This week's recommended comics are SHOWCASE PRESENTS: GREEN LANTERN VOL. 1 and SHOWCASE PRESENTS: SUPERMAN VOL. 1.

Once upon a time, comics were for kids. Back in more innocent times, during what comics historians and over-30ish fanboys refer to as the Silver Age (roughly the 1960s and early 70's), comic books were pure escapist fantasy written for boys. Sure the plots were rudimentary but where they lacked in today's psychological drama, realistic dialogue, graphic violence and implausible sex they made up for in pure imagination.

This week DC comics begins reprinting affordable, black and white, 500 page phonebook size collections of some of these fun and truly out-there super hero classics with two Showcase books: Superman and Green Lantern. As long as these two characters have been around, the stories collected here are probably the pinnacle of what has been done with them. This is Gil Kane on Green Lantern, introducing the Hal Jordan version of the character and helping to usher in a new sci-fi inspired age in comics. And Curt Swan on Superman, drawing probably the definitive version of the man of steel with his quirky entourage of Supergirls, Superdogs, best pals, and ambitious villains.

Each of these volumes is a lot of comic book for only $9.99. And though it's sure to be laughably dated, at times even just plain dumb, the sheer refreshing lunacy of some of these stories is a great reminder of a time when comics were all about testing the imagination of it's young readers.