GAMbIT Magazine Issue # 9 Mar 2015 | Page 20

The Avengers Vault is a treasure trove of content that covers the histories and origins of Marvel Comics mightiest heroes, The Avengers. Author Peter A. David serves up comic history in a fashion that makes this book easy to pick up and enjoy, even for those that shy away from the convoluted history of these comic characters. What makes The Avengers Vault truly special is the included “hands on” material that is featured with each of the Avengers profiled within the book.

The Avengers Vault not only gives you a world of information, but included pull-out materials that span each character's history. You can pull out reproductions of the original comics covers, mini-posters of major story arcs, and even early drafts of pages pulled right from the Marvel Comics vault. Even for a fan of of The Avengers who prides himself on knowing random tidbits of information, The Avengers Vault managed to expand that knowledge in an interactive way that just couldn’t be done in the digital format.

The book spans the earliest iteration of the team, covering the major points in each Avengers life. Included are Captain America, Thor, Hulk, and Iron Man, but strangely they have left out The Wasp and Hank Pym fom the book. I know that thse two characters aren't represented yet within the Marvel Movie universe, but they are some pretty prolific team mebers from very early on in the series.

What you do get though, is a great deal of wonderful extras that will make your inner comic nerd (or outer in my case) giggle with joy. Each character profile ends with a folder filled with reproductions of some amazing bits of Marvel history. I'm not kidding when I say that it felt like Christmas every time I finished reading about a character and getting to the included extras. Some of the memorabilia is so cool that I have pulled it out to have framed, so that I can adorn my office walls with it.

I had so many "wow" moments when going through the contents of The Avengers Vault. It's a pretty hefty coffeetable sized book, so whenever anyone stopped by to see me, they took noticed and began asking all sorts of questions. I know that coffeetable books are a dime a dozen out there, but it's rare when you have one that actually makes people have an honest, and sometimes heated, conversation of the topic at hand.

While the book doesn’t cover the entire core roster of the classic Avengers (only Captain America, Thor, Iron-Man, and Hulk are profiled), it does serve up a treasure trove of information on the most popular of the teams large membership roster. You’ll get a nice rundown of major events from each characters beginnings to the modern day with lots of included pictures to supplement the reading. The Avengers Vault is great book for Marvel fans and any book that includes pull-out reproductions of anything Jack Kirby drew during his storied career is hard to pass up.

J. Luis

@_ShadowGallery

The Avengers vault

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