Rating:  -
I own several of the other Showcase Presents featuring more esoteric characters (Phantom Stranger, Jonah Hex, Enemy Ace, Metamorpho) so this is the first "mainstream" DC book I've bought, and I love, love, love it.
So much of the Silver Age can be tedious, but each story was so much fun that I could barely set this book down.
See the first appearance of Bizarro and Supergirl! Marvel at the lengths Lois Lane will go to marry Superman! Witness the embarrassment Clark Kent will endure to protect his secret identity!
Whoever selected these stories did a great job. One thing I would like to see added is some biographical information, particularly for unsung writers like Bill Finger. Perhaps that could come in an introduction, maybe written by a comics historian.
I'm going to buy copies for my elementary-school-age nephews (it can double as a coloring book) and collect more for myself.
Rating:  -
I honestly don't get the appeal of these books. Why bother making (or reading) black & white reprints of classic four-color comics...? I mean, yeah, the stories are still great and the original comics are hard to find, but a huge part of what made these comics great was the eye-popping artwork, including the bright primary colors: reading them in dull B&W is just plain wrong. Sure, the printing costs are lower, so you can get more pages for your money, but it's more pages of boring, not more pages of fun. It's really a travesty.
On the other hand, it recently occurred to me that these could be used as coloring books... Maybe you could buy a box of crayons to go along with all the artwork that the publishers ruined in this format. (Axton)
Rating:  -
I wanted to leave a message where someone from DC might see it. The superman chronicles are 5 star excellent, but these black and white Showcase books are very distracting. I, for one, would be willing to pay a higher price for color. Release Superman, and for that matter, Batman chronicles more frequently, or add color and jack the price up on the showcase books. Then, this silver age fan would be happy.
Rating: -
This volume along with Green Lantern vol.1 were the first two Showcase books put out by DC, and so they put them out at a promotional price of 9.99 while the others retail for 16.99.
To the previous reviewer, this Superman volume does not have any missing pages, that's just a messed up book.
I personally don't mind the lack of color in the DC Showcase or Marvel Essentials at all for one reason: the great pencillers in the old days were just as good (or better) as the best ones today, but the coloring was so poor pre-1990s or so that you really are not losing anything by the comics companies removing those awful cheap coloring jobs. Many coloring these days is done by computer and it shows, you simply cannot compare older comics' coloring with the average comics of today. Now if modern comics would just drop the 'we have to be so incredibly intense and violent all the time' everything would be in great shape. Not that I have anything against these things, it would just be nice if it wasn't every comic I read today from front to back. I love the Dark Knight Returns, but I also love wacky older Batman stories and the Batman TV show. Maybe that's why I love reading these older stories in Showcase and Essentials, because they frequently have zany lighter mood stories which are fun reading.
Rating: -
I just recently bought the three volumes of Showcase Presents: Superman. Does anyone wonder why volume 1 is only $9.99 while the other 2 volumes are $16.99? It's because the first book has about 32 pages missing. Page 35 jumps to page 67, or equivalent, in my book. That doesn't detract from the book as a whole and I'm enjoying reading the stories. But I wonder if anyone else has noticed this.
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