Superman Through the Ages! Forum

I strongly believe that Showcase Nos. 9 and 10 need to be listed in the canonical sources as they are solo Lois Lane comics that directly paved the way for her own series, which is canonical. Additionally, I believe that the Earth-2 Power Girl issues of Showcase, No. 97-99, should also be included.

And while I know that this series is not well-liked by some (most?) of us, I also believe that Steve Gerber's Phantom Zone miniseries should be included as well, since it was published by DC prior to 1986 and featured the Man of Steel and his supporting cast.

Those Showcase issues would make great additions. IMHO. Perhaps we should make a poll and vote on it after this thread runs its course.

Phantom Zone miniseries was voted against before because it show the Phantom Zone so grossly out of character, there was a lot of stuff added to it that came out of nowhere and perhaps never show up again that I know of, I don't know if it was ever reference in any of the canon books. If someone can prove that it was referenced, then perhaps we should rethink adding it or not.

I mostly agree --never even occurred to me.  Include both sets of Showcase issues.

If we can include partial runs of other titles, we can include exceptional runs of Showcase.  Of course, since there are only one or 2 issues per, it hardly seems necessary.  Might as well make Detective #27 canon.  Kind of iffy.

I think Julian is the biggest Phantom Zone mini fan.  Maybe we should ask him?

So, does anyone else have an opinion on adding these issues to the canon?

I neglected to mention in my original post that I would also nominate the two-issue 1986 Lois Lane mini for inclusion. I'm a completist. :)

In many ways that Lois mini follows in the footsteps of her stories in Superman family and it is Lois' last great solo hurrah before the Iron Age.

Hi. I'm just checking back on this topic to see whether there are any objections to adding the Showcase books to the Canon. I suppose that the PZ mini is too controversial, but if no one objects to the Showcase books I would like to see them on the list soon. I apologize if I'm being pushy.  ;)

After thinking about it all these months, I'm not sure we need to canonize these individual issues.  The PZ series maybe, but just because the Showcase books featured a few LL adventures is no reason to elevate them to the level of other long-running series.  Sure, we could mention them, but they aren't even important "firsts" like the Flash issue. 

And a publisher's experiment that "paved the way" for another series isn't a good enough reason for canonization in Supermanica.  I would prefer to concentrate on the content of entire series, rather than exceptions.

The thing is that these Showcase comics WERE important, so just spell them out in full.

Adding a lot of new runs to "canonical" just introduces new acronyms that visitors might not understand.

Seconded.

The problem with lots of acronyms is that visitors to the site need to go back to the "canonical sources" page to figure them out. While the issues are important and should be talked about, less can be more, especially if "SHO" just means two or three comics from "Showcase".