To be fair, Supergirl is not the only character on this house ad, but she is the most prominent one, so I’m making an executive decision in calling this a Supergirl house ad.

I was very excited for Showcase ’95 back in late 1994 when the first issue came out. DC brought back the Showcase name in late 1992 as Showcase ’93. It was an anthology book that had a Batman hook. While there were stories about Blue Devil, Cyborg, and Flash, there was always a Bat character to bring the readers to the yard.

And damn right, it was better than yours.

And they’d teach you, but they’d have to charge.

In this case the charge is the cover price. Which was $1.95.

After two years, the series shifted it’s focus to Superman characters and was, for the most part, an interesting read. This is one of the places that DC workshopped a hook for Supergirl, which was uneven but not bad. Mongul got a two-part story that year, which I rather liked. Agent Liberty, Gangbuster, and Thorn all got stories as well. If you liked reading about these characters this was a place you could go. If you didn’t like them you could ignore it.

The Superman theme continued into Showcase ’96, which was the last year DC published the title. There were a lot of fun stories that year. Bibbo got the spotlight, Steel teamed up with Guy Gardner during his alien weapon shifting Warrior phase, Shadowdragon got a story. I would argue that ’95 was a stronger year overall, but that isn’t to say that I disliked ’96.

The two big stories from Showcase ’96 were in issue 3 and issue 8. Issue 3 had what is ostensibly a Lois Lane story that was also the first appearance of the Birds of Prey. Lois’ place in that team’s history is rarely mentioned and it’s interesting that something that went on to be a part of the Bat-family had its origin with the Superman family. It’s a fun story too with Lois teaming up with Black Canary.

I’d say track down the issue, but it still fetches a good bit of money on the back issue market, so stick with the digital version or one of the collections if you don’t absolutely have to have the original.

Issue 8 had a ten page Supergirl story written by…Peter David. This story has been included in all of the collected editions of Peter David’s Supergirl series even though the story doesn’t have a whole lot to do with the stories that began when the ongoing began. It’s a good story, but it’s a one and done that is more of a character study, which is something that Peter David excelled at as a writer. Terry Dodson did the art, which made Supergirl a lot more…healthy than she had been presented as up to that point.

I did not pick up Showcase ’96 as it came out because I had yet to jump on the “I will buy any Superman related title like I signed a contract to do so,” train that I boarded in late 1996, but I remember hearing that Peter David had written a Supergirl story in the book and I assumed that it must have been a lead in to the ongoing series. So, I tracked it down and when I got done reading the story I was like, “Wait, this doesn’t have anything to do with the monthly series.”

This is a good example of someone assuming facts that were not in evidence. I assumed the story tied into the ongoing because it was written by Peter David and this kind of “preview” was not out of the realm of possibility, but I had never read anything that flat out said that it was a preview.

So, this was a total me thing.

Still, as I mentioned it is included in the three collections of the early part of Peter’s run that DC has released. I appreciate the thoroughness.

More to follow…