I don't even like comic books, but I was completely enthralled by this book. The hefty 300 pages of high clay-content, color-saturated pages with over 700 illustrations and detailed text covers the 50-year history of the canonical comic books company which later became one of the industry's greatest innovators. Here there be artists highly skilled at depicting mayhem with clarity and precision, and writers who unerringly touch the (popular) collective unconscious. In addition to being highly praised within the comic book community, this book has also received rave reviews from mainstream magazines such as Newsday and People.

The strongest impression one gets from this commemorative album is of the extraordinary skill with which Marvel Comics has hopped on the bandwagon throughout its 50-plus-year history. Timley Publications (Marvel's original name) started publishing superhero comics after Superman and Batman became prominent in the late 1930s (and stopped when the genre lost popularity after WW II), and romance and horror comics after competitors Prize Publications and EC Comics, respectively, popularized those genres in the late 1940s/early 1950s. When DC Comics's Justice League of America repopularized super-heroes, Marvel inaugurated its famous line of superhero comics, starting with The Fantastic Four in 1961. Daniels ( Living in Fear: The History of Horror in the Mass Media ) lays to rest the myth that Marvel publisher Lee (whose introduction is written in hyperbolic, adjective- and alliteration-laden prose) was the sole creator of those 1960s superheroes, which was Marvel's position until others in the field pushed to give proper credit to the artists who worked with Lee, especially Jack Kirby. The book does a fine job of documenting Marvel's overlooked pre-1961 background and is beautifully illustrated. -- Publisher's Weekly 

Stan Lee is the creator of SpiderMan and the force behind Marvel Comics.