DC Comics Presents

By the end of the 1970's DC Comics decided to give Superman his own Team up series again when they gave him DC Comics Presents. The series allowed them to team up the grandfather of all superheroes with nearly every DC character in their universe. While it was a treat to see him work with some JLA heroes on a one to one basis it was more fun to see him team with others that he normally would not be with. This was rarely done while he headlined the team up version of World's Finest with a different guest star each month. Those new guest stars included Blackhawk, Blue Devil, Mr. Miracle and Firestorm right before he joined the JLA.

It started out much like World's Finest did. With one of the classic races between Superman and the Flash. It was, if I remember correctly, the only continued story in the entire series. The rest were self-contained one issue stories.

The high point of the series for me was with issue #17. It was in that issue that he met up with one of my favorites at that time. It was Firestorm. Firestorm was still fairly new to the DC universe and it was a vote of confidence for his fans that he would be around for years to come when at the end of the story Superman suggested that he should join the JLA. Firestorm jumped at the chance and soon he was shown off to the JLA who elected him as part of the team. Apparently Firestorm learned from the mistake of Black Lightning who kept turning them down until the 21st century.

I didn't read every issue of the series but I enjoyed those that I did. It was a treat to see Superman with a team up book again. His run on team ups in World's Finest gave us a taste of how well he could be with this genre. For some reason the series ended with issue #97. Why wouldn't DC just let it run 3 more issues to let it finish with 100 issues. To have let it end sooner then that is a slap in the face to a legend of a superhero like Superman.

The title was brought back years later as title that paid tribute to editor Julie Schwartz. New creators remade classic tales that Julie edited. It was a tip of the hat to the great editor.