebens (Geldbeschaffung und - wie erwähnt - hauptsächlich zur Verdeckung seiner Geheimidentität). Soviel Kryptonit, wie in diesen Geschichten rumfliegt, lässt darauf schließen, dass der gesamte Planet Krypton in Bruchstücken auf die Erde gefallen ist - es ist ein Wunder, dass Superman überhaupt leben kann, da er scheinbar alle Viertelstunde mit grünem Kryptonit beworfen wird.

Entweder man mag es, oder man hasst es. Die Zeichnungen sind meist typische DC-60er-Jahre-Standardware, nur Superman selbst sieht aus wie eine Tonne mit einem Stecknadelkopf (irgendwie völlig unproportioniert). Wie auch bei den Batman-Geschichten dieser Zeit liegt der Hauptfokus auf dem Spass, den die Superhelden haben - die dunkle, düstere Phase der späten 80er Jahre ist hier noch weit entfernt. Dies ist ein Punkt, der die Stories letztlich noch rettet - wenn man bereit ist, sich auf diesen Superman einzulassen, sind die Geschichten kurzweilig, fast schwankhaft. Letztlich bleiben sie aber doch Kindergeschichten, und sind mit modernen Comics kaum ernsthaft zu vergleichen.

[Trevor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Superman was pretty lame back in the beginning of the Silver Age, but then again, when you've a guy who's just ridiculously powerful, like a tiny god, what are you going to throw at him? There's very little in the way of supervillains in this volume, we see Mr. Mxyzptlk once and Lex Luthor a couple times, but that's about it. Really, what are you going to do to Superman? Pretty much the only threat to him is to try and reveal his secret identity, which is a component to a large number of the stories contained within.

I have some problems with the writing on some of these, too. There is a story where Superman is turned evil by some means, and so he cruises around the globe stealing things. In the end it turns out he was only pretending to be evil to fool the villain, so all the things he's stolen are auctioned off for charity and this is supposedly a good thing. What about all the people he stole them from? I think he should've returned the stuff to its rightful owners. I know i'd be pissed if Superman was stealing stuff from me.

Also, if Superman has a closet full of robots that look just like him, why is he so concerned about living the double life? Just send a robot to be Superman when you're Clark Kent and a robot to be Clark Kent when you're Superman. It seems so simple.

Superman seems pretty quick to reveal secrets, too.

And why does he get hypnotic vision? It seems sometimes that random new superpowers pop up whenever the writers work themselves into a corner.

[Zack! Empire · Rating 4 out of 5]

For some reason I just really love this version of Superman. Superman has always been a character I've wanted to like, but I just couldn't find a story with him that really did it for me. However, the silver age version of him is very fun and entertaining. These stories are flat out wacky, zany, and super entertaining. This was a entirely different time in comics when Superman was having adventures like being turned into an old man or a lion, or being mind controlled by aliens to steal artifacts from other world's for some unknown reason. Really great stuff.
I would say that the one problem with this book is that it's just too damn long. As fun as these stories are reading one after the other will just become super boring and hard to do. It could have easily been just 350 or 400 pages. You'd never really know.
I would say this book is for super old school comic book fans, or people who are tired of the ridiculously over dramatic continuity heavy stories of today.

[Victor Orozco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow! Pretty amazing collection of stories.

Basically this is the works of several writers throughout most of the late 1950s. More or less its an interesting breath of fresh air reading some of these more lighthearted Superman stories. Silly but fun, I can definitely see where the Bruce Timm animated series got its material from.

Metallo, flashbacks to Krypton, Titano, Lex Luthor, the Kents, Bizarro, Batman and Robin and so much more.

Basically young kids read these stories and as a grown up one can certainly have fun reading these stories. My favorite had to be either the one with Lori Lemaris or Supergirl.

A very good collection, minus the fact that there is no color. But if anything this only makes it seem much more timeless. The coloring would have given it a dated feel to it.

Lots of fun. C+

[Nicolas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I give this 4 stars not because it's expertly written and cleverly plotted, but because It's a classic slice of old school Superman. It's bubbly, it's unbelievable and sometimes a little lame. That being said, I still really like it. These characters have evolved so much over the years. I particularly enjoyed the story of Metallo's origin. I had never read it before and thought it was actually pretty good. Pick it up if you have a soft spot for the classics. Read "Camelot Falls" if you want a good Superman story.

We discuss favorite Superman stories in a special episode of the All the Books Show Podcast: https://soundcloud.com/allthebooks/ep...

[Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really, this is a 2.5 or 3 star book based on the ridiculous plots and clunky writing. The first issues were particularly eye-rolling. However, once I got into the rhythm and knew what was coming, I was able to really enjoy the zany ride that was this collection.

The art is pretty basic and I'd like to see some of these in color, but B&W is fine for the casual read.

It's a bit ridiculous the amount of times that Superman is almost found out in his civilian identity. Lois Lane is possibly the dumbest person ever. Or at least the most gullible.

But like I said. silly and zany stories that shouldn't be read with too much depth.

[Rich Meyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's hard to go wrong with 500-pages of early Silver Age comics for $9.99. Showcase Presents Superman features the Man of Steel in some of his earliest silver age adventures, beginning with Action Comics #241 and Superman #122, and feature the introduction of many Superman Family staples: Supergirl, Metallo, Brainiac, Lori Lemaris, Titano the Super Ape and many others.

Don't expect metafictional angst here; these are just solid, everyday comic book adventures of the world's most iconic super-hero.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

The stories in this volume are far from the best Superman tales ever written. But they are huge, huge fun. This is the beginning of the vast Superman mythology that grew under the editorial reign of Mort Weisinger, and what these tales lack in common sense and the faintest relation to how real people and the real world work they make up for in imagination, wonder, and scope. Morrison's All-Star Superman simply could not exist without the foundation laid by stories like these.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

While repetitive and tame, still a fascinating look at code-conditioned 50s mentality. Funny how violence gives way to deception and trickery, clearly better values to inculcate impressionable children with.

[Pete Selig · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't finish this book. It contains Superman comics from the 50's, which, it turns out, are so unbelievably stupid that I just couldn't take it anymore.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who doesn't love wacky-ass Superman stories from the wild and crazy Silver Age?

[Terry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Never really been a fan of Supes. He's just too powerful. How can there ever be a true threat when Superman is around? Takes all of the suspense out of the story.

[David Palazzolo]

Okay--every three or four months I try to get back to this. I used to love these old stories, but I am too stressed to enjoy them. Maybe one day I will be able to enjoy them again