All of the marvels A journey to the ends of the biggest story ever told

Review by Booklist Review

Spanning six decades and tens of thousands of issues, Marvel Comics is a uniquely durable, meandering, and resonant set of stories. Comics and music critic Wolk (Reading Comics) brings an insightful and affectionate eye to this cultural behemoth as he catalogs the long and winding road Marvel superheroes have followed over the years. Wolk makes no attempt to capture the full breadth and depth of the Marvel comics universe, a task that would be both impossible (for Wolk) and near incomprehensible (for readers). Instead, he dedicates chapters to the superheroes, creative partnerships, events, and idiosyncrasies that have made Marvel what it is, from the familiar (Black Panther, the X-Men) and the justly or unjustly forgotten (Master of Kung-Fu, Linda Carter). The result is an affectionate, lively, charmingly footnoted whistle-stop tour through Marvel Comics that acknowledges the many places where the comics stumble as well as the many where they shine. Wolk is unwavering in his belief that comics are for everyone, and he offers numerous jumping-on points for new readers. Every comics fan needs this book.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

---

Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Journalist Wolk (Reading Comics) pulls off an extraordinary feat in this tour-de-force, distilling over 60 years of Marvel Comics stories into a fascinating guide that will resonate with true believers and neophytes alike. The challenge Wolk set for himself is truly daunting: to read the 27,000-plus issues Marvel has produced since 1961, "the longest continuous, self-contained work of fiction ever created." Apart from the sheer volume of stories involved, Wolk notes how, by design, most of the issues reference events that sometimes go back decades. Even so, he assuages those intimidated by the complex narrative by pointing out that the fear of missing important details is "just how things are when you read superhero comics." His infectious zeal for the Marvel universe shines in his insightful analysis of everything from the genre's cultural impact and symbolism--examining, for instance, how the X-Men have served as proxies for those ostracized by society--to the saga of the Black Panther's creation, which spanned years and writers. In Wolk's thorough handling of his subject, no page is left unturned or character left behind--even the radical Squirrel Girl, who values compassion over violence, gets an honorable mention. Comic fans will be riveted. Agent: Sarah Lazin, Sarah Lazin Books. (Oct.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

---

Review by Library Journal Review

For this survey of Marvel Comics' output since 1961, Wolk (Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean) read every Marvel comic book--some 27,000 publications, or half a million pages containing thousands of interrelated stories and hundreds of characters (Spider-Man, Hulk, Thor, the X-Men) that were the basis for some of the 21st century's highest-grossing movies worldwide. This volume condenses the comic books' stories and major themes into 21 chapters; they're grouped by time periods that correspond to defining events of the past six decades of United States history (the Cold War; technocracy; 21st-century political polarization). Wolk leaves out Marvel comics published before 1961, having made the case that Marvel's 1939--60 output wasn't as noticeable or impactful in American society. The book includes an appendix that details plotlines and images of noteworthy comics, such as the volume that introduced Miles Morales. VERDICT Wolk's light and humorous style appeals, and this work would be a marvelous addition to any library's collection. It will likely become a bible for serious comics fans and a useful introduction and reference guide for all others. Highly recommended.--Steve Dixon, State Univ. of New York, Delhi

