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Showcase Presents: World's Finest Comics #1
Showcase Presents: World's Finest, Vol. 1
After encountering each other on vacation, Superman and Batman join forces to keep the world safe while agreeing to keep each other's secret identities secret.
552 pages, Paperback
First published October 17, 2007
1 person is currently reading
38 people want to read
About the author
Edmond Hamilton
1,026 books137 followersEdmond Moore Hamilton was a popular author of science fiction stories and novels throughout the mid-twentieth century. Born in Youngstown, Ohio, he was raised there and in nearby New Castle, Pennsylvania. Something of a child prodigy, he graduated high school and started college (Westminster College, New Wilmington, Pennsylvania) at the age of 14--but washed out at 17. He was the Golden Age writer who worked on Batman, the Legion of Super-Heroes, and many sci-fi books.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 8, 2011
Showcase presents World's Finest contains lots of Superman/Batman team ups from the 1950's. They're clearly geared toward younger readers but still good for a chuckle in a Mystery Science Theatre kind of way. It's funny how many of the stories involve both Superman and Batman lying to Lois Lane.
Halfway through: The Club of Heroes from Grant Morrison's Batman run makes an appearance. That's the most notable thing that's happened so far. Other than that, we've had Batman and Superman falling for the same woman, Batman putting the moves on Lois Lane to get her out of Superman's hair, Superman, Batman, and Robin joing a circus, Batman getting Superman's powers, Batman and Robin both getting super powers, Luthor & the Joker teaming up, and Superman, Batman, and Robin going back in time and becoming the Three Musketeers. It's funny seeing how all three characters were depicted in the 50's. It almost reminds me of the Three Stooges. "Batman, Superman, and Robin are plumbers this week. This is going to be great!"
At the End: Since the half, we've had Batman get Superman's powers again, Batwoman get Superman's powers, Superman dump Batman for Powerman, Superman get a Superboy-esque sidekick named Skyboy, an appearance of Krypton City (aka Kandor), three instances of kryptonite affecting Superman in weird ways, and a ray hitting Batman and Superman that makes them less intelligent, forcing Robin to lead the World's Finest Team.
To sum up, I'd say this is a good buy if you're interested in the lesser known eras of Superman, Batman, and Robin. Or you're looking for some laughs, although I'm betting they weren't intentional at the time.
Halfway through: The Club of Heroes from Grant Morrison's Batman run makes an appearance. That's the most notable thing that's happened so far. Other than that, we've had Batman and Superman falling for the same woman, Batman putting the moves on Lois Lane to get her out of Superman's hair, Superman, Batman, and Robin joing a circus, Batman getting Superman's powers, Batman and Robin both getting super powers, Luthor & the Joker teaming up, and Superman, Batman, and Robin going back in time and becoming the Three Musketeers. It's funny seeing how all three characters were depicted in the 50's. It almost reminds me of the Three Stooges. "Batman, Superman, and Robin are plumbers this week. This is going to be great!"
At the End: Since the half, we've had Batman get Superman's powers again, Batwoman get Superman's powers, Superman dump Batman for Powerman, Superman get a Superboy-esque sidekick named Skyboy, an appearance of Krypton City (aka Kandor), three instances of kryptonite affecting Superman in weird ways, and a ray hitting Batman and Superman that makes them less intelligent, forcing Robin to lead the World's Finest Team.
To sum up, I'd say this is a good buy if you're interested in the lesser known eras of Superman, Batman, and Robin. Or you're looking for some laughs, although I'm betting they weren't intentional at the time.
February 2, 2022
I love the silver age team-up classics. Nice entertaining stories of a simpler good vs bad world. Recommended
July 27, 2023
This is pretty typical DC Silver Age fare. Each story features Superman, Batman and Robin in some type of team up. Each story is 12 pages and complete in itself. That's the standard DC Silver Age formula, although it's not always a bad thing. There's some pretty cool art from Curt Swan and Dick Sprang, although the heroes characterization was much different back then. (Batman sure does smile a lot!)
Overall this was a good read, but the stories were aimed at younger readers in this time period. If you're a Silver Age DC fan, I'm sure you'll enjoy this collection.
As a side note, I'm a big fan of the DC Showcase Presents (and Essential Marvel) formats where you get 500+ pages in black and white in one phonebook sized volume. Too bad these were phased out, but the Marvel Epic Collections are cool as well.
Overall this was a good read, but the stories were aimed at younger readers in this time period. If you're a Silver Age DC fan, I'm sure you'll enjoy this collection.
As a side note, I'm a big fan of the DC Showcase Presents (and Essential Marvel) formats where you get 500+ pages in black and white in one phonebook sized volume. Too bad these were phased out, but the Marvel Epic Collections are cool as well.
October 16, 2020
Presenting some of the most off-the-wall adventures starring the Man of Steel, the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder. Aliens, love-sick dames, giant robots and rather unusual new teammates to the trio of heroes make up the list of opponents faced by the World's Finest.
This black and white collection also contains the first ever meeting between Batman and Superman from the pages of Superman. The original Batwoman, Kathy Kane, attempts to shatter the glass ceiling in competition with Batman and The Man of Tomorrow. Lastly, in an all-time classic, The Joker and Lex Luthor join forces against their arch-enemies.
But where's Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen? The cub reporter was an integral part of the World's Finest issues of my father's that I used to read by the literal trunk-load as a kid. Jimmy and Robin would often have a generational gap competition in the pages of this DC Comics team-up. Not having the ginger teen in these stories is just rather weird to me. Perhaps he'll pop up in volume 2...
One unforgivable disappointment is the overuse of plots. Yes, with comic books, being nearly a century old, it's nearly impossible to not reuse plot lines. But to have so many repeat plot lines less than a year apart in time; things got predictable quick. Maybe if I was a reader in the mid-1950s approaching these as they were published on a bi-monthly basis, I wouldn't have noticed the lack of imagination. But I doubt it.
Still, this was a great collection of 1950s DC stories. Their naive optimism was a nice transition from the bleakness of the Atomic Knight and Great Disaster stories that I had been reading prior to this archive of Golden Age works.
This black and white collection also contains the first ever meeting between Batman and Superman from the pages of Superman. The original Batwoman, Kathy Kane, attempts to shatter the glass ceiling in competition with Batman and The Man of Tomorrow. Lastly, in an all-time classic, The Joker and Lex Luthor join forces against their arch-enemies.
But where's Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen? The cub reporter was an integral part of the World's Finest issues of my father's that I used to read by the literal trunk-load as a kid. Jimmy and Robin would often have a generational gap competition in the pages of this DC Comics team-up. Not having the ginger teen in these stories is just rather weird to me. Perhaps he'll pop up in volume 2...
One unforgivable disappointment is the overuse of plots. Yes, with comic books, being nearly a century old, it's nearly impossible to not reuse plot lines. But to have so many repeat plot lines less than a year apart in time; things got predictable quick. Maybe if I was a reader in the mid-1950s approaching these as they were published on a bi-monthly basis, I wouldn't have noticed the lack of imagination. But I doubt it.
Still, this was a great collection of 1950s DC stories. Their naive optimism was a nice transition from the bleakness of the Atomic Knight and Great Disaster stories that I had been reading prior to this archive of Golden Age works.
May 4, 2013
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.
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.
October 20, 2013
Yep, this is pretty predictable old timey DC attempts at writing a superhero comic from the early 1960s. In this case almost all in the 1950s, even more cheesy.
It's a basic formula: Batman and Superman converge on a problem. It's confusing at first, but the bad guys are always outsmarted because A) Batman and Robin figured something out and knew it more or less all along, or B) Superman knew something the whole time and was taking steps to make the bad guy fail. Always resolved in one issue, and with the exception of the first issue, a Superman issue, all in 13 pages.
The stories aren't even that clever. Only one famous/recurring villain in the whole thing, Luthor "don't call me Lex because this is the olde schoole" and one issue with the Joker. And they do the same thing as anyone else, have a weird factory or use a robot that seems invulnerable or weird, etc.
Most of the time, the story is about a strange world effect that everyone is confused by. Like what if Batman gets confused into assaulting Superman (happens twice) or something like that? Even worse are the number of stories about amnesia. Or probably the dumbest thing, weird alien invasions, which basically Superman can't smash until Batman tells him how to smash it.
It's a trying thing, reading cheesy sci-fi from the 50s that is THEN pacified. Ugh.
It's a basic formula: Batman and Superman converge on a problem. It's confusing at first, but the bad guys are always outsmarted because A) Batman and Robin figured something out and knew it more or less all along, or B) Superman knew something the whole time and was taking steps to make the bad guy fail. Always resolved in one issue, and with the exception of the first issue, a Superman issue, all in 13 pages.
The stories aren't even that clever. Only one famous/recurring villain in the whole thing, Luthor "don't call me Lex because this is the olde schoole" and one issue with the Joker. And they do the same thing as anyone else, have a weird factory or use a robot that seems invulnerable or weird, etc.
Most of the time, the story is about a strange world effect that everyone is confused by. Like what if Batman gets confused into assaulting Superman (happens twice) or something like that? Even worse are the number of stories about amnesia. Or probably the dumbest thing, weird alien invasions, which basically Superman can't smash until Batman tells him how to smash it.
It's a trying thing, reading cheesy sci-fi from the 50s that is THEN pacified. Ugh.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews