Bookshelf #31

This week's bookshelf is the final one on the little white unit we've been examining the contents of the last few weeks and, as you can see, it is filled with Marvel digest collections, the vast majority of which are branded Marvel Adventures. As the word "Adventures" has long since come to denote that a particular comic is all-ages or geared toward kids, these are thus mostly kid-friendly comics. 

Most of the book are Spider-Man ones, with seven of them being volumes of Marvel Adventures Spider-Man with volume numbers on the spines, and one without. And no, at this point I have no idea why I seem to have bought them at random, as you can see from the numbering on the spines. These trades all tend to feature a handful of issues of high-quality, evergreen, done-in-one stories apiece, often involving Spider-Man meeting guest-stars.

The creators involved include the likes of writers Peter David, Paul Tobin and Fred Van Lente and artists Pop Mhan, Mike Norton and Ryan Stegman, among others.

These are followed by three more Spider-Man digests: Spider-Man/Human Torch: I'm With Stupid, collecting the 2005 Dan Slott and Ty Templeton miniseries; Spider-Man Family: Untold Team-Ups, collecting issues of the 2007-2008 series pairing Spidey with The Agents of Atlas, Doctor Strange, Thor-as-a-Frog and others; and Spider-Man J: Japanese Knights, collecting a Spider-Man manga by Yamanaka Akira (I guess there was a second collection of this as well, but I missed it). 

Next, we have two volumes of Marvel Adventures Hulk, written by Paul Benjamin and penciled by David Nakamaya and others.

And there's 2006's Marvel Holiday Special, a stocking stuffer-sized collection of Marvel Holiday Special 2004 and Marvel Holiday Special 2005, plus 1972's Marvel Team-Up #1 and 1980's Uncanny X-Men #143. That means a bunch of stories 21st century stories featuring a wide swathe of the Marvel Universe by writers Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Mike Carey, Tom Defalco, Shannon Garrity and Jeff Parker and artists Roger Langridge, Takeshi Miyazawa and others. Plus, work from Roy Thomas, Ross Andru, John Byrne and Chris Claremont on the two issues from "Marvel Holiday Past".

Then there's a digest collection of Sean McKeever, Lou Kang and Logan Lubera's Mega Morphs, a miniseries tie-in to a toy line, the story of which involved various popular Marvel heroes piloting giant robots that resemble them and have powers similar to theirs (No matter how hard it might be to imagine some of those guys piloting giant robots, like Wolverine, Ghost Rider and, especially, The Hulk).

And finally, there's Zombies Assemble Vol. 1, Yusaku Komiyama's manga which pits the movie version of the Avengers against a zombie outbreak. Apparently, there was a second volume of this as well, but I missed it. This one is actually rated "T+" and thus is the only book on this particular shelf that's not all-ages friendly.  I don't remember this one too terribly well at this point, but flipping through it now, it is rather delightful to see manga versions of Robert Downey Jr, Mark Ruffalo and the other actors who play the Avengers in the movies.