Marvel Encyclopedia New Edition, published earlier this year, is a book that left me wanting more
in most of the entries. This book was out of date even before it was published.
It is way out of date on The Avengers, Spiderman, The X-Men and The Squadron
Supreme. One could ignore that if the entries were well written, but they are
not. The entries often just stop with no rhyme or reason and not naturally. The
entries try to combine past storylines with current information and the result
is a mess. Unlike the same type of book from DC, there is no timeline in this book
as well and that is a huge failure.
There is very little information on
character personalities or the relationships among characters. Some important
characters are completely missing like Robbie Reyes and Quake. One character is
mentioned under two different names for some reason instead of combining the
two entries (The Red Hulk). Even characters that get multiple pages have entries
that are very shallow and need way more detail.
Most entries have no information on
the motivation of why characters act as they do. One prime example of how bad these
entries are is the limited paragraphs on Hyperion. Most people do not know
Hyperion. He is one of Marvel’s many versions of Superman. In two very short paragraphs,
the people behind this book thought it was a really good idea to combine more
than three versions of Hyperion from vastly different universes and time
periods where each version has a very different personality. This idiotic idea results in a convoluted paragraph
where it discusses how he is perfect hero with no flaws, who then is a killing
machine sociopath, and in yet another version is the noble hero who ultimately
failed to save his home Earth and now lives in an alternate reality. None of those
versions have anything to do with what he actually is portrayed now as he is a
brainwashed hero created by the government to replace the Avengers and do good
works. So, they jumble up three versions for no good reason, and then ignore
the actual version presently being done in numerous comic books.
This book is not good on explaining
the depths of complex characters that tend to switch back and forth from good
to evil like Emma Frost, Loki, Magneto, Namor, Doc Ock, Black Cat and Doctor
Doom. They switch back and forth with and there is next to no explanation of
why this happens. Then there are issues with the fact that multiple characters
that use the same code name, for example, Hawkeye and Enchantress, are all
lumped together even though individually they are way different depending on
storyline.
Speaking of storylines, there are
huge issues with how this important facet is handled in this book. The
information for the Multiverse is limited at best and completely obsolete in
regards to the Ultimate Universe and was so before this mess was actually
published. In many entries, there is a bullet point area with the phrasing, “essential
storylines” which is supposed to give the reader basic information essential to
the character. In some cases it is accurate, but in many cases, things have
changed. In fact the information presented is often grossly inaccurate and
therefore meaningless. Such information was inaccurate before this book was
published and yet was included anyway.
With so many involved in the
project, one wonders how many of them sat back and as they contemplated the
finished product, realized just how bad a job was done. Textually the book
reads as if they copied and pasted in aspects of prior editions and tried to splice
in some new information. Not only is the text inaccurate in many cases, the
artwork also leaves a lot to be desired.
The artwork in the book, for the
most part, is just not the best examples of comic book art to showcase. In some
entries, the art is terrible. The fact that the cover art is the some of the
better art found in the book is not a compliment. Note how odd the faces of
Thanos, Thor, and Captain Marvel look on the cover. Very odd.
This feels like a product that was
made to make money and nothing more. This book only includes information on the
comics. There is nothing on the movies, novels, television shows, cartoons, video
games, or anything outside of the comics. Clearly an amazingly stupid decision
since that stuff is used heavily as a marketing angle to keep regular readers interested
as well as to attract new ones.
While I am a huge Marvel fan, I
can’t recommend this book for anyone. Bad art and a total lack of detail in
many entries as well as a tremendous amount of inaccurate information mean this
book was worthless the day it was published and has only gone downhill from
there. Marvel Encyclopedia New Edition is useful though as a screaming
example of what not to do in such an encyclopedia.
Marvel Encyclopedia New Edition
Various Editors and Contributors
Dorling Kindersley Limited
(division of Penguin Random House)
April 2019
ISBN#978-1-4654-7890-0
Coffee Table Sized Hardback
448 Pages
$40.00
Material supplied by the good folks
of the Dallas Public Library System. My copy came from the Kleberg-Rylie
location.
Scott A. Tipple © 2019
Posts
