Gift Guide is a series of articles highlighting some of our top picks for gift suggestions. Each article covers a specific genre with explanations of why we think these items make worthy gifts.

Today’s Gift Guide topic is graphic novels. When you think about the term graphic novel today, often it is associated with comic books and superheroes. This is not always the case, however. Today’s list is comprised of half superhero stories and half non-superhero stories that are equally, if not moreso, compelling.

American Born Chinese
Gene Yang weaves together three separate stories. The first is a folk tale of a Monkey King who must come to terms with his true nature after declaring himself a god. The second storyline follows a young chinese boy that moves to America. After living there for a while, he meets another boy who recently moved from China and is quickly frustrated at his culture shock. The third plotline follows the sitcom of a boy in high school who’s Chinese cousin, Chin-Kee, comes to visit and immediately and deliberately follows one stereotype after another, completely embarassing the high schooler.

Why we like it: In addition to winning the Michael Printz Award, what could be considered the young adult literature equivalent of the Newbery Medal, the book takes a hilarious and light hearted look at racial stereotypes, coming to terms with, and appreciating this heritage.

Check out the rest of our list after the jump!
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Marvel Entertainment has just announced the Robert Downey Jr. has officially signed on for The Avengers. Jon Favreau has also been announced to executive produce the feature. The recent news of Don Cheadle taking up the mantle of James Rhodes from Terrance Howard is also made official in this press release stating that he will be on hand for Iron Man 2, The Avengers and subsequent Iron Man films.

Choice quote:

In a movie event, THE AVENGERS will bring together the super hero team of Marvel Comics characters for the first time ever, including Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, the Hulk and more, as they are forced to band together to battle the biggest foe they’ve ever faced.

The highly anticipated sequel to IRON MAN will be released in theatres on May 7, 2010 and THE AVENGERS will be released July 15, 2011. Both films will be distributed by Paramount Pictures.

Via SlashFilm

Press Release after the jump
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The success of The Dark Knight means WB wants to do another Batman movie. But the success of Iron Man, Hulk, Spider-Man, X-Men, etc means WB has to try harder to do other movies.

The Wall Street Journal talks to Warner Bros. Pictures Group President Jeff Robinov, and he states that of 8 big summer movies planned before 2011, at least 4 of those will be DC properties. The good news is none of those is going to be Justice League. WB plans to launch individual films following the Marvel Entertainment model. From the article:

The studio is set to announce its plans for future DC movies in the next month. For now, though, it is focused on releasing four comic-book films in the next three years, including a third Batman film, a new film reintroducing Superman, and two movies focusing on other DC Comics characters. Movies featuring Green Lantern, Flash, Green Arrow, and Wonder Woman are all in active development.

Supermax, the Green Arrow prison break movie from David Goyer, is my big hope. Green Lantern and Wonder Woman are long overdue, and Flash has enormous potential for chases and special effects.

San Diego Comic-Con was this weekend, for those of you living in a hole in the ground, and the comics news came fast and furious. There’s a lot of chaff to sort through, so hit the jump for a rundown of the major headlines, including a million things Watchmen-related. Oh, and some other comic stuff too.
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The Powet Community is reeling from the midnight screenings, and more of us will be seeing The Dark Knight this weekend. Join in the Batman: The Dark Knight discussion after you see the movie. Spoilers will be filling the thread soon, so don’t peek until you been there. Trust me. Don’t wait. Skip lunch for a week to save money if you have to, but see this. Batman Begins sat atop my own personal list of favorite comic movies and this delivers far greater a story and performances. The Dark Knight is the flick to beat this summer. Sorry Iron Man, Sorry Hulk, Sorry Indy. We had fun, but you can’t kill the Batman.

The Dark Knight Thread (spoilers)

Though E3 thus far seems to be slightly more lackluster than previous years, it seems some diamonds are still managing to shine through the layer of mediocrity that has so far been shown.

Some rather impressive Resident Evil 5 footage has been shown out of E3, and while IGN has some clips to show off of the game along with a tentative release date of March 19th 2009, Gamersyde comes through with some high-resolution video for your viewing pleasure. Due to some bandwidth issues on their part, we’re unable to directly stream the video from here, but feel free to check out the videos *HERE*

Thus far, what we see is some good single-player action featuring good ol’ Chris Redfield, including tangles with the disgruntled locals, as well as some nasty confrontations with a rather imposing individual wielding a hulking sledgehammer/axe ready to bash your brains in. We also see some co-op play with your lovely female compatriot Sheva Alomar. From what I can tell, the environment and gameplay is strikingly similar to what we saw in Resident Evil 4, though game producer Jun Takeuchi states that enemies won’t be like the Ganados, and will be more intellegent.

This might be all we see of the game until it’s release next year, but so far everything is looking A-OK as far as living up to hype.

In the world of 3-d fighting, there are two kings: Namco (Tekken and Soul Calibur) and Sega’s AM2 (Virtua Fighter). Tecmo’s Team Ninja and its Dead Or Alive franchise is closely behind the two, and is quickly gaining steam. Although Dead Or Alive has been criticized for it’s more simplistic play mechanics and heavy focus on the female form, it has earned praise for it’s envelope-pushing graphics, gorgeous backdrops, awesome looking player models, and robust online system. While DOA may not be a huge innovator in the fighting world, Team Ninja’s fighting franchise becomes deeper and more enjoyable with each iteration, and the series’s first appearance on the Xbox 360 is no different.

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Today, we celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, a man who has dedicated his life to equality between people of all races. In the 1960s, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created the X-men, a comic book about a team of superheroes dedicated to equality between human and mutant. Even though the cast was all Caucasian at the time, the book explored race relations in a profoundly brilliant manner without the material being heavy handed. Over time, the team’s roster would expand to include heroes from many different backgrounds, from the Jewish Kitty Pryde and the African Storm to the Native American Mirage. Throughout their 40+ year history, the X-men have seen many ups and downs, both in and out of comics, and video gaming is no different. What better way is there to celebrate Dr King’s dream than to have a look back at the interactive adventures of Xavier’s finest? In the first part of this two part special, we’ll take a look at some of the earliest games starring the children of the atom. The second part, coming later this week, will feature the Marvel vs Capcom games as well as Activision’s X-men titles.
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