Showcase Presents Showcase

Back when I was building up my comics collection a few decades ago, I managed to rack up 85 of the 93 issues in the original run of Showcase. (I had every issue from number six onward except the ones featuring The Flash.) It was a fun series to collect and read Showcase because of how the focus changed every three issues or so (just as it did over in sister-series The Brave and the Bold after The Viking Prince sailed away but before the Batman team-ups swung in).

All of the Showcase Flash stories I've long had in Archives or other reprint volumes, but I never ever got to see the stories that were printed in Showcase #1 (Firefighters) or #2 (Kings of the Wild) or #3 (Frogmen) or #5 (Manhunters). Never, that is, until last month!

DC Comics has been publishing phonebook-sized reprints in black-and-white on newsprint for a while now. The series was dubbed "Showcase Presents..." in honor of the venerable Showcase comic book that I'm writing about above (and which, of course, ushered in the Silver Age of Comics when The Flash arrived in Showcase #4).

Last month DC put out Showcase Presents Showcase, reprinting the first 21 issues of the Showcase comic book series. At long last I got to see the four early issues that I'd been curious about since the 1970s. It was nice to see some Joe Kubert art in Kings of the Wild, and do you know that the entire Frogmen issue was drawn by Russ Heath? I am very pleased with my purchase!