Showcase 100
May 1978

"There Shall Come a Gathering"

Cover: Joe Staton & Dick Giordano
Script: Paul Kupperberg & Paul Levitz
Pencils and Inks: Joe Staton
Colors: Adrienne Roy
Letters: Ben Oda
52 pages
60¢

Characters: Ace Morgan, Prof Haley, Red Ryan, Rocky Davis, June Robbins, Green Lantern, The Flash, Aquaman, The Atom, the Metal Men, Enemy Ace, Anthro, the Inferior Five, and everyone else who was ever in Showcase.

Synopsis: In a "just for fun" celebration of Showcase, a world-threatening disaster reunites everyone who ever starred in the book.

Story and art © DC Comics.

Much text generously supplied by DarkMark's Comic Indexing Domain!

The Challengers made the cover, just barely, but they're hanging in there.

The story opens with an odd conglomeration of heroes gathered in the JLA Satellite. Something is disrupting the very fabric of time. Volcanoes are exploding, dinosaurs parading, and people from various times are popping up all over. Oh, and the Earth is being pulled out of orbit.

The scientists - the Flash and Atom and Rip Hunter - work on physics. The Metal Men contain riots. Lois Lane and Jack (Creeper) Ryder cover the story.

The Challengers enter the story by leaping through a window into the Daily Planet offices.  Jack (Creeper) Ryder says, "I didn't know you guys could fly on top of everything else!"  Only with the help of a helicopter hovering outside.  "We weren't about to hassle with that mob on the street!  They're going bananas!"

The Challs include June Robbins and wear their magenta and yellow uniforms. And two - count 'em - two white holsters each, including June!

Prof explains the government has cleared the WGBS high-powered transmitter for the Challs' use "to send a cosmic SOS!  If we're lucky, somebody out there'll hear us!"

"Like actors in a well-rehearsed play, the Challengers know their parts well."  Prof hooks into the transmitter but, "Blast!  I've got the power pushed past the red zone, but I still can't get past the damned interference!"  (Language, Prof.)

The Challs jump in their VTOL helo to investigate energy surges in the Midwest. Lois Lane tags along, and the Creeper dives in too. Rocky mixes metaphors. "The ball's in our court... and the Challengers haven't fumbled a case yet!"

In space, golden robots give Green Lantern, Adam Strange, and other heroes - until Space Ranger and Cryll show up showering ray blasts. They bust into a space station and meet a talking equation? and a mineral-animal-plant monster.

Except now the Earth is hurtling through space at near-light speed.

Meanwhile, a stack of other stars from Showcase are piled in the offices of O'Day & Simeon, Detectives Agency.  And it's so much FUN just to see these old friends.  Anthro again.  Windy & Willy, Dobie Gillis and Maynard G Krebs turned hippies.  Teen star Binkie, DC's Archie, who thinks the disaster is great because there's no school.  The future's Tommy Tomorrow of the Planeteers.  The Inferior Five.  Firehair, a white Indian from the Old West.  And Batlash flirting with Angel O'Day.

Tommy Tomorrow, from the future, pinpoints a trouble source. He invites Angel O'Day to go along. "Sure! I never helped save a planet before!"

At sea, Aquaman, the Sea Devils, and Dolphin save people, including Sugar & Spike (who were never in Showcase). On land, the Metal Men fight dinosaurs and the Teen Titans roust Vikings and Nazis.

The Phantom Stranger shows up, orders a seance, and summons the Spectre, who shoves the Earth to a halt.

Over the Rocky Mountains, Ace pilots through a storm and dodges missiles.

The Challengers find a giant green cube with a hatch in the side.  Rocky stands on the Creeper's shoulders and forces open the hatch.  (It should be the opposite: the Creeper has hyper-strength.)  Plucky Lois Lane thinks, "I'll probably hate myself in the morning, but. Heads up, Challenger!  I'm coming through!"

Up on top, Tommy Tomorrow blasts a hole big enough for Angel O'Day to slip in.

Lois, in her (sigh) short skirt and boots, jumps past Rocky into the cube just before the hatch slams shut.  Rocky is appalled.  "Why, that dumb broad!..  This is men's work!  She could get hurt!"  But they're stuck outside and Lois is in, make or break.

Inside the unknown (alien?) cube, Lois and Angel duck robots and crawl to some central console, where Lois pulls wires.

The Spectre, Phantom Stranger, and the scientist heroes make a big, uh, triangle? to channel energy? And help everything slip back into place.

And an exhausted Lois congratulates Angel, telling her not to cry. Angel laughs, "This is the first time I've been so happy about breaking something!"

Comments

The letter column has a good time talking about the genesis of the issue, then lists which Showcase issues all these heroes appeared in.

According to an editorial comment in a later letter column, this story is "just for fun", so non-canonical. So we can't really claim the Challengers met the Creeper.

Showcase was DC's tryout title.  In the 1960s, magazine companies depended heavily on mailed subscriptions.  They couldn't start and stop titles because it threw off the Post Office's schedules and they'd be fined.  So DC started a consistent title with a new feature for one or more issues.  The Challengers starred in Showcase 6 and 7, then in 11 and 12.  Because of long lead times from sales to sale reports, the editors had to wait six months to learn if a title were a success or failure.  The Challs, luckily, were a success, and got their own series.

So did Enemy Ace, who moved to Star Spangled War Stories.  And the Flash, and Lois Lane, and Rip Hunter, and Anthro, and the Creeper and many others.  Non-winners such as Dolphin, Nightmaster, Cave Carson, Windy & Willy, Firehair, and the Maniaks never bloomed.

A few Showcase issues were media tie-ins.  James Bond inShowcase's Doctor No promoted the movie.  GI Joe starred in two issues when the toy was hot.

And sometimes Showcase just got filler.  We suspect the Sgt Rock issue was a generic story thrown in to meet a print deadline.  Rock was a success already in Our Army at War.

But throughout the 1960s, fans could count on one thing in Showcase.  The stories and characters would be (mostly) fresh, new, original, and possibly great.  And if they were flops, at least they were NEW flops.

To celebrate the Showcase tradition, DC threw everyone who'd ever appeared in the comic into one issue.  And that means EVERYONE.  One writer said he'd only planned to feature the superhero characters, but doughty old Joe Staton, who loved to draw a wide variety of people (his alien-filled Green Lantern Corps is still the best) made sure ALL the Showcase stars got in.  One panel features Enemy Ace's biplane, Sgt Rock, Anthro, Johnny Thunder, and Fireman Farrell from Showcase 1! About the only ones slighted were the Maniaks and the Frogmen.

At the risk of sounding old, I miss Showcase.