Showcase Presents: Big chunks o' fun

I'm no penny-pinching little stuffed bull, but I do 'preciate value for money. That's why I have to tell you that if you like fun comics and great values, run, don't walk, to get the first two books in DC's Showcase Presents series!

The first two are Showcase Presents: Superman, Volume 1 and Showcase Presents: Green Lantern, Volume 1:

Each book is a big chunky collection (over 500 pages!) of consecutive reprints from the Silver Age, reprinted in fabulous black-and-white (but hey, you already know what color Green Lantern is, don't you?). I can hear you all saying: "Oh, yeah, these are just DC's version of Marvel's Essentials series. That's nothin' special!" You think that, don't you? Don't you? Well, you're just plain wrong, buster! Don't get me wrong: I love the Marvel Essentials. But so far with just these two first volumes DC has done a lot of things right that Marvel got wrong with the first batch of Essentials:

• These two introductory volumes are only $9.99 each! (Future volumes will be $16.99, same price as Marvel's Essentials.)
• The black-and-white linework reproduction is very sharp and distinct. No badly-scanned pages that look like photocopies of old color comics, no way! Here's a riddle: what do DC's Showcase volumes have in common with 7-Up? A: They're crisp, and clean, with no caffeine!
• Each one only costs $9.99!
• Each page has a page number on it! So, f'r instance, when I tell you there's a really weird but fun cover to Action #251 on page 327, you don't have to guess what page I mean!
• Only $9.99 for each book!
• Whiter paper than the Essentials...paper that doesn't look like newsprint!
• Nine...ninety...nine!

The Superman volume was 'specially fun because it features consecutive Action and Superman comics starting in 1958 with some of the goofiest but most fun Superman comics from the Silver Age: back when Lois was trying to trick Superman into marrying her, when Jimmy Olsen choppered around in the Daily Planet Flying Newsroom, when every two-bit crook planning a Metropolis crime spree had a chunk of Kryptonite the size of a canned ham, and when Supergirl, Superman's cousin, came to Earth and got left behind in an orphanage so she wouldn't blow Superman's secret identity. Well, at least she didn't have a belly shirt, big Michael Turner soupplate eyes, and scary Susan Powter abs. The Green Lantern book is a little slower to get off the ground but these are still big, wild, fun cosmic and earth-bound adventures of the man who was without fear even before Matt Murdock didn't look where he was going when he was crossing the street! I liked how even though his powerful GL ring doesn't work against the color yellow, and apparently every threat in the Silver Age was yellowy or yellowish or maybe a nice pleasant shade of goldenrod, Hal Jordan could always come up with a way to defeat the menace anyway! That's my Hal! (Not this guy.) Hooray for the Silver Age! Hooray for DC Showcase Presents! Hooray for fun comics!