Showcase #4

A tryout book and a forgotten hero

Showcase was DC's laboratory. Instead of risking a full series on an untested character, the company gave new features one, two or three issues in the anthology and watched the sales. The title began in March-April 1956 with features called The Fire Fighters, The Kings of the Wild and The Frogmen. Its fourth issue tried something no one at the company had attempted in years: a superhero.

The original Flash, Jay Garrick, had been one of the stars of the 1940s. But superheroes faded after World War II. All-Flash was canceled in 1948, Flash Comics in 1949 after 104 issues, and All-Star Comics in 1951, ending Garrick's Golden Age run. By the mid-1950s the racks belonged to romance, horror, war, western and crime comics, and the Comics Code Authority had recently been formed.

Other publishers had tried to bring back costumed heroes in 1953 to 1955, among them revivals of Captain America, the Sub-Mariner and the Human Torch, but none lasted. When Showcase #4 went on sale in July 1956, it was one of only nine superhero comics among the 176 comic books released that month, and the other eight all featured Superman or Batman.

Schwartz, Kanigher, Infantino and Kubert

Editor Julius Schwartz assigned writer Robert Kanigher, penciler Carmine Infantino and inker Joe Kubert to the company's first attempt at reviving a superhero. The issue's indicia credits Whitney Ellsworth as editor; Schwartz was the editor who actually ran it. Schwartz, born in the Bronx in 1915, came from science fiction: in 1932 he co-published one of the first science fiction fanzines, and his literary agency represented Ray Bradbury, Alfred Bester, Robert Bloch and H. P. Lovecraft, including Bradbury's first published work and Lovecraft's last.

Kanigher kept the name and the speed but threw out everything else. Barry Allen was a new man with a new costume and no connection to Garrick. Kanigher later said he still considered Gardner Fox, who had created the 1940s Flash, to be 'the creator of The Flash,' which is why no single name sits comfortably on the character. Kanigher also said he supplied the cover design for Infantino.

Infantino, who had last drawn the superhero in the final issue of the Golden Age Flash Comics in 1949, designed the red uniform with yellow details and kept it as streamlined as possible. He built a visual vocabulary for speed out of horizontal and vertical motion lines. He later said the costume grew out of a Captain Marvel homage he had drawn, called Captain Whiz. Infantino went on to become DC's art director, editorial director and publisher, and entered the Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 2000.

Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt

The lead story, 'Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt!', runs 12 pages. Barry Allen is a police scientist with a reputation for being slow and late, which exasperates his girlfriend, the reporter Iris West. Working late one night, he is drenched in lab chemicals when lightning strikes a shelf of them, and he finds he can move at superhuman speed. He takes his name and costume idea from the 1940s Flash comic books, and the first page shows him reading an old issue of Flash Comics and dismissing Garrick as 'just a character some writer dreamed up.' His first opponent is the Turtle Man, billed as 'the Slowest Man Alive.'

A second Flash story, 'The Man Who Broke the Time Barrier!', written by John Broome, pits Barry against Mazdan, a criminal from the future who is sentenced to exile in time and lands in the 20th century by accident. Infantino penciled and Kubert inked both stories. The cover, titled 'Presenting The Flash!', shows the hero bursting out of a strip of film frames, a design collectors call the filmstrip cover.

With its labs, lightning and time travel, the issue's science-fiction flavor reflected an era of rapid scientific advances and Cold War anxiety.

How one issue started an age

Readers wanted more. The Flash returned in Showcase #8, #13 and #14, and Schwartz was then convinced the 'Fastest Man Alive' could carry a series. In February-March 1959, The Flash picked up the numbering of the old Flash Comics with issue #105, now starring Barry Allen.

The success opened a door. Schwartz and his writers went on to reinvent Green Lantern in Showcase #22 (1959), assemble the Justice League of America in The Brave and the Bold #28 (1960), and revive Hawkman and the Atom. Fans and historians call the era that followed the Silver Age of Comic Books, and Showcase #4 is the issue most often named as its first.

Reviving heroes as new people with old names also led, almost by accident, to the multiverse. In 'Flash of Two Worlds!' in The Flash #123 (September 1961), Gardner Fox placed Jay Garrick on a parallel Earth where Barry could visit him, and parallel worlds became a cornerstone of DC's continuity.

Barry Allen himself died saving the multiverse in Crisis on Infinite Earths #8 (November 1985) and stayed dead for 23 years before returning in Final Crisis in 2008. Showcase #4 remained the book where his story, and DC's Silver Age, began.

