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Showcase Presents #77
Showcase Presents: Eclipso, Vol. 1
Nearly 300 pages of classic super hero adventure are collected in this value-priced volume!
The adventures of the villainous Eclipso, one of the strangest DC Comics characters of the 1960s, are collected here for the first time. On an expedition in the south Pacific, scientist Bruce Gordon's dark side is unleashed after being exposed to a black diamond. Transformed into the powerful Eclipso by any event resembling an eclipse, he embarked on an evil rampage as his good side attempted to reassert control.
The adventures of the villainous Eclipso, one of the strangest DC Comics characters of the 1960s, are collected here for the first time. On an expedition in the south Pacific, scientist Bruce Gordon's dark side is unleashed after being exposed to a black diamond. Transformed into the powerful Eclipso by any event resembling an eclipse, he embarked on an evil rampage as his good side attempted to reassert control.
296 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
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About the author
Bob Haney
450 books13 followersRobert G. Haney was an American comic book writer, best known for his work for DC Comics. He co-created the Teen Titans as well as characters such as Metamorpho, Eclipso, Cain, and the Super-Sons.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 26, 2023
I always liked the Silver Age Villain Eclipso, he just seemed different to me from the other villains of that era. This is a great collection to get you started on you Eclipso journey. Recommended
November 7, 2013
This is one of the slimmer Showcase reprint books, but it is absolutely the most cost effective way to get this much Toth art in one purchase. Toth was a master, in my humble opinion, but here he seemed restrained by the limits of the genre. Still, it's an okay read.
April 21, 2018
Pure Sixties hokum.
July 23, 2014
This is a case of an intriguing premise making a readable book out of otherwise incredibly bad art and frustrating and borderline unreadable writing.
The idea sounds kind of cool: this scientist has a villain alter ego that comes out when an eclipse happens.
But in practice, Bob Haney's mediocre machinations of it get pretty tedious. For one thing, there's always a lot of explaining, half the stories (maybe more, maybe three quarters) are pseudo science. Characters say out loud things like "We have to capture Eclipso, but we can't let him get hurt. Otherwise, you might die", or vague explanations of how an eclipse works (every effin issue has the sentence "it's an eclipse, unleashing forces no one understands...)
And then the character itself is confusing, like Haney wanted logistical problems. Like a real eclipse splits Bruce Gordon and Eclipso the evil guy separately, sure. But a "fake eclipse" (i.e. light being obscured by an object, which is vague as it sounds), make Bruce Gordon into Eclipso, but only for a short time. No reason, no serious drama because of it, just annoying talk about it all the time.
Plus Eclipso AND Bruce Gordon both know they can't hurt each other, making their antagonism so riddled with "please, excuse me, beg your pardon".
Characters? What do you think this is, a good comic book? Even though it's sad that Bruce Gordon's fiancee mostly talks in cliches about how she loves Bruce and wants Eclipso to go away, at least she has an emotional anchor. The fiancee's Dad, the "professor", is even more useless, mostly helping Bruce out and saying "brilliant!" when Bruce is smart.
They almost intentionally leave a lot of Bruce's story out. He's a well known scientist guy, he does a lot of helpful things for the government, but his status for that government is taken for granted, blindly positive, even though he's secretly this evil guy every once and a while..
The stories all have the same structure. Eclipso gets away from Bruce. The only way to beat Eclipso is to flash a bright light in his eyes (he's infallible, except for light bulbs basically), and he fuses back into Bruce's body until the next eclipse. It's really anti-climactic, reading that over and over again, really pacifies Eclipso's danger.
The "Stories" with their "fellow antagonists" are similarly weak. It's always some vague monster that likes to smash things. There's moon men, ancient pterodactyls, a big version of Eclipso, historical mutants (more than once with the historical mutants too, wtf?). It doesn't help that Haney's aforementioned dumb dialogue has Bruce saying something like "we've got to stop them", and the solutions are usually pretty simple. They only have usually 13 pages to introduce Bruce, bring in Eclipso, bring in the big monsters, and resolve both, so there's a lot of truncation of "excitement".
There were two crossovers with a guy named "Prince Ra" or something like that. His powers were confusing, as he could form mental energy with a six sided spiral thingy, and he was just kind of unemotional and altruistic (he's from another dimension, I guess that's why?). His "involvement" brung up a general issue, that characters in this story feel pretty safe, despite all the alleged danger, They talk for a while, never get in mortal danger, brush off not mortal danger.
There are touches of excitement or cool lookin stuff, but they come and go very quickly. It's partially the fault of Jack Sparling, (and to a lesser degree of issue with the less used Lee Elias and Alex Toth) as the art is pretty crummy, and the sourpuss that Eclipso has does not help at all.
I gave a forgiving 3/5 because the idea was unique, he seems like a good if poorly used character. I rounded up from 2.1/5
3/5
The idea sounds kind of cool: this scientist has a villain alter ego that comes out when an eclipse happens.
But in practice, Bob Haney's mediocre machinations of it get pretty tedious. For one thing, there's always a lot of explaining, half the stories (maybe more, maybe three quarters) are pseudo science. Characters say out loud things like "We have to capture Eclipso, but we can't let him get hurt. Otherwise, you might die", or vague explanations of how an eclipse works (every effin issue has the sentence "it's an eclipse, unleashing forces no one understands...)
