Iron Man: Super Smash! (A Mighty Marvel Team-Up 2)

What worked:

Young readers enjoy superheroes, and the Marvel characters have been around for decades. This book features Iron Man and the Hulk, and there’s plenty of smashing for action lovers. The story moves very quickly, and the dialogue is simple and easy to follow. Iron Man asks Hulk to teach him to smash, and readers will be amused by their interactions. They compete by punching objects and monsters, but Iron Man is too puny to smash things up to Hulk’s destructive standards!

The illustrations are large and colorful, so it’s easy to interpret what’s happening. Text boxes and speech bubbles share the plot and dialogue between characters, and emerging and reluctant readers will find them easily accessible. The plot isn’t complicated by surprising twists, so young readers will find it simple to follow. Hulk and Tony Stark discover their differences make them better friends. Two pages at the end of the book share the creative process for getting a graphic novel published.

What didn’t work as well:

The drawings of characters and background scenes lack the detail young readers can find in other sources. The illustrations may not excite them as much as they could have. Also, the book’s synopsis summarizes almost the entire story, so there’s little left to the imagination.

The final verdict:

This book will appeal to younger middle-grade readers or those students who are unenthusiastic toward reading. I suggest you try this book for yourself.