You can brighten the holidays for the comics fan in your life with gifts for the bookshelf and the toy box. Here are some suggestions:

• “Marvel: The Expanding Universe Wall Chart” is a unique coffee-table book without a spine. Open it one way and it offers a history of Marvel Comics and some short, fun features on Marvel. Open it the other way and it expands into a 12-by-3 1/2-foot poster featuring more than 300 Marvel characters against an atomic design pattern reflecting connections between the characters. (Universe, $45)

• “Peter & Max: A Fables Novel,” by Bill Willingham, tells an enchanting story spun out of Willingham’s ongoing “Fables” series from DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint. The novel follows two brothers destined to be enemies — Peter Piper and brother Max, who becomes the dastardly Pied Piper. (Hardcover, $22.99)

• If you’re new to “Fables,” about a group of characters from fairy tales and nursery rhymes living among the normal “mundane” citizens of modern-day New York, you can start at the beginning with “Fables Deluxe Book 1,” an oversize hardcover collecting the first 10 issues of the series. (Vertigo, $29.99)

• “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?” written by New York Times best-selling author Neil Gaiman, provides an intriguing and epic vision of Batman and his many incarnations over the decades. The two-part story has been collected in a hardcover, deluxe edition. (DC Comics, $24.99)

• “Star Trek: Countdown,” the official comic book prequel to this year’s popular “Star Trek” movie, is collected in a hardcover. (IDW Publishing, $21.99)

• DC Comics characters took to the small screen this year in a trio of direct-to-DVD animated features released by Warner Home Video, including “Wonder Woman,” “Green Lantern: First Flight” and “Superman/Batman: Public Enemies.” (Available in different formats, beginning at $19.98.) Also out on DVD: This year’s “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” with Hugh Jackman returning to the role. (20th Century Fox, $29.99)

• “Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2” (PSP, PS2, PS3, Wii, Nintendo DS, Xbox 360) is a role-playing game that asks you to choose sides in a superhero struggle that borrows elements from Marvel Comics’ “Civil War.” (Activision, $29.99-$59.99)

• Captain America is back from the dead. Celebrate his return with a “Captain America Reborn” T-shirt exclusive to MarvelShop.com. ($18)

• DC Comics’ iconic Sgt. Rock returns in “Sgt. Rock: The Lost Battalion,” a hardcover collecting the six-issue miniseries written and lushly illustrated by Billy Tucci. Tucci’s story, which reaches from the bloody beaches of Normandy to the forests of the Vosges Mountains, spins out of true events. (DC, $24.99)