And then the character itself is confusing, like Haney wanted logistical problems. Like a real eclipse splits Bruce Gordon and Eclipso the evil guy separately, sure. But a "fake eclipse" (i.e. light being obscured by an object, which is vague as it sounds), make Bruce Gordon into Eclipso, but only for a short time. No reason, no serious drama because of it, just annoying talk about it all the time.
Plus Eclipso AND Bruce Gordon both know they can't hurt each other, making their antagonism so riddled with "please, excuse me, beg your pardon".
Characters? What do you think this is, a good comic book? Even though it's sad that Bruce Gordon's fiancee mostly talks in cliches about how she loves Bruce and wants Eclipso to go away, at least she has an emotional anchor. The fiancee's Dad, the "professor", is even more useless, mostly helping Bruce out and saying "brilliant!" when Bruce is smart.
They almost intentionally leave a lot of Bruce's story out. He's a well known scientist guy, he does a lot of helpful things for the government, but his status for that government is taken for granted, blindly positive, even though he's secretly this evil guy every once and a while..
The stories all have the same structure. Eclipso gets away from Bruce. The only way to beat Eclipso is to flash a bright light in his eyes (he's infallible, except for light bulbs basically), and he fuses back into Bruce's body until the next eclipse. It's really anti-climactic, reading that over and over again, really pacifies Eclipso's danger.
The "Stories" with their "fellow antagonists" are similarly weak. It's always some vague monster that likes to smash things. There's moon men, ancient pterodactyls, a big version of Eclipso, historical mutants (more than once with the historical mutants too, wtf?). It doesn't help that Haney's aforementioned dumb dialogue has Bruce saying something like "we've got to stop them", and the solutions are usually pretty simple. They only have usually 13 pages to introduce Bruce, bring in Eclipso, bring in the big monsters, and resolve both, so there's a lot of truncation of "excitement".
There were two crossovers with a guy named "Prince Ra" or something like that. His powers were confusing, as he could form mental energy with a six sided spiral thingy, and he was just kind of unemotional and altruistic (he's from another dimension, I guess that's why?). His "involvement" brung up a general issue, that characters in this story feel pretty safe, despite all the alleged danger, They talk for a while, never get in mortal danger, brush off not mortal danger.
There are touches of excitement or cool lookin stuff, but they come and go very quickly. It's partially the fault of Jack Sparling, (and to a lesser degree of issue with the less used Lee Elias and Alex Toth) as the art is pretty crummy, and the sourpuss that Eclipso has does not help at all.
I gave a forgiving 3/5 because the idea was unique, he seems like a good if poorly used character. I rounded up from 2.1/5
3/5
September 7, 2009
Of late, DC Comics Showcase volumes have been coming in thinner than the standard 500+ pages they started off with. This would bother me more if the material found inside were the sort of Silver Age fun that made me a fan of this series. However, the Eclipso volume didn't do much for me, and I was somewhat glad it clocked in at less than 300 pages.
The problem is the main character is a villain, and by Comics Code rules, villains can't ever win. This can be compensated by giving him a good adversary. Sadly, Dr. Bruce Gordon is not that compelling either, since he seems to be little better than the anonymous heroic scientists that populated the "Strange Adventures" Showcase volume. There are two longer stories where Eclipso matches wits with Prince Ra-Man the Mind Master, who shared the book Eclipso appeared in, and he might have made for a better opponent but there is too little of the guy to make much of an impression.
Factor in also the fact Eclipso can only cause trouble during an eclipse, which anyone with a smattering of astronomy will tell you are rare, and you have a baddie who shouldn't cause anywhere near the level of problems he does. And the less said about the many "artificial eclipses" the better. While coincidence is the coin of realm in superhero comics, especially in the Silver Age, incidents like this take things too far.
The problem is the main character is a villain, and by Comics Code rules, villains can't ever win. This can be compensated by giving him a good adversary. Sadly, Dr. Bruce Gordon is not that compelling either, since he seems to be little better than the anonymous heroic scientists that populated the "Strange Adventures" Showcase volume. There are two longer stories where Eclipso matches wits with Prince Ra-Man the Mind Master, who shared the book Eclipso appeared in, and he might have made for a better opponent but there is too little of the guy to make much of an impression.
Factor in also the fact Eclipso can only cause trouble during an eclipse, which anyone with a smattering of astronomy will tell you are rare, and you have a baddie who shouldn't cause anywhere near the level of problems he does. And the less said about the many "artificial eclipses" the better. While coincidence is the coin of realm in superhero comics, especially in the Silver Age, incidents like this take things too far.
August 15, 2011
Reprints House of Secrets #61-80. Bruce Gordon accidentally unleashes evil on the world in the form of Eclipso and fights to find a way to contain him. Eclipso is kind of all over the place. There are some very good issues and some very bad issues. They are all fairly short since they shared House of Secrets with other stories so if one story is bad, the next might work. The stories that work the best are stories where Eclipso is forced to team with Gordon or be a hero. Otherwise, Eclipso pretty much has a one track mind of doing evil...with not many real goals other than that.
November 19, 2009
Ugh...I give up. Bad writing made worse by horrible characters.
March 20, 2010
Some parts are ok, but some aren't. Not all the stories are good but Eclipso as both hero and villian is entertaining.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews