Marvel Super Hero Character Encyclopedia product reviews

Before we took our son out of public school and started to home school him, he heard about various super heroes from classmates, but not many, and no females, so I thought this book would be perfect for him.

Straight off the bat there are characters on the front cover, that even someone with basic super hero knowledge, can identify, such as Hulk, Spiderman and Captain America. The back cover also provides some images of some of the more well known characters from the Marvel world, no blurb on the back as the title is pretty self explanatory. This has over 140 pages and over 100 characters within its pages, which means you know you're going to go beyond the big names.

Each character has a picture (which, whilst not identical to the original comics, still look classic enough), a short description and then some info such as their real name, place of birth, aliases, abilities, family, team, height, weight, eye colour and hair colour. Whilst some information I couldn't be fussed about, I found it great to have a full list of their abilities. It's the perfect amount of information to give anyone of any age a crash course in super heroes. My son really loves the book and his sister is very curious, I'm glad there is a mix of gender with the characters listed.

My son wants to go to bed with this each night so it's a big hit in our house.

It is a scholastic book, so I shouldn't have expected too much detail, but the word 'encyclopaedia' clearly had my hopes high. This book is a great starting book, for those who are unfamiliar with the Marvel heroes, and provides just enough information so that you get a feel of the character.

Providing biographical data, such as area of birth, family ties, and superpowers, this reference book offers an account of the origins of the top 100 or so Marvel Heroes, in alphabetical order. This book is reminiscent of the comic book style characters, and covers a wide variety of well known, and lesser known characters from the major alliances; such as the Avengers, X-Men, Guardians of the Galaxy, etc.

As a great starter book, it is simple enough to read with young children and contains many brightly coloured illustrations to keep their interest, giving an opportunity to introduce them into the comic book scene, should you wish. I know I have thought about creating a comic book hero, but I have always regurgitated the same ideas over and over again. Seeing all of these characters that I have never seen before, may in fact provide the push that I need to get creative again.

My nine year old nephew helped me with this review. When I handed it to him and explained what he would need to do in order to be able to keep it he just about jumped up and down with excitement. He got stuck in and didn't want to put it down. In the evening, he had to be convinced to go to bed as he had quickly became engrossed in the book. At 6am he woke up again and he finished reading the entire book. At every chance during the following day he would sit down and revisit the book. He said that he would reread the lots. It is an Encyclopaedia and my nephew was treating it just like that. He wanted to see how much information about the various superheroes he could learn.

My four year old was very interested in the book as well and both boys sat down and discussed the characters and what they could do. Lots of interaction and play relating to superheroes occurred after the introduction of this book.

My nephew's reactions: "I like how it explains how each character became a hero and what he does as a hero. It tells characters name, family etc. I really love the box on each page that gives basic descriptions about the character." He took note of the fact that things like eye colour, hair etc were listed in the description as we don't get to see these details when the character has the head gear/mask on. It gives a behind the scenes information about some of his favourite characters. My nephew felt like he was getting a really special insight into the famous superheroes. It was all rather special. He loved learning more about new superheroes as well as the ones he already knew about. He found it very interesting to read about the allies and the fact that some of superheroes work together.

The book has a nice hard cover and the pages feel nice as they are turned. Each page in the book has a picture, biographical details and a little story about the character. It was a good mix of information for my nephew to become engrossed in.

Each character is listed in alphabetical order. Each page follows the colour scheme of the character and this makes it visually appealing to the viewer. This is definitely a perfect book for my nine year old nephew and as I also found out, enjoyable for my four year old son as well! Interest in superheroes really does span through a wide age range of kids.

My husband is the biggest nerd you will ever meet. He has been collecting comic books since a teenager and has all sorts of memorabilia. Nerd room is insured for quite a bit of money. Part of daddy daughter time is teaching our five year old daughter about superheros and now my baby, who is only two seems to know more than me. I have seen all of the movies and where as I enjoy some of them Iron Man, X-Men, Fantastic Four there are some I just don't get for instance Spiderman hate it. My knowledge is very basic. When I heard about this book I knew I had to have it!!!

I received it while my husband was at work and my daughters were jumping for joy. I could not believe as I turned the pages how my daughter was naming almost all of them (how sad is that?). But the ones she did not know she started bombarding me with questions and where as I could say who they were and where they were from, I could not answer the big question - were they good guys or bad guys? As it didn't say I was unsure - turns out they are only good guys, which would of helped me out immensely if I had known. Also the other big question which my daughter is obsessed with is who do they love and who do they hate, who is dating who and how long have they been together. Apparently they date a lot between themselves.

I did like that it listed all of there Aliases and what abilities they possess, it also has a brief description of them, either stating something special about them or what they truly believe in which was kinda cool. It also lists there height, weight, eyes and hair and on some of the profiles what team they play for. My original plan was to hide this from my husband so I could become clued up, but did not work out that way as only he can answer that all important question 'who are they dating......'

My husband thought it was interesting to see old school characters. But he said it was lacking some information about what versions of the characters they were. He would recommend it as being useful to someone who was 'new' to the marvel universe, but not so much for someone who has prior knowledge.

My husband has always been into his comics. This love of superheroes and the story arches that are associated, especially in Marvel has been a life-long one. He has his favourite characters, and he follows them in print, film and via games as well. It's then no surprise that Miss6 also loves the Marvel universe. They play a few Marvel games together and slowly we have been introducing her to kid-friendly shows, movies and books.

This is where a reference book like the Marvel Super Hero Character Encyclopedia comes in really handy. This book has over 100 characters covered in it. For a newbie like me, it's really good. I was able to have a good look through, and gain enough information to be able to start a conversation with my husband and child.

You get some vital stats and a bit of information on the background of the character, plus some really nice character art. Each character gets a page, and it is well laid out. All the pages colour co-ordinate. A few of the heroes get a double spread illustration too, like The Hulk, and Spidey. Other bigger characters like Nick Fury get a two page spread, with his illustration on one page and then a bit more wordage around him on the other page.

This will be a great reference book for my daughter. I love it because there are so many heroes I have not heard of before and lots of female super heroes. That's important to me, to share with my daughter because I want her to remember she can be a hero too. My husband liked the book, though his only grumble was the lack of Deadpool. However he conceded that Deadpool is not a traditional 'hero'.