Customer Reviews

Showcase Presents: Green Lantern, Vol. 1

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Here's where the "green" Green Lantern gets started. The character of Hal Jordan develops throughout this tome that brings back to life the most mature plotting and themes of any early Sixties DC comics. Because of the interesting writing, this stands out among the Showcase and Marvel Essentials, and so it survives the harshness of black and white.

It is a shame that color is apparently prohibitively expensive. I'm sure, especially with a character whose NAME IS A COLOR, the publishers held their breath when they released it. Yes, I miss the color A LOT, but this and a few of the other Showcases have enough nostaliga and entertainment value to make for good bedtime reading. Plus some of the key background material for Infinite Crisis originates in early Green Lantern mags.

Put it all together with the value, and this is a very satisfying purchase. (Great marketing too--buying a few of these Showcase volumes prompted me to buy a few of the more expensive premium products DC has put out.)

Enjoy!

DC's Showcase Presents series is something which makes this old comic book fan very happy. Presenting 500-plus pages of silver age (or later) comics in chronological order makes for a terrific way to purchase a huge chunk of a character's history for cheap. The catch - they're in black and white. While this is a nice way to showcase the pen and ink artwork of the period (sorry, colorists!), it does diminish a very appealing aspect of comics - especially one like Green Lantern, whose powers and vulnerabilities involve different colors to a high degree.

Nonetheless, Green Lantern Volume 1 is a great buy. It's cheap, it's huge, and it presents the character, to my mind, that best exemplifies the period of the early 1960s. Hal Jordan is a test pilot who inherits a powerful ring that allows him to travel in space and join an intergalactic police force. I can't imagine a more exemplary character for an age and a country just beginning its space flights, harnessing new and powerful energies in both war and peace, and attempting to police the world in the Cold War.

John Broome's writing is good, if simplistic in spots (a requirement of the era's Comics Code authority, unfortunately, which restricted violence, moral ambuguity, and all other sorts of things which make "modern" comics so interesting). But the stories still almost universally contain kernels of good sci-fi ideas. Time travel, antimatter universes, shrinking to subatomic size, all sorts of sci fi ideas populate these pages. Younger readers ought to find the stories exciting and entertaining. Older readers might be a bit more bored, but there's plenty of period subtext for the avid student of sociology or 60's futurism to enjoy.

The art is the main draw, here. Gil Kane is unquestionably one of the greats of the silver age. His style here is fluid, uncluttered, and not quite as dynamic as his later stuff, but the elements are there. His layouts and anatomy are still creative and interesting. Watching his style evolve over 20 issues is a treat. Later volumes show his style progressing even further.

In summary, this volume should appeal to any fan of the character, any student of the 1960s, and any appreciator of Gil Kane's art. Since I am all three, this was a certain buy for me. Other than this group though, I would say that this book is appropriate for Silver Age aficionados and bright, inquisitive kids. At this price, it can't be beat.

Capturing the elements of the growing national fascination with science and space, the Green Lantern was a super hero for science fiction, as this stories from 1959-1962 clearly demonstrate.

What is neat about this bulky volume of 526 pages is the inclusion of the seven Showcase (#22-#24) stories, which can be considered as a pilot project for an ongoing series. Test pilot Hal (Green Lantern) Jordan is quickly introduced and the recurring elements in the story lines unfold quickly, especially his pursuit of Carol Ferris, who happens to be his boss.

What is lost in the newspaper-styled reproduction is the rich colors of the comic book artwork - especially in the Green Lantern series, with numbers one to seventeen included here - which actually made it a trailblazer to the graphic novel.

"No Evil Shall Escape My Sight," chants the Emerald Gladiator, though his adventures just may take him out of this world.

When I was a youngster in the 70's, one of the comics I used to love reading from DC was Green Lantern. Imagine my surprise when I walk into my local BAM Bookstore and find a digest of old Green Lantern comics called Showcase Presents Green Lantern, Volume 1 for a real low price of $9.99. I quickly purchased it and brought it home for an all-night read. Thing is, it's three days later and I still hadn't finished it, lol. While storytelling in this volume might seem a bit rigid & straightforward as opposed to comics in this day and time, it made me learn alot about one of my favorite DC Comics characters of all-time. Many of the characters I know and love from the GL universe were introduced in these older reprints so I have a deeper understanding of them now. True, it's clear from reading these old stories that the comic was aimed more toward a younger audience back then but I love taking a walk down memory lane. This volume includes Green Lantern's first appearances in Showcase #22 through #24 as well as his first adventures in Green Lantern #1 through #17. It's written by John Broome and Gardner Fox. With art by Gil Kane, Joe Giella and Murphy Anderson. The cover is done by Kane & Giella. If you're just getting into comics and want to learn about the Silver Age of comics or are a new GL fan, you might want to check out the DC line of Showcase paperbacks. You can't beat the low, low price. This volume is an enjoyable read and I aim on getting the second volume.

First, this is a great bargain. Only $9.99 for all these great old GL stories, what's not to love? The only disappointment is that the interiors are Black & White. Still, to keep the price under $10, I assume this was a necessity.
Gil Kane's art stil shines and shows why he IS THE Green Lantern artist. These stories are the start of the silver age GL's history and it's great that DC has chosen to reprint them now with Hal Jordan having recently returned to the Green Lantern fold.
Now, if only they'd do the Flash....

I was too young to read Green Lantern in the years (1959-62) covered by these reprints, but they are charming, imaginitive and amusing. Gil Kane's pencil work is the epitome of clean, sylish DC econmy and class- so unlike today's overworked, overcrowed junk. The inking, mainly by Joe Giello, is really smooth, sophisicated and reserved. That was a great era. Innocent, morally uplifting stories are nonetheless tinged with mind-expanding sci-fi concepts- surprisingly dream like and sometimes downright psychedelic.

His weakness is YELLOW, yet the book's B&W! Fortunately, I'm doped up with a cold, so my highlighter and I are rectifying the situation. This Showcase is thus much more interactive than the rest.

(I do wish they did a showcase for the Golden Age version of GL, but that's just me.)

Still, like the rest of the Showcase Presents series, this is an excellent value and a great way to catch up on the semi-ancient history of classic characters!

I started reading Green Lantern comics during Blackest Night, and this was recommended to me by a friend who was an ever bigger fan than I am.

It was awesome to see the origin of Green Lantern in this Showcase and the first appearances of Sinestro, Hal Jordan, Carol Ferris and Star Sapphire. The powers of the ring seem to be all over the place and a little inconsistent, but still it was fun to read.

But be warned that you're going to read the same 2 or 3 editor's notes over and over and over and over again about the yellow impurity in Hal's Ring, and about Carol Ferris.

All in all, I say if you're a fan of Green Lantern, check this out so you can see the origins of this awesome hero.

Silver age of my childhood, alive, and cheap. A must have. But what happened to GL? P.418 and p.419 are identical. In other words, p.419 is a misprint, and I don't know how GL gets to the Spectarns at that point in the story. It's impractical to dig through my sealed box of silver age originals in the hope that I haven't sold GL #13 which I probably did years ago. I need a p.419. DC should allow us to download a correction.

I was very impressed with this showcase book. I found this one to be very exciting and it even had some good origin stories of Hal Jordan. I was entertained by his "love triangle" between Hal Jordan, Green Lantern and Carol Ferris. It also had some exciting stories, especially with the ones where he fought Sinestro, the Yellow Lantern. It also had some fun stories with his helper and friend, Pieface. A good addition and homage to the Green Lantern comic stories.