I admit that John Byrne is a hard-working fellow. He writes, draws, inks and letters most of his own work, as is the case here. The case with this book, though, is that he makes up a boring plot. Plain and simple, it's boring. B-O-R-I-N-G. And the dialogue is so corny.

Captain America and Batman meet up during the 1940s to face off against their arch rivals, Red Skull and Joker. The book has Red Skull and Joker woking together as a team, only to have Joker betray Skull because he's a Nazi. As if the giant Swasticka didn't all ready point that out. And since when does the Joker have morals? Isn't he supposed to be an insane murderer?

The most insane, cracked-out part about this book, though, has to be when Captain America faces the ultimate Nazi weapon. It's sort of a tank that's the size of huge city building. It is very well drawn, that I admit, but so totally unrealistic...and I'm talking about a comic book, where we're supposed to stretch our imaginations to believe that such things can be possible!! Captain America takes it out EASILY, no sweat!

The only reason why this book gets two stars is because this is probably the best showing of Byrne's art. That's as good as it gets, folks. One hundred pages of pretty good artwork, and one hundred pages of total [garbage] for a story. Don't even think about buying this.

it's awesome. John Byrne's more than beautifully detailed artwork never looks better.

The story is poignantly written. It's great to see Batman and Captain America and their sidekicks Robin and Bucky join forces to defeat their respective enemies. I liked the concept of Joker and Red Skull as the villain duo of the book.

What better team-up than this pairing? Pairing of DC's Batman and Marvel's Captain America. The duo are arguably the best fighter in his own universe.

the ending was well done with a feeling of inspiration.

This book is fun, exciting and exhilirating. Good for the Byrne fan, the comic fan, or anyone who likes a good story, powerfully and neatly told.

I've read all of the stories in this Batman TPB, and while the Bat-Mite and Poison Ivy tales are OK, the first tale, "Blades" by Robinson and Sale, is spectacular. If you're a fan of "Starman" or anything else by Robinson, buy this quick. If you like great storytelling and great art by Sale, buy this quick!

I especially liked the story with Bat-Mite! HE is so cute and funny. "Hothouse" is a little confusing though, but I think I pretty mush got it down.

Close observers of the Iran have long puzzled over the paradox of the anti-Western Khomeini founding a republic based on a constitution that represents the nation via the decisions of a parliament which is chosen through popular elections-for these are all Western concepts. In a exquisitely detailed and revealing study of Iranian politics, Schirazi (a researcher at the University of Berlin) makes this paradox the center of his research and provides an important new understanding of the ideas that have dominated Iran for nearly two decades.

In particular, Schirazi notes two giant contradictions at the heart of the Islamic Republic: a government that supposedly rests on the pure principles of Shi'i Islam in fact draws heavily from Western secular sources entirely alien to the Shari'a (Islamic sacred law); simultaneously, its authority also rests on the authority that derives only from God but also from the will of the Iranian people. The author shows the historical roots of these contradictions (in 1906 the mullahs looked to a constitution to make the government more Islamic), then devotes the bulk of this fascinating book to the practical working out of the dilemmas they create and showing how these have molded contemporary Iranian life. In a word, secular defeated Islamic, God defeated the people.

Middle East Quarterly, Sept 1997

I admit it: I ordered this book on the basis of its title. I was researching the Republic of Iran for a comparative government class, and the university library is woefully short on books about non-Western civilizations.

Schirazi is the sort of professorial writer who needs an editor as good as his ideas. He is comprehensive, but not exhaustive, in explaining the contradictory origins of the written constitution that resulted in its inherently flawed nature (the very idea of a Republic is Western in origin, which is hard to reconcile with the "Islamic" nature of the Republic.) He writes like an academic, and would benefit greatly from having an outsider to reorganize his work and challenge him to pare down his ideas to make them more manageable. I don't think that the translation is his problem.

Schirazi certainly does bring up several points that were nowhere else in my reading (and I read A LOT of books for an undergraduate paper); a great example is "maslahat," the legal practice of meeting necessity instead of traditional or "feqh" law. Khomeini's attempts to press the clerics into using maslahat, in order to build a judiciary that could be both Islamic AND run a modern state, is emblematic of the picture of Khomeini that emerges from other authors. Abrahamian's "Khomeinism," for example, establishes rather well that he was not a fundamentalist at all, but a pragmatist; Schirazi ties this surprising truth to the actual CONSTITUTIONAL practices of the state.

Schirazi does not closely examine the parastate in this work, which I would argue is its main fault. One cannot understand the institutions of the clerical state without understanding that the real power has always lain in the bonyads, control of the paramilitaries, and the informal structures of the Majlis. I hope that the renewed sense of openness in Iran will spur closer examination of the parastate by political scientists, sociologists, and others.

