A groundbreaking example of comics representation in literature. Publishers Weekly
Penguin provides introductory essays; superb analyses by the series editor, Ben Saunders; and extensive bibliographies. Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
Stories become classics when generations of readers sort through them, talk about them, imitate them, and recommend them. In this case, baby boomers read them when they débuted, Gen X-ers grew up with their sequels, and millennials encountered them through Marvel movies. Each generation of fansinitially fanboys, increasingly fangirls, and these days nonbinary fans, toofound new ways not just to read the comics but to use them. Thats how canons form. Amateurs and professionals, over decades, come to something like consensus about which books matter and whyor else they love to argue about it, and we get to follow the arguments. Canons rise and fall, gain works and lose others, when one generation of people with the power to publish, teach, and edit diverges from the one before ... A top-flight comic by Kirbyor his successor on Captain America, Jim Sterankobarely needed words. You could follow the story just by watching the characters act and react. Thankfully, Penguin volumes do justice to these images. They reproduce sixties comics in bright, flat, colorful inks on thick white paperunlike the dot-based process used on old newsprint, but perhaps truer to their bold, thrill-chasing spirit. Stephanie Burt, The New Yorker
