Books : Showcase Presents: Green Lantern, Vol. 2

In association with Amazon.com

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- The definition of Heroic
Simply put, any of the Silver Age volumes in DC Comics Showcase and Marvel's Essentials are better crafted, and more fun than the current kill 'em all and let god sort 'em out software those companies now publish.

Buy Green Lantern. Buy Adam Strange. Buy Batman. Buy the Elongated Man. Buy Antman. Buy The Fantastic Four. Buy Ironman. Buy Daredevil. Heck. Buy Haunted Tank and Man-thing! It really will make you question comics current direction.

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- Great Nostalgia Value
I was between 13 and 15 years old when the stories in this volume first appeared in comic book form, and I read the Showcase series for precisely the same reason that I watch old TV shows on DVD-- I get a real kick out of revisiting bits and pieces of my youth. One should not, however, expect sophisticated plots in these old comics; they are downright silly, and the Green Lantern tales are perhaps even sillier than most of the other DC stories published around this time. However, the comics in this volume (many of which I actually recalled reading as a kid) provided a fascinating glimpse at mid-60's sensibilities, particularly with regard to women. Carol Ferris, for example, is depicted as the accomplished head of a multi-million dollar aircraft industry, yet she moons over GL like a lovelorn teenage refugee from an Archie comic. In one unintentionally hilarious story, GL is dispatched to a distant planet to persuade the Green Lantern of that world not to resign. When he arrives and meets his counterpart, he is struck practically speechless by the fact that she is, in his words, "a female!". (This from a guy who is supposed to be able to deal with strange and unforseen intergalactic civilizations and menaces.) It seems the female GL is thinking of resigning because she fell in love and knows that her husband and children would always take precedence over such things as saving the universe. (Never mind the fact that our GL is also in love with the aforementioned Ms. Ferris; I guess that, as a man, he would not have the responsibilities to a spouse and kids that a female would have.) In the course of the story, GL states that he knew the woman GL would arrive at a certain location because "she's too much of a female not to be driven by a strong sense of curiosity!" and in the very next panel she thinks that "my feminine intuition tells me he's up to something...". This stuff is absolutely priceless; for the very reasonable price of eleven and a half dollars, it's a steal.

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