Super fast response,great packing,got it before I knew it was coming.Great detail with the figure,my son loves it.

That was my reaction upon finishing the first issue of Thor: The Mighty Avenger and it still persists. Roger Landridge does a great job of making you like these characters from the get go. You understand Jane and her life in a few panels and that is just awesome. The book is fun, funny and extremely charming. Chris Samnee's art is wonderful and manages to convey so much emotion in just a few lines. The fights are interesting in that they actually tell part of the overall story. Thor is sweet and cute and just a bit of a lunkhead but in a good way. I would thoroughly recommend this book for anyone of any age.

Armed with a new costume and having revealed his identity to the public, Spider-Man has even more big decisions coming in the Civil War. In this TPB, Spidey and his family are targeted as he finds himself in the middle of the superhero civil war between the factions of Captain America and Iron Man. What makes this Civil War tie-in important is that this fills a few holes from the main Civil War storyline, including Spidey's switching sides from Iron Man's pro-registration to Captain America's resistence. The only real downside however is that this TPB features a few plot holes itself that will get filled in by reading the main Civil War storyline, as well as a few preceding Spidey and even some Iron Man stories as well. That being said though, writer J. Michael Straczynski makes the most with his script, as well as getting to leave the reader hanging by teasing us with the possible death of someone close to Peter. Ron Garney's art leaves something to be desired as well in some panels, but he does a servicable job nonetheless. All in all, of all the countless Civil War tie-in books, the Amazing Spider-Man chapter is undoubtedly one of the best.

Armed with a new costume and having revealed his identity to the public, Spider-Man has even more big decisions coming in the Civil War. In this TPB, Spidey and his family are targeted as he finds himself in the middle of the superhero civil war between the factions of Captain America and Iron Man. What makes this Civil War tie-in important is that this fills a few holes from the main Civil War storyline, including Spidey's switching sides from Iron Man's pro-registration to Captain America's resistence. The only real downside however is that this TPB features a few plot holes itself that will get filled in by reading the main Civil War storyline, as well as a few preceding Spidey and even some Iron Man stories as well. That being said though, writer J. Michael Straczynski makes the most with his script, as well as getting to leave the reader hanging by teasing us with the possible death of someone close to Peter. Ron Garney's art leaves something to be desired as well in some panels, but he does a servicable job nonetheless. All in all, of all the countless Civil War tie-in books, the Amazing Spider-Man chapter is undoubtedly one of the best.

Thor is Marvel's best superhero movie yet. It is even better than the first Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk films. It is also the most visually stunning of any Marvel film, with gorgeous fantasy settings, great costumes, and spectacular special effects.

In the same way as Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight worked just as well as a crime drama as a superhero movie, Thor works just as well as a standalone fantasy film. Even if I had not known that I was watching a comic book movie, I would have been just as happy with the story. In fact, I would say that you don't actually need to be familiar with the characters or the comic mythology to enjoy the film.

The story is set half in Asgard, the realm of the gods, and half in our world, Earth. Thor, the son of the king of Asgard, the wise Odin, is a proud and arrogant king-in-waiting. He makes a foolish mistake that brings his world to the brink of war and his father exiles him to our world as punishment, and maybe to teach him how to be a better man. On Earth, Thor makes some new friends and even begins to fall in love with a pretty scientist. Meanwhile, in Asgard, his brother Loki begins to put into motion a plot that may threaten Thor's home.

Two things about the film really stood out to me. The first is the absolutely beautiful settings and solid world-building in the movie. Asgard looks amazing, with settings such as the Rainbow Bridge, a crystal structure with colored lights running through it, spanning a sea that flows into a massive waterfall, cascading down into the open cosmos. Also, great costuming really makes the gods stand out, and adds to the film's epic feel. The second thing was the character of Loki, the film's antagonist. Watching the trailers, I expected a greasy, honorless villain (someone like Wormtongue from the Lord of the Rings). Instead I got the story of a hero, told in reverse. Loki's story mirrors his brother Thor's, but where Thor starts out as an arrogant royal brat and through his time on Earth comes to realize what it means to be a hero, Loki begins the story as a mischievous but honorable man, and over the course of the film turns into a really bad guy. As Thor rises, he falls. And when his final plan is revealed at the end of the film, it totally fits his personality and everything you know about him. In other superhero films, we're used to seeing the bad guy go on some kind of mindless rampage at the end of the film. We saw it in The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, the Spider Man movies, the Fantastic Four...but not here. Loki acts like a man with a purpose. Actually he has two purposes, both very personal to him. One is to do commit a terrible act of destruction, partly out of self-loathing and partly out of a twisted sense of honor toward his father. And the other is simply to beat his brother, proving himself Thor's equal. He is easily the deepest villain of any of the Marvel films so far.

The film is directed by Shakespearean actor Kenneth Branagh (Gilderoy Lockhart!), who handles the epic material perfectly. More than any Marvel film so far, this one focuses on the hero's journey. Even more than a comic book movie, this is a fantasy film about a hero. Expect father-son drama, palace intrigue in the realm of the gods, and an epic confrontation between two brothers who have been become very different people over the course of the story. There is also plenty of humor, with a few real laugh-out-loud moments. And there is a very sweet, almost cute romance woven into the story. It carries an innocent, young-love kind of feeling. It also takes the two characters, one a god more concerned with war and glory, the other a scientist more concerned with solving the mysteries of the universe, and brings them down to earth in their budding love for one another.

I would recommend Thor to any lover of fantasy films, as well as any fans of comic book movies such as Marvel's Avengers lineup. It is solid fantasy fun with a strong sense of the epic and the heroic. And when you see Thor finally wield his hammer and summon the lightning, you'll want to stand up and cheer.

