Fantastic Four Widescreen Edition

Marvel Comics' first family of superherodom, the Fantastic Four, hits the big screen in a light-hearted and funny adventure. It begins when down-on-his-luck genius Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd, Horatio Hornblower) has to enlist the financial and intellectual help from former schoolmate and rival Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon, Nip/Tuck) in order to pursue outer-space research into human DNA. Also on the trip are Reed's best friend, Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis, The Shield); his former lover, Sue Storm (Jessica Alba, Dark Angel, Sin City), who's now Doom's employee and love interest; and her hotshot-pilot brother, Johnny Storm (Chris Evans, Cellular). Things don't go as planned, of course, and the quartet becomes blessed--or is it cursed?--with superhuman powers: flexibility, brute strength, invisibility and projecting force fields, and bursting into flame. Meanwhile, Doom himself is undergoing a transformation.

Among the many entries in the comic-book-movie frenzy, Fantastic Four is refreshing because it doesn't take itself too seriously. Characterization isn't too deep, and the action is a bit sparse until the final reel (like most "first" superhero movies, it has to go through the "how did we get these powers and what we will do with them" churn). But it's a good-looking cast, and original comic-book cocreator Stan Lee makes his most significant Marvel-movie cameo yet, in a speaking role as the FF's steadfast postal carrier, Willie Lumpkin. Newcomers to superhero movies might find the idea of a family with flexibility, strength, invisibility, and force fields a retread of The Incredibles, but Pixar's animated film was very much a tribute to the FF and other heroes of the last 40 years. The irony is that while Fantastic Four is an enjoyable B-grade movie, it's the tribute, The Incredibles, that turned out to be a film for the ages. --David Horiuchi

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Essential X-Men Vol 2

It's hard enough trying to find those hard to find comics, but at least we can still read the classics. Here is yet another trade paperback filled with the best X-men storylines ever.

This collection of classic x-men story features over 20 consecutive issues and has one of the greatest line-ups of X-Men ever which is Cyclops, Phoenix, Wolverine, Storm Colossus, and Nightcrawler! With tons of villains and the 2 best X-Men storylines ever: Dark Phoenix, and Days of Future Past!

Features: Uncanny X-Men #120 - #144 by Chris Claremont, John Byrne, Terry Austin, and Brent Anderson. 512 Pages

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500 Comic Book Villains

Need to find info on your favorite villains?

Here come the heels and hoodlums! It’s an entertaining rogues’ review, starring Batman’s Joker, Dick Tracy’s Flattop and Pruneface, Flash Gordon’s Ming the Merciless, Spider-Man’s Green Goblin, and hundreds more villains connoisseurs of comics have always loved to hate. Written especially for comic book collectors and nostalgia buffs, 500 Comic Book Villains is a chronicle of fictional wickedness that also touches on Arthurian legend and old-time radio and movies, in addition to the comics. It’s an encyclopedia of evildoers that lists and profiles the major recurring villains who for generations have lurked in countless comic book illustrations, flaunting the iniquity that is always vanquished at story’s end by heroes who represent truth, justice, law, order, and the American way. This terrific collection, compiled by comic book historian Mike Conroy, serves as a fine companion volume to his recently published 500 Great Comic Book Action Heroes, also available from Barron’s. More than 300 color illustrations include reproductions of comic book covers and pages. Readers will also find a handy index and a bibliography.

You’ll find these facts plus many, many more in the pages of this superb companion volume to 500 Comic Book Action Heroes. From The Joker, Ming the Merciless, and the Mekon to more obscure but still fascinating evildoers like Professor Skinn and the Beauty Butcher, author Mike Conroy probes deep into hundreds of legends to give you the story behind the story of the greatest archenemies who tried—but always failed—to foil our favorite comic heroes. Open this book and enjoy brief biographical sketches of all your favorite villains. Then, savor the feature pages that catch evildoers in the act of living up to their wicked reputations. Filled with more than 300 color illustrations and succinct, entertaining text, 500 Comic Book Villains is a panorama of memorably malicious malfeasants who have prowled the pages of comic books from 1934 to the present day.

500 Comic Book Villains

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Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman is one of the best writers. And you can see why in his Marvel 1602.