Otherwise, Schirazi and his translator have done something sorely needed in America: they have brought a poorly-understood, under-studied government of great geopolitical importance to better light.

This is a good book for preparation for mass but perhaps the best out there right now is The How-To Book of the Mass by Michael Dubruiel. It is filled with bite size nuggets about the Eucharist as well as solid notes on spiritually getting more out of every Mass you attend.

This book has become a daily devotional for me, as I am consuming it over and over again. It gives new and greater understanding of this wonderful gift, the Eucharist. It is not to be read quickly, as it is a feast to be relished. Each bite must be pondered. The author, John Kane, left a wonderful book for all of us who have need to be drawn closer to Christ through the Eucharist. When I first began reading it, I thought it too deep, and put it aside. For some reason, I came back to it, and I'm so glad I did.

This is a very interesting book which offers the writer who is a sufi saint viewpoint that blind adherence to islamic sharia and those who oppose it both get a rebuttal.The book is quite good it could have been better if only the english translation was reproduced without the arabic text nonetheless those who understand arabic will appreciate it much more,I opine that the author does not have the final answer to this polemical subject,as viewponits are subjective to the conditions of the faith of the people

A great book that introduces to the beginner many of the sensitivities that one ought to have when working with type.

It gives many great practical examples and exercises that makes one appreciate type on many levels.

As one who is taking a class in Typography, this is a great book to have by one's side.

Novelist Greg Rucka came aboard the Batman books during the groundbreaking "No Man's Land" epic. I loved that story arc, but since then, I've found Rucka's work, both on Batman and other comics (Whiteout, Batman/Huntress, etc.) to be either hit or miss. He is capable of great work, as the Two-Face story in this book shows, but when he's off his game.....oh boy.

The biggest problem here is Editorial; When DC rebooted Detective Comics, post NML, they made a few awful decisions- Artist Shawn Martinbrough's work is boring and nondescript, and it's made even worse by the "Limited" Colors used. The book looks like someone spilled a mug of Hot Chocolate on it. Just awful. Why bother to color it at all? It would be much more palatable in black and white.

An Editor should also have stepped in to stop Rucka from using a ridiculous designer drug as his plot device; The drug doesn't just addict, it turns it's users into animals. Literally. Snakes, Wolves, etc. After years spent trying to keep The Batman books (Semi)believable, the sight of addicts turning into snakes had me howling with laughter. Is this the best the great Ra's Al Ghul could do? Pathetic! Ra's Al Ghul is not my favorite Batman villain, but I think that's why he never used to turn up much: It took a really talented writer to do something with him. Rucka was not that writer. After all of that buildup, the story doesn't end, so much as stop. It's almost like Rucka ran out of writing paper....

With the great array of Batman books out there, you can't really be in bad enough shape that you'll want to waste your cash on this....

Great read. Not so great art work but you can't blame that on rucka can you. Rucka did a great job with the villans i think. i purchased this along with batman broken bat. Broken Bat was a little better cause of the art work. BUY THIS BOOK!

Frank Miller, Jeph Loeb, Ed Brubaker & Greg Rucka. What do all of these guys have in common? Apart from being absolute masters of the comic book medium, and also being able to tell cracking good mystery tales, they have the distinction of being able to give us the BEST Batman tales. Greg Rucka's take on Batman/Bruce Wayne is at once both believable and fantastic! Do yourself a favour and check this book out. The story flows along at a brisk pace and the art is done in a psuedo film nior style. Very groovy.

After presenting "Origin of Marvel Comics" and "Son of Origin of Marvel Comics," Stan Lee decided to forgo "The Return of the Son of Origin of Marvel Comics" and go instead with "Bring on the Bad Guys: Origins of the Marvel Comics Villains." This is actually something of a problematic effort because where as you can simply go to issue #1 of "The Fantastic Four" for the origin of the Fantastic Four, or "Amazing Fantasy" #15 for the story of how Spider-Man came to be, the origin of a super villain is usually tossed off in a couple of flashback panels. That means the results are going to be a bit uneven in this collection.

The goal was to try and focus on the key super villain for each Marvel superhero, which means Doctor Doom for the Fantastic Four, the Green Goblin for Spider-Man, the Red Skull for Captain America, and so on and so forth. For those who want to know specifically what Marvel comics are reprinted in "Bring on the Bad Guys" here is the list of what you will find inside: (1) "Prisoners of Doctor Doom" from issue #5 of "The Fantastic Four" and "Origin of Doctor Doom" from the 1964 FF Annual, both by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby; (2) the first fateful meeting of Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts, and the Dread Dormammu from issues #126 and #127 of "Strange Tales" by Lee and artist Steve Ditko; (3) three installments of the "Tales of Asgard" from issues #112, #113 and #115 of "Journey into Mystery" telling the story of how Loki became the bad boy of Norse mythology and a full fledged fight between him and the Mighty Thor from #115, all from Lee and Kirby; (4) the Captain America halves of three issues of "Tales to Astonish" by Lee and Kirby telling the origin of the Red Skull; (5) issue #40 of "The Amazing Spider-Man" with the famous confrontation between the unmasked Spider-Man and the Green Goblin, courtesy of Lee and John Romita (Sr.); (6) two Hulk stories from "Tales of Suspense" featuring ol' Greenskin against the Abomination from Lee and Gil Kane; and (7) a confrontation between the Silver Surfer and Mephisto, with artwork by John Buscema (you have figured out by now that Stan Lee wrote all of the stories contained within this book).

