From the fertile imagination of Todd McFarlane comes: a completely derivative and boring take on his signature character. Ok. I’m not a Spawn fan. Never was and never will be. The character is nothing more than a riff of Batman with some supernatural elements thrown in to muddy things up. But for those of you who have been reading comics for awhile, you may remember a time when Spawn was the number one selling comic month in and month out. Selling even better than X-Men. Well, those days are long gone and now Image and McFarlane are trying to repackage Spawn, in this book, for the kids. And they’re doing it by ripping off Batman once again. Adventures takes the same style used by Bruce Timm’s Batman animated series. This comic collects serialized segments from Spawn.com and lumps then all together into one graphic novel that is best described as a lump. This book borrows so liberally from DC that it could be lawsuit material. Amazon princesses, talking-super-intelligent-evil gorillas and a “hero” with personal issues all make for some more potential court time for Todd. For the reader, it makes for a boring, uninspired waste of six bucks. Most definitely not recommended.

Spiderman for the O.C. set. This is Marvels answer to Smallville using its own flagship character to draw in the high school crowd. The story written by Sean McKeever is everything you would expect from this sort of thing. Peter entrusts Gwen with his secret. Then through one misunderstanding after another, Mary Jane thinks that Peter no longer likes her, Peter thinks that Gwen betrayed his trust and that everyone in school now knows his identity. Meanwhile, Mary Jane and her friend have a falling out. If this sounds like something you’ve seen a thousand times on every WB series ever made, you would be correct. While the dialogue is competent, the story is fairly turgid. This is TV movie high school stuff. As much as it wants us to think this is the reality of teen life, it is merely cliché. The art by Takeshi Miyazawa is heavily manga inspired but will do nothing for anime fans. So we have a book aimed at teens that they will not relate to, drawn in a manga style that those fans will dismiss. I would call that a failure in any terms. Not recommended.

Ok, so did the cover of this one influence your purchase? You can't deny that it’s a good cover—I was surprised to see that it actually pertained to the story inside. Yes, the Avengers do become M.O.D.O.C.s! If that's not enough to convince you to buy a superhero comic, I don't know what is. The dialogue is fairly generic (the characters are basically interchangeable), but how can you not love a comic that's not afraid to recognize it's own campiness and embraces the "Mental Organism Designed Only for Conquest" concept? I mean, did I mention that the Avengers all turn into guys with heads too big for their bodies??? Plus, we get a great new villain—the clumsy Karl, M.O.D.O.C.'s go-to-guy at A.I.M. who can't seem to get anything right. It's a shame the ending was rushed over and, admittedly, this isn't very deep stuff. If you're looking for a fun, high-concept read (with a plot that you'd never find in, say, New Avengers), this all-ages book isn't a bad choice.

This black and white, digest sized book reprints the very best stories of everyone’s favorite little, yellow whatever he is. The first story concerns an injured Pikachu trying to find the missing Red. Meanwhile, a strange yellow kid shows up in Pallet Town and……….I think maybe Arby’s for lunch today, I have a taste for a beef sandwich….oh!! sorry!!. Where was I? Yes! Yellow kid in Pallet Town. After winning Pika’s trust as well as the trust of Professor Oak, They all set out on a journey to find Red and……..still have the laundry to do and get an oil change, have to stop at White Hen and get a pint of Ben and Jerry’s……DARN!!! Sorry again! I don’t know where my head is at!! Ok…so..yeah..Pika, Prof. Oak and yellow boy, looking for Red… so they meet up with the Elite Four: the most feared group of trainers in the world and……zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. HUH??!?! Dozed off. Two words: Who Cares?!?!? Defineately not recommended.