(Panini Books)

Offering both an entry point to newbies lured into comics after seeing the latest movie, and also providing a sumptuous volume of often previously uncollected issues, the Marvel Platinum imprint continues to go from strength-to-strength.

This latest book is a conscious tie-in with the new Avengers: Age of Ultron film, focusing as it does on protagonists Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, Vision and Ultron himself, and includes stories from the 1960s right through to the present day.

Highlights include the four-part masterpiece Ultron Unlimited, in which the robotic despot slaughters the population of the fictional country of Slorenia, the original team’s destruction in Avengers Dissembled, one of the earliest appearances of the Vision, their first roster change, and the landmark conclusion to the Celestial Madonna saga in which the Vision ties the knot with the Scarlet Witch.

As well as offering a cross-section of Avengers epics over the decades, this book also provides a sample of work from some of the industry’s leading creative talents, including the late John Buscema, Stan Lee, George Perez, Steve Englehart, Brian Michael Bendis, John Romita Jr and Kurt Busiek, and with a line-up like that you really can’t go wrong.

The rich history of the Avengers is pretty much the story of the Marvel Age of Comics, and this volume is a perfect celebration of the remarkable adventures of one of fiction’s greatest fighting teams, an alliance which has endured well into its sixth decade.