What do you think?
Rate this book
Showcase Presents: Superman #4
Showcase Presents: Superman, Vol. 4
Written by Jerry Siegel, Edmond Hamilton, Leo Dorfman and others Art by Curt Swan, George Klein, Al Plastino and others Cover by Swan and Klein Collecting stories from ACTION COMICS #293-310 and SUPERMAN #157-167
512 pages, Paperback
First published September 4, 2008
1 person is currently reading
45 people want to read
About the author
Jerry Siegel
619 books81 followersJerome "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.
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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 8, 2022
Great last book in this reprint series. Some of the great Superman stories I remember reading as a kid are in this one. Very nice read down memory lane. Recommended
September 26, 2024
The final volume of this series, and more Silver Age Superman hijinks. I'm really not a fan of the format DC used in the Silver Age with the anthology style stories, but most of them are so silly it was probably better they were kept short.
Always entertaining, and always wacky, these stories never fail to deliver, even if that they deliver is usually silly.
Always entertaining, and always wacky, these stories never fail to deliver, even if that they deliver is usually silly.
March 29, 2018
Among the highlights in this volume: a few (fairly) legitimate classics: "The Amazing Story of Superman-Red and Superman-Blue!" and "The Showdown between Luthor and Superman!"
Less legitimately: "The Superman Super Spectacular," which sees John F. Kennedy, two months after his assassination, disguising himself as Clark Kent to protect Superman's identity.
Then there are the not-so memorable stories: "Superman Meets the Goliath-Hercules," which seems like the writer literally made up a few half-ass sequences, then realized he was out of pages and decided to end the story without any resolution or coherence. (Traveling with Lana and her archaeologist father, Clark falls into a sand whirlpool in the desert, which sends him back in time into an alternate reality, where the Biblical Goliath and the Greek Hercules legends are the same person. Superman helps Goliath-Hercules with three of his six quests, which are all rigged to be failures because the king sending him on the quests wants him to fail. G-H, by the way, was weakened by parallel universe Red K. Without resolving the quests or his conflict with the king, Superman abandons G-H, saves a kid from a lightning bolt and is thrown back to his own time, where he thinks, guess I'll put on my Clark clothes and pretend I climbed out of the sand whirlpool. the end.) WTF?!
Lots of Red K. Lots of Perry White and Superman staging incredibly and ludicrously elaborate schemes to capture crime bosses or those nefarious fifth columnists. Lots of puzzle "how will he save his secret identity this time?" stories. Kind of charming, but utterly, utterly stupid.;)
Less legitimately: "The Superman Super Spectacular," which sees John F. Kennedy, two months after his assassination, disguising himself as Clark Kent to protect Superman's identity.
Then there are the not-so memorable stories: "Superman Meets the Goliath-Hercules," which seems like the writer literally made up a few half-ass sequences, then realized he was out of pages and decided to end the story without any resolution or coherence. (Traveling with Lana and her archaeologist father, Clark falls into a sand whirlpool in the desert, which sends him back in time into an alternate reality, where the Biblical Goliath and the Greek Hercules legends are the same person. Superman helps Goliath-Hercules with three of his six quests, which are all rigged to be failures because the king sending him on the quests wants him to fail. G-H, by the way, was weakened by parallel universe Red K. Without resolving the quests or his conflict with the king, Superman abandons G-H, saves a kid from a lightning bolt and is thrown back to his own time, where he thinks, guess I'll put on my Clark clothes and pretend I climbed out of the sand whirlpool. the end.) WTF?!
Lots of Red K. Lots of Perry White and Superman staging incredibly and ludicrously elaborate schemes to capture crime bosses or those nefarious fifth columnists. Lots of puzzle "how will he save his secret identity this time?" stories. Kind of charming, but utterly, utterly stupid.;)
June 16, 2013
This is gets a higher grade by comparison, not by being particularly good.
Superman in the early/mid 60s is no different from the problems of his predecessors. Superman uses his powers to convoluted detail to sort out of his issues. "This was easy enough. I used my super breath to modify that painting, then used my x-ray vision to alert Jimmy, etc." Boring.
He also experiences red kryptonite a lot. It's this magical piece of kryptonite that does a different effect on Superman each time. Isn't inherently a bad premise, but after like 20 issues of "Oh man, that's red kryptonite, what will it do this time?" And it does stuff that's kind of fun, but a little lame. Like "wow, a Superman AND a Clark Kent in super bodies", but his powers avoid any real concern most of the time.
And those imaginary novels! BOO! The premise: things that are outside the already insane continuity of Superman, theoretical adventures like "Superman has kids, and 30 pages later and it's really convoluted." The absolute worst (and apparently really famous?) is one where Superman saves the world from all its problems by creating two hyper-genius Supermen who can invent a crime-impulse-removal ray. Utopian Bleech!
The biggest issue of this book that prevents me from loving it is the SEXISM with a capital "WOMEN ARE INFERIOR TO SUPES APPARENTLY". Lois Lane's ambitions to find out Superman's identity are squashed, sure, but then things like "I'LL TEACH LOIS A LESSON..." Yeechh! The absolute worst.
What's better in this book is a slight improvement in storytelling. The aformentioned bad plots have a bunch more along with, but there are some improvements. A story where Clark Kent was a target of mob hits made little sense, but the tempo was MUCH FASTER. A story about an alternate universe where Hercules resembles Goliath was also convoluted, but more fun than I'm used to with these cheesy long winded novels. There is hope!
Also, there's this amazing artist, Al Plastino...well, let's start with the other primary Supes artist, Curt Swan. Swanny does this hyper-realistic face thing that is boring, partly because it's kind of ugly, but also because who wants a guy who flies through space and has a super dog with realistic faces?
Al Plastino, on the other hand, has a vibrant pen that really makes Superman look like a full bodied body, but with the buoyancy of a cartoon. He gets about half the issues in this volume (maybe 40 percent?), and they really are better because of it.
All in all, if DC does volume 5, I'm hoping (probably incorrectly, that I could somehow give it 5 stars. Assuming Swanny is still there, it will still suck a little.
Superman in the early/mid 60s is no different from the problems of his predecessors. Superman uses his powers to convoluted detail to sort out of his issues. "This was easy enough. I used my super breath to modify that painting, then used my x-ray vision to alert Jimmy, etc." Boring.
He also experiences red kryptonite a lot. It's this magical piece of kryptonite that does a different effect on Superman each time. Isn't inherently a bad premise, but after like 20 issues of "Oh man, that's red kryptonite, what will it do this time?" And it does stuff that's kind of fun, but a little lame. Like "wow, a Superman AND a Clark Kent in super bodies", but his powers avoid any real concern most of the time.
And those imaginary novels! BOO! The premise: things that are outside the already insane continuity of Superman, theoretical adventures like "Superman has kids, and 30 pages later and it's really convoluted." The absolute worst (and apparently really famous?) is one where Superman saves the world from all its problems by creating two hyper-genius Supermen who can invent a crime-impulse-removal ray. Utopian Bleech!
The biggest issue of this book that prevents me from loving it is the SEXISM with a capital "WOMEN ARE INFERIOR TO SUPES APPARENTLY". Lois Lane's ambitions to find out Superman's identity are squashed, sure, but then things like "I'LL TEACH LOIS A LESSON..." Yeechh! The absolute worst.
What's better in this book is a slight improvement in storytelling. The aformentioned bad plots have a bunch more along with, but there are some improvements. A story where Clark Kent was a target of mob hits made little sense, but the tempo was MUCH FASTER. A story about an alternate universe where Hercules resembles Goliath was also convoluted, but more fun than I'm used to with these cheesy long winded novels. There is hope!
Also, there's this amazing artist, Al Plastino...well, let's start with the other primary Supes artist, Curt Swan. Swanny does this hyper-realistic face thing that is boring, partly because it's kind of ugly, but also because who wants a guy who flies through space and has a super dog with realistic faces?
Al Plastino, on the other hand, has a vibrant pen that really makes Superman look like a full bodied body, but with the buoyancy of a cartoon. He gets about half the issues in this volume (maybe 40 percent?), and they really are better because of it.
All in all, if DC does volume 5, I'm hoping (probably incorrectly, that I could somehow give it 5 stars. Assuming Swanny is still there, it will still suck a little.
December 26, 2009
I'm never going to read a Superman book that I don't enjoy at least a bit, but with this volume the series is beginning to struggle. Despite the presence of such classics as "The Amazing Story of Superman-Red and Superman-Blue", this also contains such appalling duffers as "Superman Meets the Goliath-Hercules". Almost every other story here either features red kryptonite or is an imaginary story, or relies on Superman needing to keep his identity secret for all its drama. Nothing can challenge the man who can do everything.
Funnily enough, the final panel is both the saddest and the one that points the way forward for the character. "If I can't trust the President of the United States of America," says Superman to JFK in 1964 after entrusting him with his secret identity, "who can I trust?" Within a decade everyone would be asking the same question for different reasons. In the short term, that would leave Superman looking like a relic from a different age, but eventually writers would realise that no matter how big his muscles, ethical and moral dilemmas hit a Superman as hard as any of us.
On a lighter note, Superman shows off a couple of interesting powers in this volume: super-smoking, in "The Goofy Superman", and super-kissing, in "The Great Superman Impersonation". "Lois would pass out if she knew it was Superman, my other identity, who kissed her!" thinks Clark to himself after giving Lois a smacker. You have to wonder how pleasant it would be to kiss him. For example we learn in the Goliath-Hercules story that he cannot tan, because the sun cannot damage his skin that way; presumably his lips would be pretty much rock hard. He would be forced to mimic softness by reacting to the movements of your lips at super-speed, but such a calculated procedure could only ever have the illusion of passion!
Funnily enough, the final panel is both the saddest and the one that points the way forward for the character. "If I can't trust the President of the United States of America," says Superman to JFK in 1964 after entrusting him with his secret identity, "who can I trust?" Within a decade everyone would be asking the same question for different reasons. In the short term, that would leave Superman looking like a relic from a different age, but eventually writers would realise that no matter how big his muscles, ethical and moral dilemmas hit a Superman as hard as any of us.
On a lighter note, Superman shows off a couple of interesting powers in this volume: super-smoking, in "The Goofy Superman", and super-kissing, in "The Great Superman Impersonation". "Lois would pass out if she knew it was Superman, my other identity, who kissed her!" thinks Clark to himself after giving Lois a smacker. You have to wonder how pleasant it would be to kiss him. For example we learn in the Goliath-Hercules story that he cannot tan, because the sun cannot damage his skin that way; presumably his lips would be pretty much rock hard. He would be forced to mimic softness by reacting to the movements of your lips at super-speed, but such a calculated procedure could only ever have the illusion of passion!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews