The new Secret Wars crossover begins this week. To celebrate, you can take a journey back to the original 1984 Secret Wars with the MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS ACTIVITY BOOK.
This is a reproduction of the original coloring books, sticker albums and stamp books. This facsimile collection contains Secret Wars: The Crime of the Centuries, Escape from Doom, The Secret of Spider-Man's Shield, and The Tower of Doom. There's also two stamp books: Secret Wars Stamp Fun and Spider-Man's Stamp Fun.
The softcover book is an oversized activity book. The price is $24.99 but there's 160 pages of coloring and puzzle-solving fun to be had. You'll want to break out your crayons or colored pencils to dive into the fun.
It's not all regular pages. The stickers and stamps are on a harder stock of paper.
Some of the pages have missing body parts for you to put the stickers on the pages. Then you can color the rest of the page to complete the scene.
The "stories" in the coloring pages are not the same as in the twelve-issue miniseries. These are based more on the toy line. The stories here are pretty...interesting. There's also some stuff to be learned like, did you know Doctor Doom actually wore a crown and rode on a horse around Latveria?
As mentioned, there are also puzzles to solve. There's also mazes, word scrambles, matching pages, crossword puzzles, and even connect-the-dots pages.
If you're concerned about the difficulty, the answers to the puzzles are included. You won't have to worry about getting stumped.
But that's not all you get!
There's also the first issue of the original SECRET WARS included. It's in black and white of course. That way you can color it as well. Bonus!
If that wasn't enough, you also get two fold-in posters. One is the original cover/promo for the comic series by Mike Zeck and John Beatty.
The second poster is by Fred Kida and Marie Severin.
The content here is a little cheesy. But it's some real glorious cheese. I did read the original comic series when it came out and did buy most of the action figures. For some reason, I never saw or bought these activity books. It does take you back to a different time. It might seem a little pricey at first but have you seen how much regular coloring and activity books are these days? Because of the cheesy goodness and nostalgia, it's definitely worth it.
You'll just have to figure out if you want to actually color it or hand it off to a younger comic fan in your life. Or will you keep it in "mint condition"? It might be pretty epic with the cheesiness and corniness but it's a great reproduction collection. Get it for yourself or as a gift for a comic fan in your life. The book is now available in comic shops (if they ordered them). I'd imagine you'd possibly be able to find this at stores like Target, Walmart, or regular book stores. Looks like it's available online at Amazon on May 12 (at a slightly lower price). If you dug the original Secret Wars, you'll definitely want to have this. What is the secret of Spider-Man's shield? You have to find out!