X-Men: The Characters and Their Universe

X-Men : the Characters and Their Universe gives the story and insight of this unique band of comic book heroes right from their creation in 1963 by the creative dream team of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby through the late 1970s re-emergence as a platform for socially and politically relevant storytelling, then up to the present day as one of the globe's hottest movie and comics franchises (including the groundbreaking 1992 animated series and blockbuster feature films, including X-Men III: The Last Stand).

This colourful, abundantly illustrated volume also traces how the characters have been adapted into the media of television and film, including the blockbusting feature films and groundbreaking animated series. Through exclusive interviews with many of the key creators and contributors to the X-universe from all media - among them Stan lee, Chris Claremont and John Romita from the comics world, Bryan Singer, Hugh Jackman, Sir Ian McKellen, Brett Ratner and Halle Berry from the film world.

Being an X-Men fan since as long as I can remember. Well, what really sparked my interest on these 'muties' was a graphic novel (pic above) bought for me by my late father in the late 80s called God Loves, Man Kills. It tells the tale of one Reverend William Stryker who tries to stir up religious anti-mutant movements and subsequently kidnapping Professor X in an attempt to eradicate all mutants. This brilliant graphic novel is often touted as one of the most stand-out examples of X-Men comics using mutant relations as a metaphor for race relations. So when this hardcover volume (of X-Men character bios and all) first came out, I was ecstatic and I knew I had to get one! This is one HEAVY hardcover book by the way!!!

Actually I've been holding out from buying this superb hardcover book since it first came out in 2006, merely because of the price slapped on it. At about RM265 (USD75) when it first came out (it still is USD75 on amazon.com and other online stores by the way!) I was immediately put off and decided to wait. And what a wait it has been. It's in the middle of 2009 now and guess what? I finally found the book at a discounted price at a local book store yesterday night. It was only RM59.90 (USD17)!!!!! It'll be ludicrous not to grab it now! For the record, had my wife and I decided to renew our discount/member card much earlier in the year, we would've enjoyed another 10% discount on top of that 'filthy low' price. Nevertheless, RM60 is already 'cheap' enough...so I wasn't too perturbed by the RM6 (USD1.70) 'could-have-been-discounted' issue. Heheh......

Check out the preview pages below.......

They even discuss on the various toylines that came out for the X-Men characters throughout the times and the best of all would definitely be the Marvel Legends line from Toybiz. It's a pity that the company now has been taken over and not making "Marvel" character action-figures anymore!

And just to show that the price was indeed insanely low.....check out the price tag:

Just to punctuate my fascination and interest for the 'X-Dudes', here are some pictures of my 6" Marvel Legends' X-Men action figures.

This would also look good beside my other 'giant/over-sized' hardcover books I have in my collection, namely my Hellboy Vol. 1, Alex Ross' Anthology (tho' the Alex Ross book is currently someplace else) and The Beatles Anthology. :)