FLOAT 100 · Comics · No. 26
Showcase #22
Three years after the Flash came back, DC's science-fiction editor tried his luck again, and a test pilot drawn to look like Paul Newman put on a dying alien's ring and became the Green Lantern of the space age.
- Year
- 1959
- Maker
- DC Comics
- By price in comics
- 30 of 100
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Create a free account- On sale
- July 28, 1959 (copyright filing); cover-dated October 1959
- Publisher
- National Comics Publications, today's DC Comics
- Cover price
- 10 cents, 36 pages
- Debut
- Origin and first appearance of Hal Jordan, the Silver Age Green Lantern, plus Abin Sur and Carol Ferris
- Creators
- Editor Julius Schwartz, writer John Broome, artist Gil Kane, inker Joe Giella
- Cover
- 'Menace of the Runaway Missile!' by Gil Kane, signed with his GK monogram
- This entry
- A CGC 9.2 (NM-) copy with cream to off-white pages
- Record
- $149,375 at auction, November 2017, when it was the only 9.2 and none was graded higher
The second revival
After the new Flash succeeded in Showcase #4 in 1956, DC editor Julius Schwartz looked for another Golden Age name to reinvent. The original Green Lantern, Alan Scott, had been a 1940s hero with a magic ring and a lantern drawn from myth and folklore. Schwartz, a lifelong science fiction fan, wanted a Green Lantern for a more modern, scientific age.
He gave the job to writer John Broome and artist Gil Kane. Their Green Lantern was a new man, Hal Jordan, with a new origin, and he debuted in Showcase #22, cover-dated October 1959. A copyright filing gives the publication date as July 28, 1959, and some copies carry a July 30, 1959, date stamped on the cover.
Broome had been circling the idea for years: he first conceived of the character in a 1952 Captain Comet story he wrote for Strange Adventures #22, 'Guardians of the Clockwork Universe.'
SOS Green Lantern
The issue holds three Green Lantern stories. In the six-page opener, 'SOS Green Lantern!', the power ring of a dying alien named Abin Sur seeks out a worthy successor and chooses Hal Jordan, a test pilot. The ring channels its wearer's will into whatever he can imagine, and Hal becomes the Green Lantern of Earth's sector.
In 'Secret of the Flaming Spear!', saboteurs try to crash an experimental aircraft built by Ferris Aircraft, Hal's employer, and the reader meets Carol Ferris and her father, Willard Ferris. Carol, Hal's on-and-off love interest, would later become the villain Star Sapphire. In the closing story, 'Menace of the Runaway Missile!', Green Lantern stops a missile launched by a Dr. Parris at a government hydrogen power facility. That story also gave the issue its cover.
Between the comics ran one-page text features in the spirit of the book: a page of facts about things that are green, a page on missile technology, and a history of test pilots that names the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss.
Broome, Kane and the man behind them
John Broome, born Irving Broome in 1913, had read science fiction since boyhood and wrote for the pulps in the 1940s. Julius Schwartz had been his literary agent before becoming an editor, and Broome had written the Golden Age Green Lantern and the Justice Society through the 1940s. With Schwartz and Kane he created Hal Jordan, and later the villain Sinestro and the Green Lantern Guy Gardner. In the late 1960s he moved to Paris, then left comics to travel and teach English in Japan. He died in 1999 in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Gil Kane was born Eli Katz in Riga, Latvia, in 1926, and came to Brooklyn with his family in 1929. He took visual inspiration for Hal from the actor Paul Newman, and comics historian Les Daniels praised a design that emphasized grace as well as strength, especially in Kane's flying scenes. Kane penciled most of the first 75 issues of Green Lantern's own series and later co-created the Silver Age Atom at DC and Iron Fist and Adam Warlock at Marvel.
Kane's cover is signed with a K over a G, which at the time meant he inked it himself; DC's payment records list only Kane. Joe Giella inked the interior stories, and Ira Schnapp lettered the cover and designed the logo.
From tryout to franchise
Green Lantern appeared in Showcase #22 to #24 and then earned his own series. Green Lantern #1 was cover-dated July-August 1960 and the series ran to #89 in 1972. Hal Jordan was also a founding member of the Justice League of America, which debuted in The Brave and the Bold #28 in 1960.
