Avengers Assemble! (Ultimate Sticker Collection, DK)

Background

This is another in the occasional series of Marvel sticker books from DK Publishing, Inc. It was released in early 2012, around the same time as the Avengers movie, even though it doesn't really tie-in to the film at all.

Story Details

This whopping great collection is 8.5" x 11" with a glossy cardboard cover and a square-bound glued spine. It features 32 pages of Hero and Villain pages which consist of a one-paragraph mini-profile, adjacent to a brightly-colored silhouette showing where the appropriate character sticker can be placed.

Following that, there's the main course... 32 chunky sheets of stickers... over 1,000 stickers in all. Like the other DK "1000 sticker" collection books, there are actually 16 unique pages of stickers which are then fully repeated, giving you two of each individual sticker. But even allowing for the duplication there is still a huge variety.

The content is based on the comics, rather than the coincidentally contemporaneous film. This is why Spider-Man gets a two-page spread to himself as a recently-joined "official" Avenger thanks. Other big-name Avengers getting the star treatment are Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Ant-Man, Wasp, Black Widow and Hawkeye.

The content follows the same format and formula which DK has successfully employed in all the earlier sticker books that you can find over in the Marvel Color/Activity (DK) title. High-quality paper, great visual appeal, a well-intentioned but nut entirely successful attempt to provide some interesting snippets of information, and lots of lovely stickers.

General Comments

When you do the maths on 1,000 over 32 sheets, you're going to get a mixed bag. Many of the stickers are generous in size, while the sheer numbers are made up by a few sheets packed full of 1/2" square mini-stickers. That's not a complaint at all, just the way that geometry works.

The Spider-Man profile does gloss over many of the details of Spider-Man's long relationship with the Avengers. His reserve Avenger status isn't mentioned, nor his early rejection. And while other sections of the book do make mention of the various Avengers teams, Spider-Man's role in the New Avengers isn't clear at all.

Instead, the profile simply identifiers Spider-Man as a current and permanent member of "The Avengers", which could well leave a casual Spider-Fan picking up the latest issue of the title somewhat confused and disappointed.

Overall Rating

From a serious Spider-Fan's point of view, the only real downside of this book is the aforementioned vague, incomplete, and quickly out-dated information regarding Spider-Man's role in the Avengers team.

On the other hand, it's impossible to complain about the quality and quantity of the content. The US$13 asking price is perhaps down the steep end for a paperback, but the book itself is a generously heavy slab of sticker-laden goodness.

I give it an equally generous three and a half webs.