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.

Educator, Family Therapist and Author, Michael Gurian has put together a great resource for teachers and parents. Boys and Girls Learn Differently goes inside students' brains and tells the reader how and why boys and girls process information differently. The author writes as if he was speaking directly to the reader. The book, which is separated into two sections, is clearly focused on an audience of educators and parents. The first section goes into full detail about the neurological differences between boys and girls and howy they learn differently. In the second part of the book, the author provides concrete examples of how to incorporate the knowledge learned in part one into the classroom setting. Gurian suggests steps that should be taken to maximize learning for all students from Kindergarten through High School.
This book is an exceptionally helpful resource for teachers and parents in understanding the differences in learning between boys and girls and compliments my philosophy on education. The one subject that I would have liked to see addressed is the notion that each and every student is a unique individual and therefore learns in his or her own distinct manner. As educators, it is our responsibility to make the learning environment well rounded so all students are cultivated to their maximum learning potential. I recommend that every educator and parent, interested in learning about how boys and girls process information differently, enjoy this informative and enjoyable book.

This book is a MUST for current teachers, parents, and anyone working with children of ALL ages.

This book will help the reader understand how brain research has and should be included in every certified teacher curriculum materials. This "textbook" should be provided for in-service instruction for current teachers, child care workers, parents, guardians, mentors, tutors, and ANY one working with children.

The MI (Multiple Intelligences) approach is still valid and is in fact relied on by many to answer the age old question: "How do Boys and Girls Learn? What are the differences in learning styles." By taking your knowledge regarding MI and include the latest reserach on brain research, the child in your life will benefit and you too will feel like you are making the difference in the life of a child.

Go get the book, read it, then apply that knowledge within the classroom, home, church, day care, and anywhere/anyone working with children.

DG

An excellent resource for parents and teachers in understanding the difference in how boys and girls learn. In Elementary grade classrooms, many particle applications are provided. However, I feel that the training sessions through the Gurian Institute needs to trickle down from a Lead Assessor to teach the teachers.
Prior knowledge of Multiple Intellegencies, brain research, and how students learn as they develop from K-12 is required to get the most of this material.

Good resource may be Cynthia Tobias's tape series and book entitled "The Way They Learn: Understanding Learning Styles" and a book about Brain research.

Brain research is key to this book, but may be very confusing as to how to Apply the learning into the home, classroom and everyday life. Instead of instilling sterotypes Boys vs. Girls, Teachers may refere to students as class, friends, team names if group work anything but "boys and girls." Anything to help remove the sterotypes the teachers, parents and society place on young children since that is how they grow up. Boys play sports, like to be leaders. Girls like close friendships with their peers, fluffy toys, play house, etc.

Enjoy the book! I did. I took notes and found that useful towards moving in the direction of implementation of Gurian's suggestions.
DG

The book begins with a beautifully written insightful overview concerning the impact of worlds major religions and philosophies on human consciousness, realizations of our oneness with all, as well as the beauty of the individual's uniqueness and that more of us are will to step back and appreciate our spiritual consciousness from a much broader perspective. That section of the book is easily worth 5 stars. Part IV covers most of man's major transformative practices developed over the course of recorded history and blatantly misleads the reader concerning the effort transformation requires. It is not intentional, but it does indicate a lack of first hand experience on the part of the authors concerning the studies and developments by numerous organizations over the latter half of the 20th Century, much of which overshadows all previous history in effectiveness of the experiential transformative technologies available today. Look up in search engines and experience first hand the leading edge transformative practices available through the Monroe Institute, Star's Edge International, and other consciousness technologies where you can experience powers of consciousness that are more rapid than a thought and very effective. (Example: In January 1999, I healed a 9 year long painful skin rash on myself that doctors couldn't and also woke up with the flu one day, with teeth chattering chills, weak and sweating profusely and completely eliminated it in 5 minutes using modern practices of consciousness. After years of using the familiar practices discussed in this book, it took me about a week to learn the newer practices which have been developed in the last two decades. Asian monks say they achieved more enlightenment in a week with these newer practices than 20 years of meditating in a monastery).

This book is an overview of the entire spiritual journey. It is a like a map of human consciousness, covering the evolution of our understanding of God, as well as giving information about every aspect of the spiritual path. It is not a novel (like Celestine Prophecy, etc.), but rather it is a guide to help each person as they increase their awareness of their own spiritual understanding. Redfield and Murhpy present an excellent overview, which I found inspiring, informational, and well-researched.

Really enjoyed this book. It's clearly written for a curious, intelligent layperson, not scholars. Contains a great, concise, general overview of evolution, getting more specific as applied to the evolution of spiritual and philosophical schools of thought that have shaped our current ways of thinking, very clear presenations of many examples of ways in which we humans appear to be in the midst of (or quickly approaching) a period of rapid evolution in our awareness and capabilities, a significant number of practical ways a person might explore these ideas for him/herself, and a wonderful bibliography/recommended reading list . I found the book, enjoyable and inspiring, and would recommend it to anyone with a sincere interest in a greater understanding of the implications of individual, societal and global evolution of consciousness, and for people looking for ideas for participation and practice.

This was a very exciting book about a team of SAS soldiers in Russia. Ryan certainly lives up to his standards.

Chris Ryan is a man who knows his topic and he his writing style is fantastic. I loved every minute of this book, and read my way through it in a few days. That's a huge feat for me, so I must stress how incredible I found this book.

If you have no idea what Internet is and have never seen ebay web site then you might learn something from this book. But for an average Internet-savvy person it offers little to nothing. There is a lengthy description of well-know information (like terms of sale of ebay) and constant selling of ebay business model: nothing you can't read elsewhere.

The author "gets" eBay. Unfortunately, he was not granted interviews or access to eBay people. As a result, the book is little more than a collection of articles from the Industry Standard, Fast Company abd the like. Furthermore, the book covers eBay until December 1999 or Q1 2001 at most. Back then, it looked like Yahoo! had a business model, remember? And yes, the author contemplates the possibility of a Yahoo! takeover (which was possible) and even the ridiculous idea that eBay should perhaps create its own "portal" in order to grow... Not worth the money. Buy "The Perfect Store" by Adam Cohen instead.

This book gives an overview of ebay's creation and why it has been a success. It gives no insider insights however. It was fun to read but I did not learn much from it. This book does not have substance.