Marvel Comic Book Library Vol. 1

Yeesh! Can you tell I was raised on the dulcid dialogue of Stan Lee?

Technical notes: Each page of the comic (as previously indicated, story only, no ads or letters) appears in an Explorer window. Problem is that comic books are drawn in "portrait" and computer displays are in "landscape". So you have a choice of seeing the whole page but having black bars on each side of the screen, or blowing the page up but only being able to see half the page at a time. A lousy choice, but one made necessary by the natures of the media.

The initial display is a single page with each of the ten series lead characters, selecting from there gives you a view of the original covers of the 10 issues. Clicking on a cover brings you to a full size screen, and you can use PgUp/PgDown or arrow buttons to move from page to page. This is rather a slow process, probably due to the detail of the art & color. Use your cursors "Back" button to return to the menu levels.

A nice feature: Special buttons along the top row allow you to view either the uncolored art, or the colors without the black ink. The quality of the reproduction is excellent. Even when grossly blown up, there is no sign of digitization in the display.

Another unfortunate side-effect of this presentation is that two page spreads cannot be viewed together. Makes for some awkward reading on Cockrum's X-men art.

I recommend this for any comic afficianado over 20. Not because the material is inappropriate for kids, but because, and it pains me to say this...

The writing is just awful.

Characters endlessly talk to themselves, explaining details to nobody in particular. Co-incidences so improbable as to be laughable. Dialogue so inane that it is unreadable. And plots so silly it beggars the imagination.

Examples: In FF2, the Skrulls are convinced, based on comic book clippings, that Earth is inhabited by monsters. In FF3, the villain is a mass-hypnotist who bring a monster to life at the televised premiere of a movie. (Mass hyponosis works on TV?!?) In FF4, the Human Torch runs into an amnesiac Sub-Mariner only seconds after reading a 20 year old comic featuring him.

But I forgive all this. Truly I do. These tales, sometimes awful as they are, were the foundation for and inspired greater works to come. The Galactus trilogy, the Kree-Skrull wars, Days of Future Past.

I'm hoping this release is a sampler, intended to test the market. If they release future editions of the first 100 issues of X-Men, Spidey or, particularly, the Fantastic Four, count me in!

Excelsior!

I was glad to see that it was Mac-compatible; however, if you own a Mac, don't run this collection on Safari, as it doesn't handle the Dj-Vu plug-in properly (it works just fine with Explorer). Basically, instead of using an application like Adobe Acrobat Reader, you use your browser (with the Dj-Vu plug-in) to navigate through the pages.

Each book is easy to access to, and the fact that it can be read in color or in black and white is a great feature. The image quality is top-notch, and the colors are vibrant (I would say that the visual quality in general is on a par with the great reprint of the Marvel GI Joe comics of 2 years ago).

My only real gripe is that Wolverine's popularity is not enough to justify detracking from the promise of the CD-ROM's "first ten issues" and include the "New" X-Men of 1975 (Storm, Wolverine, Colossus and Nightcrawler) instead of the original 1960s Uncanny X-Men. It also would have been great to see the wartime version of Captain America and the Submariner, if only to compare them with their 1960s revival.

All in all, it's a great product that definitely gives out a great value for its price. I really hope that future volumes will focus on one series at a time though (which would be a great alternative to Marvel's paperback reprints).