ABOVE: The cover of Showcase #28. Once again, the house ad for this book, seen below, uses art from the story's splash page but doesn't show its actual cover.
BELOW: Russ Heath's original art for the Showcase #28 splash page, repurposed to create the house ad seen above.
BELOW: Russ Heath’s beautiful cover for the final issue of the Sea Devils tryout trilogy, SHOWCASE #29.
BELOW: Heath's splash page for Showcase 29's "Last Dive of The Sea Devils."
At the end of "Last Dive of The Sea Devils," the four Sea Devils took the highly unusual step of appealing directly to their READERS to ask DC to continue let them their adventures in their own title:
Apparently the plea worked, because the Sea Devils did indeed get their very own title in October, 1961. Here’s a crappy scan of the cover of Sea Devils #1, followed by the splash page:
BELOW: House ad for Sea Devils #2, a reworking of the earlier Showcase ad. The Devils were human beings with no super powers, and although their adventures took place in a realistic world, they seemed to encounter gigantic monsters and exotic sea aliens with alarming regularity.
But not even a shark, mermaid or octopus could stop the Sea Devils from occasionally relaxing and poking some typical mid-1960s sexist fun at each other, though:
