While not the best comic of all time, by any means, it does a very nice job of setting up many DC books of the late eighties. If you are a fan of DC comics, pick this one up. It stars Superman, Batman,Flash, and a whole lot of other heros, facing a enemy they can not pound into the ground (Not that there is not tons of action along the way) and has the introduciton of Wonder Woman to the modern world.

this book is a good book for people who love to fix there cars and also for people who are in love with the VW Beetle.

The amazing thing is how someone who did such a good job remaking Superman in the mid 1980s could do such a horrible job here. This flies in the face of the credo of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Wonder Woman had already been recreated masterfully by the great George Perez (who collaborated with Marv Wolfman on the award winning Teen Titans and Crisis on Infinite Earths). Byrne basically shredded everything that Perez had done.

I won't even get into how he later screwed up the whole Donna Troy history. Maybe he can do Hawkman next. At least that character is so screwed up with so many revisions that Byrne can't possibly do it any more harm!

In his first story-arc, John Byrne sets out to restore Wonder Woman's long-forgotten position as one of DC's top three superheroes, with physical strength second only to that of Superman. Diana forges a new beginning for herself after the reprehensible machinations of her mother, Queen Hippolyta, caused the death of Artemis, the renegade Amazon who temporarily took over Diana's role as Wonder Woman. Diana moves from Boston to Gateway City, adopts a new look, and gains a new mentor (middle-aged museum curator, Helena Sandsmark, who has a teen daughter) and a new potential love interest (Mike Schorr, a Gateway City cop). This is NOT a good beginning from John Byrne at all - his laziness rears its head in two obvious ways. Firstly, the new look Wonder Woman is nothing more than Byrne's desire to avoid having to draw too many stars - Diana's star-spangled bottom is reduced to only two HUGE stars at the front, and none at the back. Secondly, Byrne's "new" characters show disturbing similarities with old ones created by George Perez. Helena Sandsmark is a [copy] of George Perez's creation, middle-aged archaeologist, Julia Kapatelis, Diana's previous mentor who also has a teen daughter. Gateway City cop Mike Schorr also echoes another of George Perez's creations, Boston's Inspector Indelicato, who also has a crush on Diana. Such weaknesses aside, the story does get roaring - Darkseid invades Paradise Island, slaughtering over 1,000 Amazons, before Diana manages to repel the invasion with the help of Mike Schorr. Diana is portrayed as a no-nonsense super-heroine who is well aware of her strengths. This strong characterisation of Diana has been carried over to the Justice League of America, where Diana has been portrayed as a capable and confident leader since. All in all, "Second Genesis" is not a bad read, but John Byrne's Wonder Woman stories get progressively worse in subsequent issues - in quick succession, Byrne tries to alter Hippolyta, Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl / Troia's origins. In George Perez's 1986 revamp of Wonder Woman, Hippolyta was the spirit of a murdered pregnant cave woman given new life by the Greek Gods while Diana was the spirit of her unborn child. Byrne tries to subvert this new origin by introducing an unnecessary character, Magala, the Amazon mystic who looks like a cave woman, suggesting that the cave woman we saw in George Perez's first issue of Wonder Woman was actually Magala, not Hippolyta. Hippolyta somehow becomes War God Ares' daughter in a convoluted sub-plot that still eludes me. Worse still, Byrne sends Hippolyta back in time into the Second World War to become the Golden Age Wonder Woman, thus messing up all of DC Universe's continuity. In the process, Perez and Wolfman's 1988 revamped origin of Wonder Girl / Troia also gets flushed down the drain. I was truly glad when Byrne finally left Wonder Woman - Phil Jimenez has since tried to undo some of the damage Byrne caused, though not always successfully. But at least with Jimenez, we have a writer who has profound respect for Wonder Woman's history.

John Byrne's Wonder Woman tends to inspire great passions, either pro or con. So did the creative team before Byrne. And those that tended to love the early series of stories tended to hate beyond reason almost everything Byrne did with the character once he took over. For me (and contrary to earlier reviewers here), the earlier run was weak, inconsistent, too slick, and featured too much skin. This present compilation of Byrne's first story arc shows why I greatly prefered his tenure on the comic book. His Wonder Woman was strong, decisive, and had human sized breasts. He showed a willingness to really shake things up... which again I liked but some people felt uncomfortable with. My feeling is that for general, or casual readers who just want to read a good Wonder Woman story, that this should fit the bill. Characters are well developed and there is an epic feeling to the story. Partisans aside, most should enjoy this.

This book disappoints on many fronts. The characterization of Batman as a Christian soldier was totally out of character. Batman and Alfred were constantly in utter awe of the Grail, a side of them that did not work for me. I generally think it is best to keep religion out of comics.

The artwork was also very poor, especially the depictions of the villians. You would never guess who was who from the artwork because the characters were drawn so different from usual.

Lastly, there was very little story or plot. Most pages were graphic heavy and story light, so for a book this size there was very little going on. And the story presented did not work in many areas. Ras changed his objectives 180 degrees based on one flippant remark from his daughter - very out of character.

There are better Batman books out there.

Batman finds himself in the position of being the protector of the fabled Holy Grail. An intriguing concept, but, as some of the other reviews here state, this graphic novel is ultimately unsatisfying.

