Van Allen Plexico

I really enjoyed the first volume, but this is a horrible disappointment. First of all, the book is riddled with typos. It's horribly unprofessional. Second of all, this book focuses only on the Big Three Avengers, which I think is a weakness. Not only do they get most of the press anyway so they are the characters who least need another book devoted to them, but it's not enough material for the volume, and things keep getting repeated. Finally, many of the essays are just plain bad. They're show more either boring, or they're written poorly. Not worth picking up. show less

This review is going to start off a bit strange. I am a huge fan of Plexico's work - I love his Sentinels books. That being said, I had a lot of problems read through this book at the beginning. It wasn't because of an issue with the quality of his writing, just that some of the names of characters, and the scenario itself, were so close to that of the old Thundarr the Barbarian cartoon (completely intentional on the author's part) that I was thrown off.

However, once I was a little ways into show more the first story, I completely forgot about the problem. Sure, I still get a cringe when the princess or "mock-man" are mentioned, or when some of the more obvious nods to the show pop up, but the story itself was a ton of fun. This is the equivalent to a SyFy Channel movie brought to paper. If you don't mind the obvious homages, then you'll love the rip-roaring adventures of Blackthorn. My favorite stories were by Plexico (leader of the bunch), Sean Taylor and Bobby Nash, but all of the stories were decent. No stinkers in this bunch.

The other thing I want to mention is that Plexico included illustrations in the e-version, which was a great surprise. It's nice to see him step up his game with the addition of artwork. show less

Being a collection of essays written by many different people, the quality of the book is up and down. Some of the essays are very good, and others not so great. That being said as a fan of the Avengers for years, I enjoyed the insight and commentary. Still, if one doesn't know the Avengers comics, I don't know that I could recommend this to them.

I have been hearing about Plexico's Sentinels books for a long time and figured it was time I checked one out for myself. I was anything but disappointed. Plexico writes very much in the "Mighty Marvel" style of the 70s and, for me, that's a very good thing. The book was a lot of fun, introduced some really cool characters and set up a world that I am anxious to return to.

This book is essential for any fan of superhero prose. I can't wait to read book 2!