First, the negative reviews below need checking out. The one saying that half of the players won't play it is bogus. It has been determined only two models of Blu-ray players haven't been able to play the movie, not half! Second, the one from Wiggins is obviously a HD-DVD fanatic. Check out his other reviews and you will see he only knocks the two recent Blu-ray titles but gives glowing reviews to anything HD-DVD. It is obvious he doesn't have FF or Day After Tomorrow, that he is just rehashing news to scare away anyone from buying anything Blu-ray. Very immature.

I played the FF: Rise of the Silver Surfer movie last night and it is gorgeous. The story isn't that great, but did we buy Hi-Def for story? No, the visuals make up the story. And, wow, the clarity of the images is something to see, definitely one of the best to come out on Blu-ray. Breathtaking at times in the depth. There is a DTS track, too, which sound phenomenal! Together, audio and video, make a powerful experience.

As to the extras, many of them are also in 1080p, and there are a lot of them. I admit the two games moved a little bit slow, but otherwise okat. (They are nothing special, anyway. One that runs slow is a trivia game, no big deal. The other is a strategy game but you don't do anyting but pick planets in the game.) All the other extras work perfectly. I am sure a firmware uprade will correct the slowness of the games (and HD-DVD fans are jumping all over this, forgetting, however, the HD-DVD machines they have have had to go through firmware upgrade after upgrade after upgrade) (Let he who is without upgrades cast the first stone).

Loading time for the disc is a bit longer than Pirates of the Caribbean, but that's fine, I am in no hurry.

All in all, I would recommended seeing this title.

First off, I'm no hardcore gamer. I just happened to be browsing some gaming magazine when the ad got me. Being a big fan of the comics, I decided to give it a try. I mean, come on, who wouldn't want to be able to pair up Spidey with Iceman and The Human Torch and whoever catches your fancy? And the game delivers a lot of punch in many ways. The difference between this game and the normal edition is this edition comes with 8 extra characters that are already available as xb live downloadable content.

GAMEPLAY: Campaign mode is pretty straightforward. You can walk through the entire thing and it makes for a lot of gametime. It is kind of reminiscient of the Ninja Turtle series from back in the 90's where you pretty much follow a straight map (except in this case, there are some side rooms that you can explore in each level), kill some enemies, get to a minor boss, kill more enemies, then get to the final boss. Obviously, you have to expect the occasional roadblock - 'What am I going to do to get past this flaming doorblock?' situations where simple puzzles can come in play, but overall, getting through levels is a sort of linear kind of thing. The whole game probably takes about 18-25hrs to beat on normal. But then you won't necessarily unlock all the superheroes and costumes and whatnot. The side simulator missions are also a lot of fun and add an extra leveling up element to the game, so I guess that's what keeps you going. You unlock hard mode after beating normal once. Very replayable game, I've already beaten the story at least 4 times across three difficulty levels. GRADE: A

THE RPG ELEMENT: Activision markets this as an action/rpg game, and while there is lots of action (as I mentioned, the Ninja Turtle game flashback it brought me), there are elements of RPG. Whenever you pick up 'money' on the map and level up, you can spend points leveling up character skills and abilities. The items you equip your characters with will also matter in the same way. The system is rather straightforward and being my first game from the 'series' (apparently this is the successor to some XMen Legends game?), it did not take me long to learn about where this element kicks in. GRADE: A

THE CO-OP ELEMENT: Co-op is awesome and I definitely prefer that to playing alone. You can team up with 1-3 of your friends for some 2-4 player co-op. xb Live allows for some smooth gameplay even while online. While camera views can be annoying at times, you can easily tell that the programmers put a lot of time into making co-op gameplay here really smooth. One weird thing about this though, with comic missions, the main character is controlled by one player and enemies which are, surprise surprise, not controlled by the AI if you've been playing co-op. Kind of eliminates that whole challenge feel to it if you look at it in one way. GRADE: A+

GRAPHICS: Almost comical. Not as in funny comical, but as in like the comic books. Graphics looked much better than on a PS2, but still there were some problems. Heck, the cinematics looked awesome. But for the most part, gameplay graphics were pretty tight. I found some of the animations rather sorry, like the lime green-ness, almost-to-the-state-of-previous-gen-ness of the Fin Fang Foom, but other than that, I really don't have much complaints. So don't expect Gears of War graphics here. GRADE: B+

STORY: Any game that can capture the essence of every superhero's personality while at the same time painting this captivating story as it unravels gets my props. Although sometimes, in the middle of a mission, the small things that go wrong that you and your group must fix up, these things can make you lose sight of the big picture. GRADE: B+

COMPLAINTS:
- Dialogue is kind of key in this game for the most part. At times dialogue pops up in the worst time (immediately after a fight) such that I found me or one of my friends mistakenly hitting the 'continue' button (A) right through the dialogue as if the fight was still going on (A = the attack button).
- Reviving characters: So in battle, if one of your group gets KO'ed, there's a resting period. When the resting period is over, a message pops up saying that the character of interest is fully rested, but instead of letting him/her pop out just as if to rejoin the group, you always have to get to some save point to activate that character again.

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Once again, being not that hardcore of a gamer, I can't really say much in the way of in-depth game reviews. But here's the bottom line:

- This game is definitely one to be played co-op. My brother and I grew up playing these types of games and having hours and hours of fun together with these (heh... Ninja Turtles).
- Don't get this if you're looking for straight RPG. True, there is an RPG element, but not as much in the way of world-exploration and stuff that have surrounded some of the world's best RPGs.
- This game is mission-based, with different levels separated into 5 acts that will load from your home base. Think Splinter Cell or soldier FPS games where you have one level, side missions that pop up when things screw up, and then an overall mission goal that must be beaten for you to return to home base.