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Marvel Comics Library. Avengers Vol. 2. 1965–1967 by Christopher Priest (ed.) (2024)

Again, a second installment of TASCHEN’s oversized book on a particular Marvel comic line continues the excellent analysis and development of its respective part one. Here, it is The Avengers Vol. 2 retrospective that covers the years 1965 to 1967. Not such a long time, but the Avengers would change a lot over that period, […]

The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe by Nicholas Carnes and Lilly J. Goren (eds.) (2022)

Marvel Comics, or rather, Marvel Entertainment as the corporation now has expanded into various companies responsible for diverse media enterprises, started out as one of many American comic book publishers. The many story arcs, story backgrounds, locations, family trees and so forth developed originally by Marvel‘s artists are by now complicated and span hundreds of […]

Marvel By Design. Graphic Design Strategies of the … by gestalten & Liz Stinson (eds.) (2021)

For more than 80 years Marvel, one of the most important comic book companies in the world, provided countless fans with adventure, mystery and tales of superheroes in spectacular arrangements.   And over time, also a unique style of communication through layout was created through typesetting, lettering and altogether unparalleled design. The easily recognizable graphic […]

Marvel Comics Library. Avengers. Vol. 1. 1963–1965 by Kurt Busiek and Kevin Feige (2022)

Merely six months after the last XXL version of the Marvel Comics Library edition – featuring Spiderman – arrived, Taschen is out to surprise us again. This time with an equally massive edition of the most powerful superheroes that joined forces and became THE AVENGERS. Again, the first 20 (!) comic books that feature the […]

Superhero Thought Experiments: Comic Book Philosophy by C. Gavaler and N. Goldberg (2019)

The main thesis of this book will be of interest to both philosophers and comic book fans, as strange as it may sound at first. In an unusual effort, thought experiments done by philosophers (ancient and recent), and the stories behind many superhero comics are evaluated, and their many similarities revealed, as both groups play […]

The Great Monster Magazines. A Critical Study of the Black and White Publications … by Robert Cotter

“Monster and horror movies and stories of all types …. once were hard to come by. For a time, vampires and werewolves were taboo in comic books.” Author Robert Cotter here explains the long journey of the monster magazine and the story of its fandom over the decades in this noteworthy book. While the so […]

Bending Steel. Modernity and the American Superhero by Aldo J. Regalado (2015)

By examining interviews, trade magazines and even testimonies, letters, memoirs and other personal data author Regalado seeks direct impact of the superheroes on the real lives of actual people. Or rather, he aims to find out just how “the big forces of American modernity shaped the lives of Americans on an individual level and how […]