The always inventive Gaiman has concocted an unlikely—but fantastically successful—superhero comic that transfers Marvel's classic characters to the Elizabethan period. Nick Fury is still a lethal government operative, but now he's an adviser to Queen Elizabeth. Her Majesty is equally reliant on magician and doctor Stephen Strange. X-Men mentor Charles Xavier still shepherds a band of mutant teens, only now he's called Carlos Javier, and the mutants are known, and mistrusted, as "witchbreed." Carlos's mysterious nemesis has taken on a new job: grand inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition. Peter Parker (here "Parquah") is still a confused but well-meaning teenager who has yet to be bitten by a radioactive spider. Placed in a period landscape (rendered in rich, painterly panels by illustrator Kubert and digital painter Richard Isanove), these familiar characters must grapple with the issues of the day, chief among them the machinations of the evil King James of Scotland. And, in classic superhero style, they must save the world. The improbable combination works remarkably well, as the superheroes' strange abilities adapt to Elizabethan culture. This glorious adventure is peppered with Scott McKowen's gorgeous, moody cover-art woodcuts. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Marvel 1602

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Essential X-Men Vol. 1

Great classic comic - must have reading.

Giant size X-Men #1 & X-Men #94-119 by Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum, & John Byrne

Paperback: 528 pages
Publisher: Marvel Comics; Reissue edition (February 1, 2002)

Wolverine! Nightcrawler! Storm! Endowed with unique abilities, first summoned by professor Xavier to save the original X-Men, an underground group sworn to protect those that fear and hate them. Relive their original adventures; dscover the human within the hero, and the truth behind the legend!

Essential X-Men Vol. 1

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Who's on First, Charlie Brown

The bases are loaded with potential runs, but Charlie Brown’s head is loaded with irksome questions: Will he throw the ball right? Is the little red-haired girl watching? Will Lucy call him Blockhead? It doesn’t help that the seasoned pro at the plate, Peppermint Patty, is staring him down. So Charlie Brown shuffles, winds up, and lets the pitch fly. . . .

Though we all know how the score will add up for Charlie Brown and his team (not quite as high as they expected), with the Peanuts gang, the fun is not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game!

Who's on First, Charlie Brown

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Spy vs Spy Complete Case

From Publishers Weekly
An artist and his legendary comic strip are honored by MAD magazine in Spy vs. Spy: The Complete Casebook. Antonio Prohias's wordless, Cold War-inspired spoof of the agents of international intrigue portrays the twin enemies outdoing each other in elaborately stupid plots to achieve the other's demise. Assembled after Prohias's death, the volume commemorates the cartoon's 40th birthday as well as Prohias's compelling personal story (in 1960 he fled Castro's new regime in Cuba after being unofficially blacklisted for his political cartoons). Comic book fans, especially of the MAD variety, will love this intelligent tribute to an artist. 70 color and 300 b&w illus.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
James Bond isn't the only cold war-era secret agent whose career continued to flourish after the fall of Communism. For 40 years and counting, the white spy and the black spy have waged never-ending battle on the pages of Mad. Their creator, the late Antonio Prohias, a political cartoonist who fled Castro's Cuba in 1960, was a font of variations on the theme of having one spy meet violent death at the hands of the other. In the next issue, of course, the deceased had been resurrected to resume hostilities. This collection reprints all 247 of Prohias' strips and selections of those by his successors, who include noted illustrator Peter Kuper. The strips were to be read at monthly intervals, however; consumed in bulk, they can become tedious. For baby boomers who grew up with Mad, this dossier may evoke nostalgia as well as chuckles, and younger readers may greet the spies' "joke-and-dagger" shenanigans with out-and-out guffaws. Gordon Flagg Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Complete Calvin And Hobbes Comics

"I’ve loved comic strips as long as I can remember. As a kid, I knew I wanted to be either a cartoonist or an astronaut. The latter was never much of a possibility, as I don’t even like riding in elevators. I kept my options open until seventh grade, but when I stopped understanding math and science, my choice was made. There is great personal satisfaction in attending to detail and quality, and I remain very proud of the standards the strip met day after day. I also liked the responsibility of knowing that, succeed or fail, it was all my own doing. This approach kept the strip very honest and personal--verything having to do with Calvin and Hobbes expressed my own ideas, my own values, my own way. I wrote every word, drew every line, and painted every color. It’s a rare gift to find such fulfilling work and I tried to show my appreciation by giving the strip everything I had to offer."

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