The character's later history was turbulent. In the 1990s Emerald Twilight storyline, grief over the destruction of his hometown, Coast City, turned Hal into the villain Parallax. Green Lantern: Rebirth restored him in 2004. He reached movie screens in 2011, played by Ryan Reynolds, and is played by Kyle Chandler in the 2026 series Lanterns.
DC reprinted the issue as a facsimile edition in June 2024, a modern reprint distinct from the 10-cent original.
The 9.2 and the census
Showcase #22 is tough in high grade. When this CGC 9.2 copy was offered in November 2017, the grading company's census showed it as the only 9.2 and none higher, and the auction description noted the issue is hard to find in any grade above Fine. It sold on November 16, 2017, for $149,375, the issue's public record. Its grader's notes list light wear and a front-cover crease that break the color, and spine stress lines.
The same copy, with the same certification number, sold at auction again on April 30, 2020. By then the census showed one 9.2 and one copy graded higher, so this book was no longer the top of the census. Its 2020 price was not published in the sources reviewed.
A CGC 9.0 sold at auction in November 2019 was described as one of four copies at 9.0 with two graded higher. By June 2026 the census showed 55 universal-grade copies at 5.5 and 145 graded higher.
The numbers
- Print run
- Not documented in the sources reviewed
- CGC census, November 2017
- 1 at 9.2, none higher
- CGC census, November 2019
- 4 at 9.0, 2 higher
- CGC census, May 2020
- 1 at 9.2, 1 higher
- CGC census, June 2026
- 55 universal-grade copies at 5.5, 145 higher
- Green Lantern tryouts in Showcase
- Issues #22, #23 and #24
- Pages and price
- 36 pages, 10 cents
Timeline
Broome's Captain Comet story 'Guardians of the Clockwork Universe' appears in Strange Adventures #22.
The Silver Age Flash debuts in Showcase #4, Schwartz's first revival.
Showcase #22 is published, introducing Hal Jordan as Green Lantern.
Green Lantern joins the first Justice League of America in The Brave and the Bold #28.
Green Lantern #1 launches (July-August 1960 cover date).
Broome's final Green Lantern story appears in Green Lantern #75.
The first Green Lantern series ends with #89.
In Green Lantern #50, Hal Jordan becomes Parallax.
Green Lantern: Rebirth restores Hal Jordan.
Ryan Reynolds plays Hal Jordan in the film Green Lantern.
The CGC 9.2 copy, then the only 9.2 with none higher, sells at auction for $149,375.
The same 9.2 sells at auction again; the census now shows one copy graded higher.
DC publishes a facsimile edition of Showcase #22.
Kyle Chandler plays Hal Jordan in the series Lanterns.
The world in 1959
Alaska is admitted as the 49th state.
Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper die in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa.
NASA announces the Mercury Seven, the first U.S. astronauts, all military pilots.
The Saint Lawrence Seaway opens to shipping.
Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev hold the 'kitchen debate' in Moscow.
The Explorer 6 satellite launches from Cape Canaveral.
Miles Davis releases Kind of Blue.
Hawaii becomes the 50th state.
Price record
| Date | Price | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| Nov 16, 2017 | $149,375 | Sold at auctionCGC 9.2 (NM-), cream to off-white pages; then the only 9.2 with none higher. Issue record at public auction. |
A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.
By reference price, Showcase #22 is number 30 of 100 in the comics entries of the FLOAT 100. 92 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (26 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.
Did you know
- Gil Kane modeled Hal Jordan's looks on the actor Paul Newman.
- Showcase #22 included a one-page text feature of facts about things that are green.
- Writer John Broome left comics to travel and teach English in Japan, and died in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in 1999.
- Julius Schwartz, the editor who revived Green Lantern, had been Broome's literary agent before he became an editor.
- Carol Ferris, introduced in this issue at Ferris Aircraft, later became the villain Star Sapphire.
- Some copies of Showcase #22 carry a July 30, 1959, date stamped on the cover.
How this page is made
- The figure
- One reference price, shown with its own kind. FLOAT does not average it with anything or adjust it for time.
- Realized or not
- A realized price is a completed sale. An asking price, an estimate and a price-guide value are not sales, and are labeled as such wherever they appear.
- The story
- Researched from published records and checked fact by fact. Updated Oct 1, 2026.
- Archive
- Oct 5, 2026