I think I was in 5th or 6th grade when this came out:



And I’ve followed a ton of my fave characters in prose format ever since.

I have a stack of Arrowverse paperbacks I need to read (including):



And my mom is a teacher and is always picking me up cool stuff like this out of the Book Club, and it’s stuff that I probably wouldn’t buy for myself:



Thats not taking into account all the books from my other big fandom (Star Wars), let alone all the other plethora of books I’m sitting on from the pulps and fantasy realms.

I used to have both of those.  I felt the Cap one worked better as a book; but, neither really captured the characters well.  They were fine for what they were.

I had the 70s Marvel Super-heroes one.  The Shooter Avengers story is good, as is the Claremont X-Men one and the Daredevil story is also good.  Didn't care for the Hulk story.

I had the 90s Batman stuff, the anthologies and the novels; most didn't do much for me.  I liked a couple of the stories in the anthologies; but, most weren't nearly as good as you average 1970s Batman story.  I read a few of the Marvel books and enjoyed Peter David's  Hulk:  Future Imperfect.  He has always struck as one of the better at adapting to the difference between comic book scripting and prose writing.

William Rostler's Blackhawk novel is good pulp adventure, and it comes up with a reasonable location for Blackhawk Island and how they are able to supply their planes.  It also has some nice, pulpy villains and Nazi super-weapons.  Rostler was an old-time pro at pulp adventure, though he specialized more in porno stuff.

Going outside the comic book world, Robert Mayer's Superfolks is excellent and Austin Grossman's Soon I will Be Invincible is mostly good.  The villain chapters are fantastic; but, the chapters with the cybernetic hero range from pretty good to mediocre.

For my, money, though, the best prose adaptations of superhero characters are Elliot S! Maggin's Last Son of Krypton and Miracle Monday.



They are great fiction under any definition; but, are some of the best Superman writing you will find.  He really develops the characters more than the comics allowed (and Maggin wrote some of the best Superman, pre-Crisis), while also translating Superman's physical feats into something you can picture.  He had Superman using his brain to solve a situation, apply his powers strategically, rather than just plowing into things.  For instance, Luthor launches a multi-target bank robbery as a diversion, with airborne henchmen.  Superman stops each of them, through a series of maneuver.  He grabs a couple and tosses them up into the air, without their heli-packs, then disables another, forcing him to land on a nearby roof, where he has fused the lock on the roof access door.  He is counting down, while he stops some others, then the guys thrown up in the air land in his cape, which he has stretched between buildings.  At another point, he stops a massive tidal wave by creating a trench in the seabed, which diverts part of the volume of water.  He then plunges into the wave, creating a vacuum that sucks back another portion.  He then uses heat vision to vaporize the remaining mass of water, creating clouds, which he then uses his super-breath to send on a path to pass over a drought-stricken region.  You rarely see Superman think strategically these days; but, the Bronze Age comics tended to do more of that, for variety's sake.  He also writes the best Jonathan Kent ever, a strong and wise man, with realistic fears and beliefs.  His Luthor is the best ever, fully rounding him, giving him real motivations and a real personality, beyond cackling villain.  He also gives him a wicked sense of humor.  You can see how Clark Kent would befriend this young man and still hold out hope that he could change for the better.

Funny you should mention some of these; I few years ago, I wrote brief reviews of both Weird Heroes and Englehart's Point Man. I would especially recommend Weird Heroes. (More recently, I also wrote a brief review of the Jack and Maggie Starr comic mysteries at the Atomic Junk Shop; these don't feature comic book characters in prose form, but rather very thinly disguised analogs for real-world comics creators from the late '40s and early '50s).

Of the other stuff mentioned here, back when they were first published I read a few of the Marvel novelizations featuring Captain America (Holocaust for Hire), Iron Man (And Call My Killer Modok) and the Marvel Super-heroes. I liked them all at the time, and, like cody, I really liked (and best recall) the Avengers and X-men stories in that latter book. (I wouldn't mind re-reading some of these, and also Michelinie's Avengers novel, but since those books are now out of print they've become rather expensive.)
I also read the two Superman books by Maggin, which I thought would be adaptations of the movies; initially that put me off a bit, but I ended up enjoying those quite a bit and since I now have them as e-books I fully intend to re-read them at some point in the hopefully near future.
Sort of related to this topic, quite recently (a few weeks ago), I read Irene Vartanoff's novels Temporary Superheroine and Temporary Superheroine: Crisis at Comicon. They're mainly tongue-in-cheek adventures, with lots of sometimes biting (but never mean-spirited) pokes at the comic book industry and many of the personalities therein. Most people who frequent this site would probably find them entertaining.

I bought a few of the superhero novelizations back in the day.  

One I haven't seen mentioned is the Blackhawk novel by William Rotsler.  It's been probably 35 years since I've read it (I'm sure it's in a box somewhere) so I remember next to nothing about it.



Of the Marvel novels of the 70s I know that I had/have the Dr. Strange book and "The Marvel Super-Heroes" edited by Wein and Wolfman.  



As anyone who pays attention to the Books thread knows I'm a big pulp fiction fan.  I've been doing a read-through of Doc Savage and ERB.  

Prior to it being mentioned here last night, I had no clue the Rotsler Blackhawk novel existed. When I saw it, I was like I need to keep an eye out for that. I found it today at the show I went to at one of the first vendors I stopped at (as well as one of the Al Williamson Flash Gordon books).

-M

I've read Thomas Sniegoski's Lobster Johnson novel, which was decent.

While these prose books preceded their respective comic series, I'm very fond of the Mike Mignola/Chris Golden novels Baltimore, or the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire and Joe Golem and the Drowning City. I have one of the Hellboy novels, I think by the same team (it's called Bones of Giants or something) but I haven't read it yet.

As for pulp heroes, I've read a few Shadow stories and a few Avenger stories, but not a huge amount of either.

I started picking up Wild cards when they were on book 3 and continued for a while; but, i kind of got burnt out on them after a while.  I followed it up to the point where Cap'n Trips helped  set up a haven for Joker and other Wild cards, in Vietnam.  I kind of liked the earlier stuff better and some authors definitely had a better handle on the type of material than others.  i have to wonder if Hollywood will revisit it, after the success of Game of Thrones.  It was optioned a couple of times; but, never went anywhere.  I suspect the mosaic novel aspect may make for legal headaches, as far as ownership and royalties, from an adaptation.