The Marvel Encyclopedia Review

• 6th Apr 2011

DK has outdone themselves here with this large tomb of Marvel records! This is essentially a character Encyclopedia – but it also finds time for major plot storylines (World War hulk, Civil War, Secret Invasion) to be included.

Each Character included here gets a picture and lists details such as their name (Inc Alias), when they were introduced. And a brief paragraph on the character.

True some characters get more attention than others.  Minor one off characters get a mini paragraph, whereas the likes of the major characters get pages!  Spiderman I think tops out at 6 pages. Even iron man only gets four in comparison. But this is all about getting the right information in and condensing it down so that it is to the point and also an interesting read.

The Book is well put together, and they probably had fun with this edition as it is an upgrade from before. Shifting pages and content around can be fun in an editor’s work – and they have done a grand job here. No page goes by without something standing out on the page.

The cover art is full of some of Marvels favourite heroes handing out a pounding to their most notorious villain. This is an ideal record to have for looking up Marvel info on characters and does the job with visual splendour. If only all reference books were so lovingly put together. And the price tag of £30 is well worth the 400 odd pages you get.

Now those fully up-to-date with all things Marvel might protest that even this does not include everything – But as with any encyclopedia – they start to date very quickly as the canon continues to expand. But then this is perhaps why they update it every so often.  We can wait a while and then a new edition will bring us fully up-to-date again (if only to date again). Kind of a silly argument really. So long as you know what date this runs up to it’s a worthy buy.

And with news of the updated DC Encyclopedia headed our way soon we are frankly bouncing up and down on our chairs with excitement.

Steven Hurst