Showcase Presents All Star Comics Vol. 1

This book is hilarous. There. Can I stop writing, and continue reading? No? Darn. Oh, well, here goes:Showcse Presents: All-Star Comic is all about the Justice Society of America. A quick introduction to them is simply that Superman, Batman and so on were around in the 1940s, and we're not writing 1960s. That means Superman, Batmand and all those are getting old, and the sidekicks have grown up. Add a small crisis that brings a bunch of them together, and the Justice Society is formed.By now you might think it's just another run of the mill superhero-group, but you'd be wrong - sort of. I mean, it's still the usual stuff about saving the world over and over from the supervillain of the week, but what makes this so great is that they don't hold back on the comedy. There are so many small jokes, gags and one-liners that it's hard to not laugh out loud sometimes. Take Power Girl, for instance. I didn't know her that well before this, but she has instantly become my favorite superhero. Both Green Lantern and The Flash are still around, but both are very different from the regulr ones. Superman? Interestingly, he's the original version here. The one who can't fly, and can't use heat vision and all that. I don't think he's even invulnerable, though he is super strong. Power Girl is even weaker than him, though she's still very, very strong. Throwing cars-kinda strong.I could sit here and talk about this comic for a long time, but if you like superheroes, this is brilliant. If you don't know superheroes much, this could be a good place to start. This was from the golden era when superheroes were still allowed to be funny. I do enjoy Man of Steel (and to some degree the Chris Nolan Batman-movies), but I want superheroes to return to being funny. Even Marvel fails at that, nd their movies are a lot more lighthearted than the DC movies at the time of writing. DC even has that Arrow tv-series going on now. I think it's great, but would it kill anyone to smile from time to time? :/

All-Star Comics first appeared in the 1940’s and introduced the Justice Society of America to the world. The original line-up contained iconic heroes such as Doctor Fate, The Spectre, Hourman, The Sandman and Earth Two’s version of Green Lantern, The Atom, Hawkman and The Flash – although during this time the world known as ‘Earth One’ hadn’t been created and wouldn’t until the fifties when new versions of these heroes would begin to surface. In the early fifties, popularity in comics plummeted and All Star Comics was cancelled. Fast forward to 1976 when All Star Comics (the hyphen was to come later in issue 66) the Justice Society of America was re-born.Blending the old with the new, DC introduced Power Girl and The Huntress, fresh blood to the hero scene and hungry for battle. Alongside starred a rejuvenated Star-Spangled Kid and another favourite of mine who has since become quite iconic, Wildcat. For me, the series gets started when the brilliant Joe Staton climbs on-board to give the series a boost with his unique talent. He didn’t worry about adding lines and grey hair to those in the original JSA! As with Kirby and Aparo, you only have to look at his artwork to know it is Staton behind the pencil. Paul Levitz expanded the storylines so they weren’t all wrapped up in a single issue and I am sure this dynamic team would have been treated to an amazing series – if the DC implosion hadn’t happened. But we should be thankful for what we do have. Collected here in the DC Showcase Presents series, Staton’s artwork does not lose any of its integrity for being printed in black and white. What is great is that DC have included the brilliant ‘Death of Batman’ (Earth Two, that is) so Staton’s run on the JSA is complete. This is a brilliant collection for any Bronze Age comic fan. It felt like re-visiting my childhood which always gets the thumbs-up. Superb.