As you would imagine the Doctor Doom stories and pretty good, the Spider-Man tale is a classic, and the rest are a matter of choice. The Red Skull trilogy would be my personal choice as the best of the rest. As much as my appreciation for the way Ditko drew Spider-Man has grown over the years I have just never really liked his work on Dr. Strange. In the end, it is Jack Kirby's artwork that dominates the book more than anything else and the thing that stops this from being a truly great collection of Marvel reprints is the fact that the focus on origins effectively prevents Lee from providing some of the greatest stories facing these seminal villains.

Some people here have called the artwork in this book clunky & not very good when compared to the Artwork in Comics today. These people don't know what they are talking about. How do I come to that conclusion? Because I once said the same thing to the owner of a comic book store. Not just any comic book store, but one which dealt specificaly with buying and selling vintage comic books. I remember saying that the Steve Ditko artwork on the first 38 Original Spiderman issues was terrible. I'll never forget..the owner had this incredulous look on his face, and told me that this was "Comic book Art" and not "Let's draw something as realisticaly as possible Art!" With that in mind, I went home and looked at the Steve Ditko Spiderman issues again and came to slowly realize......"I must have been crazy!....He's absolutely right!" For myself, this is part of the genious of "Bring on the Bad Guys!". And this is especaily true of my personal favorites in this book.....the origins of Doctor Doom, Loki, and of course.....Thee Red Skull! What fun they must have had in creating these classics!

I'd argue, "sure." Here in Bring BACK the Bad Guys we witness the origins/first appearances of famous baddies Galactus, The Mandarin, Kingpin, Kang/Rama Tut and others. We are treated to a reprinting of GIANT-SIZE AVENGERS #2, which alone may be worth this book's price since it is virtually impossible to find anywhere. The other reprints are enjoyable (except for Fin Fang Foom's -- what the heck is HE doing in here?), especially a Professor X-Magneto flashback tale.

The first Batman vs Predator was very good with cool artwork. The sequel was surprisingly even better and I anticipated this final part in the 'trilogy' with great excitement. But I'm afraid this is campy and even more campy Batman and Robin than dark and brooding and gothic Batman Returns.

This time round the color scheme is much brighter and varied and it seriously causes the whole story to lose the dirty, hard-edged look of the the first 2. And Robin is in this one. That alone is a reason to stay away. Plus Mr Freeze is in here too. Oh, man, what a bad mistake.

The story seems to be over in the blink of an eye too. The first 2 had decent plots that were carried on long enough to build up suspense and a briliant climax. This one just seems like it ends without much ever happening.

Read 1 and 2 but stay away from 3. It's definitely a stinker and a weak ending to an intriguing idea. After such a strong start it's upsetting to see Batman Versus Predator reduced to this!

Writer Chuck Dixon has always been very adept at using the pre-existing characters of a comic book universe in clever, creative ways, and this book is no exception. He manages to weave a compelling, character-driven story.

An excellent Batman story and an excellen predator story.

This one greatly improves over the second in the tales of Batman vs Predator. This time it's two vs two action as the PRedators are using Batman and Robin as the targets of being Blooded as a full blown hunter.

Once the Predators arrive Batman tries to keep Robin out of it, unaware that not only are there two of them, but that they are already picked as the target according to skill. However with Mr. Freeze in the vacinity Batman needs to for the time keep Robin by his side. The action continues until Batman faces his challenger and Robin faces his.

This is a good story. but in the end is for fans only. Still worth checking into.

Smith Kline Beecham, produces "PAXIL" and they say that Paxil should NOT be used by children, adolescents or those over age 73! The reason that it should not be used by children and adolescents, (as stated by S.K.B.,) is that it needs much more double blind testing for this age group. Only one small such test has been done to date. It also has NOT been approved by the F.D.A.! The brain of a child differs from one of an adolescent. The brain of an adolescent differs from that of an adult. Some tranquelizers cause exiteability in children. Calif. state university at Stanford also states that testing of these Seritonan Reuptake Inhibitors have not had testing with children or adolescents. To prescribe such medication to children and /or adolescents is akin to child endangerment!