It was hard to decide between the Natural or Sunburst Epiphone Casino, but I took the natural, not even thinking about the Lennon-ish-ness of that choice. It's got a great bound neck, and plays very well, but try to get the intonation right? And the bridge wires rattle, but that can be cured with a dab of clear nail polish. You can play anything on this. I was using it in a jazz combo....maybe it wouldn't be too credible for playing death metal.

Overall, I would give Epiphone Casino the thumbs-up. It looks good, is generally well-finished at the price, but most importantly, it plays & sounds great! I replaced the pots with US made CTS versions, and the p/u selector with a Switchcraft. Makes one hell of a difference I can tell you! The original pots have little variation until you come to dead-spot where both volume & tone dissolve into a mush! (For anyone contemplating this change, and if you're not technically inclined, get a tech to do it. It is a fiddly job at the best of times, and I personally adhere to attaching a wire to each of the pots/switches/jacks externally before dropping the whole assembly into the body, and extracting it through a pick-up hole.
3 hands would be handy! (Pardon the pun!)
Regarding Gig-bags or cases : if it's not supplied with the guitar, then I'd suggest going for either the dedicated gig-bag (the Casino has an unusually long peg-head) or better still, an optional Epiphone or Gibson 335 style hard-case. It won't fit in a standard sized gig-bag. Good Luck.