Book Review: ‘The Big Book of Super-Villains’: Downtown Bookworks’ latest DC Comics affiliated title gives the low-down on all the best baddies in the DCU.

★★★★★

They say a hero is only as good as its villain, and the superheroes of the DCU have some of the most memorable adversaries in pop culture.

And Downtown Bookworks latest release, The Big Book of Super-Villains, easily gets young readers up to speed on all the devious factoids behind the best of the bad.

Chock full of gorgeous old-school illustrations, author Morris Katz gives engaging bios on top-tier characters like The Joker, General Zod, Harley-Quinn, Cat-Woman and Lex Luthor, along with deep-bench characters like Giganta, Gorilla Grodd, Captain Boomerang and Black Manta.

In addition to detailed backstories behind each character, the book ends with a note about morality and how villains make “bad choices,”offering a life lesson as well.

The book, while designed for readers 4 and up, should be appreciated by comic fans of all ages. Indeed, for DC fans of a certain era (i.e. this middle-aged writer), this book will draw comparisons to DC’s Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the D.C. Universe mini series from the 80’s, which gave stats and backgrounds on every D.C. character large and small.

My toddler, who is almost three, loves the illustrations and thoroughly enjoys learning about all these nefarious characters, and its been in her nightly bedtime reading rotation. She’s already rattled off a ton of character names, proving she’s becoming quite the D.C. aficionado.

With The Big Book of Super-Villains, Downtown Bookworks have created yet another solidly entertaining book that crosses generations and would be a fine holiday gift for the little comic book fan in your life.

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