For your viewing pleasure, here's the "Avengers" trailer, the latest movie to feature the Marvel comics superheroes. The team dates back to a 1963 comic that set Thor, Iron Man, Hulk and others in battle against the fearsome Loki. Membership has changed in the intervening years, but the movie promises a star-studded lineup that includes Captain America and the aforementioned Big Three as they "pull the world back from the brink of disaster." The movie, which stars Robert Downey Jr., Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson, is scheduled for release next summer.

My interest in comics has been revived lately as I've been listening to CDs of "Manhood for Amateurs" by Michael Chabon. He opens his series of essays with a heart-tugging piece on his boyhood effort to start a comic-book club in Columbia, Md. -- playing it against Stan Lee's chutzpah in promoting Marvel. And throughout the book, Chabon comes back to the comics theme, which was an inspiration for "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay." If you want to bring back some good memories about those primary-color, paneled masterpieces, pick up his book (or give a listen).