Cover: Joe Kubert

Showcase #85

Sep 1969 · DC · 0.15 USD

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★ 1st appearance — Firehair

About this Issue

Showcase #85 is the debut of Firehair, Joe Kubert's Old West protagonist whose defining tension — a white man raised Blackfoot, rejected by both cultures — gave DC's late-Silver-Age western line a socially conscious edge rarely seen in the genre at the time. The issue is a showcase for Kubert's draftsmanship as much as for the character himself, with 22 pages of cover-to-cover Kubert pencils and inks that critics have consistently ranked among the finest western artwork DC published. Although Firehair never graduated to his own title, the character's built-in theme of prejudice and belonging resonated enough that he survived across four decades of DC continuity — appearing in Crisis on Infinite Earths, The War That Time Forgot (2008), and as late as the Blackest Night crossover in 2010. The issue also represents one of the last hurrahs of Showcase's original tryout mission, arriving near the close of the Silver Age when the anthology was winding down its role as DC's primary character incubator.

Contains 2 stories

I Don't Belong Here -- I Don't Belong There!

20.83 pp · Western-Frontier

Firehair (intro)

Talk-Without-Talk

1 pp

ComicBooks.com Value

Our Model is In Beta

Raw (VG) $7

CGC 9.6 · 1 in census $287*

CGC 9.4 · 3 in census $147*

CGC 9.2 · 5 in census $85*

CGC 9.0 · 5 in census $58

CGC 8.5 · 5 in census $40*

CGC 8.0 · 2 in census $31*

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CGC 7.5 · 1 in census $20*

CGC 7.0 · 1 in census $20*

CGC 6.5 · 2 in census $20*

CGC 6.0 · 1 in census $20*

CGC 5.5 · 1 in census $20*

CGC 5.0 · 1 in census $20*

* estimate — limited direct-sales data at this grade

Our model’s value — refined as new sales data arrives · CGC census counts shown where available

More listings for this title

VG $2.25 VG $5 GD $6.98 FN $8 VG $9.6 FN $9.99 VG $9.99 FN $9.99

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History

Firehair originated as a joint concept between DC's then-publisher Carmine Infantino and artist-editor Joe Kubert — a fact Kubert confirmed in print on the letters page of Showcase #87, writing that the character 'was the collaborative product of Carmine Infantino and myself; the rest of the chores were mine.' Kubert handled all creative duties — writing, penciling, inking, and editing — across all three Showcase tryout issues (#85–87, September–December 1969), making the run a rare single-creator showcase within a title built around collaborative production. The three-issue arc followed DC's standard Showcase audition format: strong reader response would earn a character an ongoing series, but Firehair's run did not generate enough momentum to cross that threshold, and no ongoing followed.

Trivia · 10 facts

First appearance of Firehair (real name unknown), a red-haired white man orphaned in a Blackfoot raid on a wagon train and adopted by Blackfoot Chief Grey Cloud.
Published July 24, 1969; cover-dated September 1969 — one of the final Silver Age issues of the Showcase anthology series.
Sole creator of record for the interior content: Joe Kubert (writer, penciler, inker, editor); character concept jointly developed by Kubert and DC publisher Carmine Infantino.
The lead story is titled 'Firehair: I Don't Belong Here — I Don't Belong There,' establishing the character's central conflict of cultural exclusion from both white settler and Native American society.
Also first appearance of supporting character Grey Cloud (Firehair's adoptive Blackfoot father) and Evening Star.
Issue contains supplementary one-page features also drawn by Kubert: 'Smoke Talk' (on Native American sign language) and 'Indian Lore.'
The Showcase tryout ran only three issues (#85–87); Firehair later appeared as a backup strip in Tomahawk/Son of Tomahawk (early 1970s), in Crisis on Infinite Earths, in Rick Veitch's Swamp Thing #85 (1989), and as a lead character in DC's 12-issue War That Time Forgot limited series (2008).
Joe Kubert drew the character one final time in Joe Kubert Presents #4 (2013), nearly 44 years after the debut; Firehair's in-continuity death was depicted in Weird Western Tales #71 (2010) during the Blackest Night crossover event.
Material from the issue was reprinted in Scandinavian markets in Norwegian Tomahawk (Williams Forlag, 1970) and Swedish Tomahawk (Semic, 1977).
Firehair shares his name and a broadly similar 'white child raised by Native Americans' origin with an earlier, unrelated female character from Fiction House's Ranger Comics (1940s), predating the DC version.