Avengers – The Ultimate Character Guide

Avengers – The Ultimate Character Guide
DK Publishing
March 2015 Edition, updating the first edition from 2010.
Written by Alan Cowsill

It's been a challenge to write about this book because my 6 year-old son has been unwilling to put it down. Although his reading skills aren’t quite up to the level of the book, he's spent hours flipping through it and asking me questions about this roster of heroes and villains.

The scope of the book is impressive, featuring over 225 write-ups that span the Avengers’ 60-year legacy. Nice to see new entries for Marvel’s next generation of heroes, like Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan) and Nova (Sam Alexander), as well as more obscure characters, like Executioner, Korvac, and The Stranger. The book’s a bit smaller in size than the usual DK guides, but works well for this type of information as well as its ideal price point of under $20 CDN. 

We also had fun comparing the power ranking of characters which prompted a few fan boy debates. However, the “energy projection” characteristics seemed a bit off, especially as it wasn’t clearly explained/defined, for example, Daredevil is ranked with a 4 for Energy Projection while Deathlok is ranked at 1. Perhaps a table or something that provided a more detailed breakdown of each rank levels with examples would have been helpful. 

One minor physical complaint about the book was how the pages were cut at the same width as the hardcover edges, so it's difficult to jump to a specific spot in the book when you first open it.

Putting these minor quibbles aside (which bothered me more than my son), The Avengers – The Ultimate Character Guide is a great book for the young and old Avengers fan in your family. You’ll find yourself picking it up and losing a few hours scouring through the material.

For full disclosure, I did received a complimentary copy for review purposes.