Eliot R. Brown

The book collects three "feature length" graphic novels starring four of Marvel's most famous characters, written and drawn by top European comics creators. I'd never heard of any of the writers or artists involved, but that's partly because they normally work in comics that don't often get translated into English and partly because I'm an insular yankee-comics reading xenophobe.

The first story, Wolverine: Saudade is by French creators Jean-David Morvan (writer) and Phillipe Bouchet show more (artist). Surprisingly, it doesn't feature Logan carving up the Eiffel Tower with his claws, but instead sends the shortarse muttonchop-wearer to Brazil in a search for two powerful mutants - a young street kid with hallucinatory powers and a crooked healer. It's quite a good read, particularly for the artwork which often crams 9+ panels to a page yet never looked crowded. The only complaint I had was with the translation (not the fault of the original writer) which is a little clumsy at times and features rather more adult language than you'd normally expect from an all-ages X-Men comic.

Read the full review show less

Nothing here more than a compendium of characters from the Iron Man universe handled in the typical Marvel Handbook fashion. The focus on the various Iron Man armors is nice, although I would have preferred to see larger images of each of the armors.

More informational for hardcore Iron Man fans than anything else.