Showcase #87

Showcase #87 (On Sale: October 28, 1969) has a Firehair cover by Joe Kubert.

"The Shaman" by Joe Kubert is the last of the three Firehair issues of Showcase. It is also the weakest of the three as you will see, yet it still has the wonderful art of Joe Kubert at his peak.

In his travels, Firehair comes to the edge of the Grand Canyon, where he is attacked by a mountain lion. The lion's sharp claws cut deeply into Firehair, but he uncoils his rope and wraps it around the lion's neck. However, before it can do much good the lion's aggressive action throws them both over the edge. Firehair manages to grasp onto a scrub plant as he falls and climbs back onto a ledge where he quickly passes out. When he awakens it is night and he sees the fire of a tribe on the canyon floor. He somehow makes it down the canyon wall and into the camp, where the tribe's shaman says they have been expecting "Firehair."

The shaman calls Firehair "the evil one" and dunks a totem of Firehair into a pot of water, causing Firehair's lungs to fill with water. The shaman removes the doll and Firehair is placed on a mound surrounded by a pit of rattle snakes, where he falls fast asleep. When he awakens he is taken into a cavern to the edge of a bottomless pit when a spirit of the nether-world is called to pass judgment on Firehair. The giant man with the head of a coyote says Firehair must face the judgment at the black pool of "he that holds the world."

Firehair is taken deeper into the cavern to a black pool where he is tied up and left to face "he that holds the world," a giant mutated turtle. Somehow Firehair escapes his ropes as the cave begins to crumble. Firehair must dodge large pillars of rock. Suddenly his world goes black and when vision returns he is in a Navajo camp, where they have tended to him as he has lain delirious from the poison of the lion's claws. Quite a let down from the two previous stories, almost a filler issue and not what you would expect only three issues into the series.

Also in this issue is a one-page Warrior piece on Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Indians of Idaho drawn by Ken Barr.

Edited by Joe Kubert.