Two Words, One Answer.
Marvel Comics
 Marvel Encyclopedia $40.00 I bought this book for my 10 year old son, in the hopes of turning him into a hopeless comic book nerd like his old man. It should do the trick. This book has EVERYONE in it. Every single obscure, flash-in-the-pan character who ever rubbed elbows with Captain America or traded quips with Spider-Man is in this volume. The only drawback to this comprehensive compendium of colossal combantants (how's my Stan Lee impression?) is that the histories of major characters must be severely compressed for the sake of space. If you want the full story on figures like The Hulk or Iron Man, you'll have to go with a more specialized reference source, such as the Avengers Encyclopedia. I was also disappointed to find that my copy has a small tear on the dust jacket, but at 30% off of the cover price, I can't complain too much. The Marvel Ecyclopedia should provide hours of interesting reading, both for me and my son.  Marvel Chronicle $50.00 As a gift it was gratefully and thankfully received and is being enjoyed by the recipient  DC Versus Marvel Comics $17.99 Well, this is what you get when you leave storylines to popular votes. I recall years back in the mid-90s some low IQ marketer had voting controls installed on the theatre seats at the Emerville Century Cinema theatre. It was an experiment designed to see if people wanted to dictate the outcome of a movie. It was "interactive entertainment". It was something not done with a true vision of heart. Not done with any soul. Not done with the intent that someone had a great idea and wanted to share it with the world, but done for the sake of placating to the masses to earn a buck. Result; a dismal failure, as it should have been. Ditto with this graphic novel title. However, I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. My personal feeling? There's no story here. Just a plot cobbled and kludged around the wandering desires of comic book fans who want to see their favorite heros pitted against one another. There is no attempt to resolve anything. The one fight that both audience and writers got write was the Hulk-Superman brawl, and even then it was sketchy at best because of a complete lack of story. The other matchups? Juvenile at best. Tragic drek at worst. Yes, I bought a copy just to have. I regret it in that I actually blew dollars on this thing, but, someday, some acne faced teenage comic book nerd is going to shell out good cash for my copy. Not sure if that's of any consolence to me or not, but it's the best I got I guess. |
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