The Avengers: The Replacements, A Graphic Novel by Jeff Parker

Parker, J. (2007). The avengers: The replacements. Edina: ABDO Publishing Group, 22 pp.
Genre: Adolescent Literature, Graphic Novel, Fiction.

The Avengers is a fun and exciting graphic novel that follows the Marvel Comic characters through an action packed adventure where they are responsible for protecting the world. After they are told that they are being replaced by a group of robots that are more capable than they are of destroying danger without being injured, the avengers are asked to teach the new bots how to respond to danger. Unfortunately the military officials who programmed the robots made a major mistake and the robots begin to destroy everything and everyone. But of course, the avengers are waiting in the wings and are ready for battle against the ultron robots. After several battles and complications the avengers are victorious.

This book has great characterization, obviously, because it is about the Marvel Comic characters that have been a well known part of entertainment for a very long time. Even though the book was extremely predictable, because in all Marvel Comics the heroes are victorious, it still had an interesting story line and told a great tale. Each character was responsible for using their super power to save each other and defeat the robots. The setting and theme were very interesting because it took place in modern day and the whole point of the robots was that the U.S. Military was wanting to use technology to replace the old way of doing things. I thought this was an accurate portrayal of how our society functions today, in that we are always looking for a quick and easy fix and are always trying to develop quicker and easier ways to solve our problems. I think that this is a great book for younger adolescent children because it is fun, short, and entertaining yet it is still somewhat of a challenging read. I was very surprised at the level of vocabulary used throughout the story. It was much more complex than I had thought it would be. I can definitely understand how younger kids would be interested in this book and I think that these types of novels are a great way to get kids reading. Although this book does not address any kind of multicultural issue, it does have several different types of characters and all of them are different races and genders.

This book would be great to recommend to a student who struggles with long, difficult reads and has a short attention span. I also think this book would be a great way to give younger students who think that they do not like to read an opportunity to discover different types of books that they might find interesting. It would be best suited for an individual read around the ages of 11 to 14.

Even though this is not particularly the type of book that I enjoy reading, I did find it refreshing to read something that was totally different than what I am used to. I enjoyed the story line and was never bored. To say that I would read more graphic novels similar to this might be a stretch...but I definitely think that they are great for kids.