Features:

• The first 10 adventures of 10 classic Marvel characters on 1 super-powered CD-ROM
• 100 complete comic books highlight the storylines of this famous band of heroes
• Includes the Fantastic Four, Captain America, Avengers, The Sub-Mariner, Iron Man, and Silver Surf
• Character bios and 3 free bonus Comics

Editor Reviews:

Product Description:
The Marvel Comic Book Library is a complete collection of stories that chronicle the early adventures of world-famous superheroes!

Amazon.com Review:
A motherlode of comic history, Marvel Comic Book Library Vol. 1 captures the first 10 issues of 10 classic comic books on one unbelievably priced CD-ROM. Most are from Marvel's Golden Age in the 1960s--Spider-Man, Hulk, Daredevil, Fantastic Four, Captain America, the Avengers, the Sub-Mariner, Iron Man, and Silver Surfer. The exception is the X-Men, who were also created in the 1960s but are represented here by the 1970s incarnation that soon became the hottest property in comics with the introduction of such characters as Wolverine, Colossus, and Storm (their 10-issue sampling begins appropriately with Giant-Size X-Men #1). And with that same exception, all the series were written by Stan Lee, most often with art by Jack Kirby but with other Marvel Bullpen denizens such as Steve Ditko and Wally Wood.

Navigation is easy, with a main character menu followed by cover thumbnails. (Minor quibble: the main menu uses more modern art, for example, the John Byrne Fantastic Four.) Some other points of clarification: the Captain America stories are from his solo series in Tales of Suspense (issues 59-68), which he shared with Iron Man. Those Iron Man stories, however, are not included here, and Tony Stark's alter ego is represented by his initial appearances in Tales of Suspense 39-48. Similarly, the Sub-Mariner is represented by his solo run in Tales to Astonish (issues 70-79), which he shared with Hulk, who is represented instead by the first six issues of his own book then four stories (issues 60-63) from Tales to Astonish. And the Silver Surfer's issues are from his solo series rather than his initial appearance in Fantastic Four.

Marvel Comic Book Library Vol. 1 is an excellent deal. If you were to buy these same issues in book form, in color, you'd want the Marvel Masterworks series at $30-$50 per 10-issue book. The downside is that these classic comics have a high comfort-food factor, and even non-Luddites would probably agree that it's more fun to curl up on the couch with a physical book than to sit down at your PC. (OK, you could curl up with your laptop if you really want to.) But this is an easy and affordable way to sample what you want, then pick up must-haves later.

Now we just need a volume 2, with the original X-Men, Thor, Doctor Strange.... --David Horiuchi

Pros:

• A generous, convenient, and good-looking compilation of classic comic books
• Very affordable
• Sensible navigation

Cons

• Just the relatively sterile computer presentation

Rating : - Cool! But if you have a newer Mac, you'll need to do a few things to open up the files.
With GIT Corp. no longer distributing the Marvel Comics line of comics on DVD and people are trying to snatch up the collections (to own nearly every comic for Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Fantastic Four, Avengers, etc. from the 60's to 2006), I'm sure many comic fans are enticed by the price of "Marvel Comic Book Library Vol. 1". Why shouldn't you...the price for it is cheaper than the large collections and you probably want to test it on your newer computer.

For Mac owners (2007 and present), unfortunately with GIT Corp. not releasing these anymore and those who posted years ago about getting beta discs or finalized discs and the discs working on Internet Explorer browsers really doesn't help us out that much.

I recently purchased the item and use Firefox and Safari. There hasn't been any updates for IE on a Mac for years. Next caveat is that the DjVu 4.0 installer will not work on Intel-based machines.

So, what do you do? Fortunately, in the readme.txt on the DVD, you can go to the companies main website and download the latest (as of Aug. 2008, the latest was 6.1). You can open up the htm file with any browser, look at the covers but when you click on the comic, it will not load the comic.

After installation of the latest DJvU software update, you will need to manually go to each comic folder on the disk, right click on your mouse on the DJvU file and then select dJvU plug in host and then you will be able to read the comic.

This is an older product that came out before the Intel-based Mac's but still this comic features important classics from the major Marvel lines. No Might Thor? Dr. Strange? But still, you get a lot of the major characters and teams. So, if you are purchasing this product in 2008 and on, there is a bit of an inconvenience that you can't just open the comic by clicking on it from a browser. But nevertheless, at least you can still view them all via the newest software update and right clicking on the file.

It might be a hassle for some but for me, around a hundred classic comic stories for the price offered. A little inconvenience that I didnt mind at all.