The 9.6 and the record

Showcase #4 is hard to find in high grade. When the finest known copy was offered in January 2024, the grading company's census showed it as the only copy at 9.6 and none higher, and only eight copies had reached a grade as high as 9.0. The census then held more than 500 graded copies of the issue. Its grader's notes record only small spine wear that breaks the color.

That copy had sold once before, at public auction in 2009, for $179,250, which stood as the issue's record. On January 11, 2024, it sold again at auction for $900,000, including the buyer's premium. It became the highest price ever paid for a Silver Age DC comic, narrowly passing the $810,000 paid in the same session for the best copy of The Brave and the Bold #28.

The same January 2024 auction also sold a CGC 8.0 copy of Showcase #4 for $81,000, a sign of how steeply price climbs with grade at the top of the census. By April 2025 the census showed 20 universal-grade copies at 5.5 and 73 graded higher.

What to look for

A genuine copy carries a 10-cent cover price and 36 pages, with an indicia naming National Comics Publications and a bimonthly schedule, and the Comics Code Authority seal of approval. The cover is the filmstrip design titled 'Presenting The Flash!', penciled by Infantino and inked by Kubert, with lettering by Ira Schnapp.

Inside are the 12-page origin story and the 10-page Mazdan story, along with short one-page fillers. The cover and stories have been reprinted many times, including in Secret Origins and Flash Annual #1 (1963), so collectors confirm an original by its cover price, indicia and grading-company label.

The numbers

Print run

Not documented in the sources reviewed

CGC census, January 2024

More than 500 graded copies; 1 at 9.6, none higher

Copies at 9.0 or higher, January 2024

Eight, per the auction description of the 9.6

CGC census, April 2025

20 universal-grade copies at 5.5, 73 graded higher

Pages and price

36 pages, 10 cents

Flash tryouts in Showcase

Issues #4, #8, #13 and #14

Timeline

1. 1940

   The original Flash, Jay Garrick, debuts in Flash Comics #1.

2. 1949

   Flash Comics is canceled after 104 issues.

3. 1951

   All-Star Comics is canceled after 57 issues, ending Garrick's Golden Age appearances.

4. Mar 1956

   Showcase begins as DC's tryout anthology (March-April 1956 cover date).

5. Jul 3, 1956

   Showcase #4 goes on sale, introducing Barry Allen as the Flash.

6. Feb 1959

   The Flash resumes with issue #105 (February-March 1959), starring Barry Allen.

7. Oct 1959

   Schwartz's second revival, Green Lantern Hal Jordan, debuts in Showcase #22.

8. 1960

   The Justice League of America, including the Flash, debuts in The Brave and the Bold #28.

9. Sep 1961

   'Flash of Two Worlds!' in The Flash #123 introduces DC's multiverse.

10. Nov 1985

    Barry Allen dies in Crisis on Infinite Earths #8.

11. Jun 2008

    Barry Allen returns in Final Crisis #2.

12. 2009

    The CGC 9.6 copy sells at public auction for $179,250.

13. Jan 11, 2024

    The same CGC 9.6 copy sells at auction for $900,000, a record for a Silver Age DC comic.

The world in 1956

• Jan 28, 1956

  Elvis Presley makes his national television debut on CBS.

• Jun 4, 1956

  In Browder v. Gayle, a federal court rules Alabama's bus segregation laws unconstitutional, during the Montgomery bus boycott.

• Jun 29, 1956

  President Eisenhower signs the Federal Aid Highway Act, creating the Interstate Highway System.

• Jul 25, 1956

  The Italian liner Andrea Doria sinks off Nantucket after a collision in fog.

• Jul 30, 1956

  'In God We Trust' is authorized as the U.S. national motto.

• Sep 9, 1956

  Elvis Presley appears on The Ed Sullivan Show for the first time.

• Oct 8, 1956

  Don Larsen pitches the only perfect game in World Series history.

• Nov 6, 1956

  Eisenhower is re-elected president.

Price record

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 #4 is number 11 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 (25 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• When Showcase #4 went on sale in July 1956, it was one of only nine superhero comics among 176 new comic books, and the other eight starred Superman or Batman.
• On his first page, Barry Allen reads an old Flash comic and dismisses the original Flash as 'just a character some writer dreamed up.'
• The Flash's first villain was the Turtle Man, 'the Slowest Man Alive.'
• Writer Robert Kanigher said he considered Gardner Fox, creator of the 1940s Flash, to be the real creator of the character.
• Editor Julius Schwartz had been a literary agent whose clients included Ray Bradbury and H. P. Lovecraft.
• The 9.6 copy's 2024 price was about five times what the same comic brought at auction in 2009.