Book #15

Showcase Presents: All-Star Comics, vol. 1, by Paul Levitz, Joe Staton, etc ...Paperback.

The "Showcase Presents" volumes are series of black-and-white comic book reprints. The lack of color and inexpensive paperback binding makes them DC Comics' least expensive reprint line. It is an adjustment reading a black-and-white comic book, and clearly color is an important part of the medium, but I can get used to the lack of color in Showcases by the second or third story.

This volume covers the Earth-2 (described consistently as a "world very much like our own, yet slightly different) adventures of the Justice Society of America, starting with the reboot in All-Star Comics issue 58, in early 1976. The work was groundbreaking in that it showed the original JSA members (Wildcat, the original Flash and Green Lantern, and a retired Superman) as 50-somethings, with age lines and graying hair.

The first few arcs show younger characters (Power Girl, Huntress, and the Star-Spangled Kid) being intergrated into the group. Doctor Fate and Hawkman were also integral members of the team, and many others rotated into and out of the stories of the course of this volume. This volume includes more than 20 separate stories, including the classic death of (the Earth-2) Batman.

These are definitely stories from the 1970s, with all the good and bad aspects of 1970s comics. Some of the character moments and plotlines are clearly from that era. But overall I enjoyed the stories.

The podcast "Tales of the Justice Society of America," part of the Two True Freaks feed, did a great job covering these issues in their first 20-30 episodes.