Bookshelf #33

This week's bookshelf doesn't lend itself to much in the way in discussion (nor will next week's), given the fact that it consists entirely of volumes of a particular series from a particular publisher. And, as big as those volumes are, there isn't room for anything else on the shelf. They are, obviously, all volumes of DC's Showcase Presents series, which seemed devoted to collecting various Silver and Bronze Age books into massive, phone book-like 500-page black-and-white books for the relatively cheap price of $16.99. They were basically DC's answer to Marvel's Essentials line. I loved these books. Not just because they collected comics that I otherwise wouldn't have had access to—although some of this material, like the Brave and the Bold and the Justice League of America comics, has been made available in other formats since, like omnibuses and DC Finest collection. They were also an unbeatable value, and the main drawbacks, that they weren't in color, and had a pulpier paper…