Coldfinger

Zinc Alloy

by Donald Lemke

What does Zack Allen do when he's bugged by bullies? What any comic book loving kid would do, he creates his own super robot!

Genres: Graphic Novels

40 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2009

About the author

Donald Lemke works as a children's book editor. He has written dozens of all-age comics and children's books for Capstone, HarperCollins, Running Press, and more. Donald lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with his beautiful wife, Amy, toddling toddler, Cleo, and a not-so-golden retriever named Paulie.

Reviews

[Winnie Tse · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is just an updated version of zinc alloy:the invincible boy-bot but a tiny bit better.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cute superhero title for younger readers...sort of an elementary-school Iron Man.
Zack Allen would be a typical kid with typical problems...except for his very powerful armor, with all of its gadgets...some of which he doesn't actually know how to use very well. So, every adventure is an adventure for more reasons than one...
In this story, Zack's family drags him off for a "ski trip," which is mainly an excuse for his father to sit around the ski lodge guzzling hot chocolate. While trying to survive the hazards of ski lifts and school rivals, he finds a mad scientist's secret lair, and tries to foil the villainous plot...as well as learning how to ski, in a big hurry.
The story is a bit rushed, but I think that kids will like it.
One caveat is that there are some VERY annoying typos in the book, and an irate parent just brought it back to the library where I work, upset with how bad the proofreading was. There were only a few errors, but the bad ones were all at the start of the book, and were grammatical as well as typographical, which made it look like the book hadn't been proofread.

[Robert Marsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

All the Zinc Alloy books are fun -- and Zinc Alloy vs Frankenstein has even made several Best of the Year lists, but I think Coldfinger is my favorite. Mad scientists with secret lairs beneath ski chalets? How cool is that?

I also love Douglas Holgate's artwork. It has a retro, alternative 50s universe look to it. Cool stuff.

[Katie Lawrence · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I would have enjoyed this Iron Man-esque tale if there hadn't been some glaring errors in the spelling/grammar at the beginning of the book. The short adventure with Zinc Alloy taking on skiing and a villain named Dr. Icee was fun and a quick read for sure. This would appeal to reluctant readers, but I'm not sure if buying a book with errors in it would be beneficial.

[Neville Ridley-smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty average but probably ok for the grade level. Only giving these 3 stars because the educational stuff in the back is quite good.