While the art is interesting, and there are some nice moments, there's no good resolution to the story, and no real explanation of Batman's ties to the Grail. The ending feels rushed, and with the villains assembled here (including Ra's Al Ghul), this could have been a very strong story.

It's worth a look for the art, if nothing else, but certainly not a "keeper."

It is such a pleasure, to see a storyline with such real appeal. Ra's al Ghul is the perfect nemesis for "the Custodian of the Cup". It is Truth, in graphic novel form.
The art is completely well done using diffrent schemes to convey moods and backdrops. This, along with well written lines that are easily read and followed.
Continue on with Batman's nemisis in The Birth, The son and the Bride of the demon. None will dissappoint. All will intrigue and encourage you to really drink from the cup of living water.

The problem with this book is that it tries to cover a wide range of models in one book. The book gets into the details only to subject the "do it yourselfer" to a surprise i.e the component that they speak of in the book is, either not there in your vehicle or is not at the location where they state in the book. Needless to say working on a typical installation becomes a bit of a guessing game since you do not know what awaits you. The book definately does not cover all inline six models from 1984 to 1996, my truck is 1995 and it don't look anything like what them folks at Haynes are talking about.I wish somebody at Haynes would read this and straighten it out for me.

I've always like the Haynes manuals, but this manual is often wrong. For example, the book said to tighten my rockerarm cap bolts to 19 foot pounds, but the correct specification in 19 inch pounds! Now I have to buy new push rods and hope thats the only damage that was done.

Also, not all the parts mentioned in the book are actually on the car! And it's darn frustrating when the pictures don't match.

I think the best approach would be to have two manuals to compare against each other. Haynes is always the first I'll look to, but from now on I'm going to keep a Chiltons handy.

This book is such a disappointment. The artwork is good enough, but the plot is so silly and condensending that one is either offend or just doesn't care. I personnaly like religious themes in comics because they can be used to inspire true ideas about nobility and morality; however, this book tries to please every religion and in the end, aleinates all but the New Age movement.

I have collected comics from Christian themes (though rarely theological correct) and cultic themes and have enjoyed most all of them even though I am a consrevative Chrsitian. However, they had either fun or very well plotted stories. This book has neither.

It is a boring story that insults our intellect as it tries to be all things to all people. Buy for the art only.

I first read Batman/Deadman: Death and Glory when I was still in high school, and I was impressed by the lavish artwork, but not by the story, it bearly mearsures up to any of the greater batman stories and alomst diminshes the story into a laughable farce, if you're looking for a good Batman story, please, look elsewhere! Peace

Primary research performed in late 80s -- a lot has changed since then

The Haynes family of repair manuals are VERY limited in their scope of information. They try to cover too many variations of a car in one book. The Taurus early 4 cyl, 3.0L and 3.8L, all of which are very different engines, are all lumped together in this book. Many times it is very difficult to obtain specifics on an engine. An example is, they may mention the 3.0L and not he 3.8L which leaves you many times guessing about the location of a sensor or a wire harness. The significant downfall of this book is when they don't explain HOW to do something! They will often times just say "remove" part with out mentioning how. Again, this is just because they try to cover too many engine types in one book.

The book claims to cover '86-'95 model year Taurus/Sables, but if you own a 1995 Model like me, the pictures of the '86 or '87 Taurus they show in the book won't really help you much. Among others, If you have any engine OTHER than the 3.0 V6, You won't get much useful information. For me this was a strong point with this book, some of the coverage is lacking, but overall, it will get you through at the end of the day and back up an running. I wish this book had better wiring diagrams, and finally, pictures of a more current Taurus would be a real plus.

I purchased this book shortly after buying a used 93 Taurus wagon with 80,000 miles. I went through the maintenance chapter and performed all the steps. It was full of clear pictures, easy to follow instructions and also helpful suggestions. The coverage was excellent considering the number of years covered for such a small book. I also replaced my brakes and this was my only source. It covered my optional ABS brakes in detail. I had the experience in the past using other manuals where there was too much technical language and you were left guessing at what the instructions really meant. Not the case here. I would recommend this book to anyone of any level of experience.

I have a 1987 4 cyl manual Taurus and do most maintenance and repairs myself. The book covers little of the 4 cylinder engine model, except the engine itself and there are many differences. When anything is out of the ordinary they "refer to your dealer"!! What is the use of a repair manual then?. People who buy such manuals usaually want to do more than just change light bulbs... and even at that, the electrical circuits are poorly covered.

This Haynes manual is the worst I have ever read. I have manuals for A cars, J cars, Mustang, and the Dodge Dakota. None fails as much as this one for the Taurus. I have attempted two repairs, and both proceedures were incorrect, misleading , or incomplete. One was for the drive axles. It was not necessary to have the pullers or the pushers to seat and unseat the drive axles in the hub. The repair proceedure of the heater core was even worse. Instuctions are vague. " Take off the instrument pannel". We had to go get information from Chiltons, as what is in Haynes is so poor. One would think with so many Tauruses on the road, these inaccuracies would have been brought to the attention of the Haynes people. The index is worthless ( too skimpy) . And they keep selling me the same chapters in every book , which keeps their costs low, and profits high.