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

---

Review by Kirkus Book Review

A deep dive into the overarching, decadeslong narrative of Marvel superhero comics. Wolk, author of the Eisner Award--winning Reading Comics, writes effusively about "the longest continuous, self-contained work of fiction ever created: over half a million pages to date, and growing," and he delivers an interpretive guide to the thousands of comics that Marvel has published since 1961. The author moves between this multilayered comic-world narrative and the behind-the-scenes timeline of the once-marginal company and its pop-culture DNA, forged by brilliant eccentrics Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and Mike Ditko. Kirby and Ditko eventually parted acrimoniously from wordsmith and showman Lee, though not before establishing bold visual and textual templates that later artists acknowledged. "Stan Lee's words," writes Wolk, "from early Marvel comics became the toys of the writers who followed in his path." In most chapters, the author focuses on prominent tentpoles like the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and the Avengers. He assembles a critical narrative by linking contemporary issues to earlier decades and tracking the shuffles of artists and writers, recently emphasizing diverse younger talents. As one writer noted about collaboration on X-Men as it gained prominence, "such sparks as there were came about largely from us banging into each other." In the 1970s, writes Wolk, "Marvel's second-tier titles were subject to constant creative shuffling," a process that produced complex crossovers between series amid larger patterns of "retroactive continuity." But crossovers aren't always welcome: "There's a popular conception among irritable mainstream comics readers that crossovers wreck the flow of ongoing series." Wolk breaks up his narrative analysis with "Interlude" chapters regarding business and cultural issues, noting how comics have pinballed among a variety of audiences: adolescents, comic collectors, film buffs, and more. The author's exhaustive and mostly uncritical approach will appeal to those who share his passion for this self-sustaining superhero culture, understanding that "in a story as big as Marvel's, everything can be a reference to the past." A simultaneously wide-ranging and engagingly specific guide to the sprawling realm of comics culture. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

---

The Mountain of Marvels The twenty-seven thousand or so superhero comic books that Marvel Comics has published since 1961 are the longest continuous, self-contained work of fiction ever created: over half a million pages to date, and growing. Thousands of writers and artists have contributed to it. Every week, about twenty slim pamphlets of twenty or thirty pages apiece are added to the body of its single enormous story. By design, any of its episodes can build on the events of any that came before it, and they're all (more or less) consistent with one another. Every schoolchild recognizes the Marvel story's protagonists: Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, the X-Men. Eighteen of the hundred highest-grossing movies of all time, from Avengers: Endgame and Black Panther down to Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy, are based on parts of the story, and it has profoundly influenced a lot of the rest: Star Wars and Avatar and The Matrix would be unimaginable without it. Its characters and the images associated with them appear on T-shirts, travel pillows, dog leashes, pizza cutters, shampoo bottles, fishing gear, jigsaw puzzles, and bags of salad greens. (Some of the people who love the story also love to be reminded of it, or to associate themselves with particular characters from it.) Its catchphrases have seeped into standard usage: "Spidey-sense," "you wouldn't like me when I'm angry," "I say thee nay," "healing factor," "no-you move," "bitten by a radioactive spider," "puny humans," "threat or menace?," "true believers," "'nuff said." Parts of it have been adapted into serial TV dramas, animated cartoons, prose novels, picture books, video games, theme-park attractions, and a Broadway musical. For someone who lives in our society, having some familiarity with the Marvel story is useful in much the same way as, say, being familiar with the Bible is useful for someone who lives in a Judeo-Christian society: its iconography and influence are pervasive. The Marvel story is a mountain, smack in the middle of contemporary culture. The mountain wasn't always there. At first, there was a little subterranean wonder in that spot, a cave that was rumored to have monsters inside it; colorful adventurers had once tested their skills there, and lovers met at its mouth. Then, in the 1960s, it started bulging up above the surface of the earth, and it never stopped growing. It's not the kind of mountain whose face you can climb. It doesn't seem hazardous (and it isn't), but those who try to follow what appear to be direct trails to its summit find that it's grown higher every time they look up. The way to experience what the mountain has to offer is to go inside it and explore its innumerable bioluminescent caverns and twisty passageways; some of them lead to stunning vantage points onto the landscape that surrounds it. There is no clear pathway into the mountain from the outside. Parts of it are abandoned and choked with cobwebs. Other parts are tedious, gruesome, ludicrous, infuriating. And yet people emerge from it all the time, gasping and cheering, telling one another about the marvels they've seen, then rushing back in for more. Marvel Comics, as an artistic and commercial project, began in the early 1960s, initially as the work of a handful of experienced comics professionals-artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, editor/writer Stan Lee, and a few others. The superhero stories that had dominated American comic books in the late Ô30s and early Ô40s had mostly fallen out of style at that point, but instead of returning to that faltering genre as it had been, Kirby, Ditko, and Lee combined it with aspects of the genres that had supplanted it: the uncanny horror of the monster and sci-fi stories Ditko and Kirby had been drawing more recently; the focus on the emotion of the romance anthologies Kirby had helped to invent in 1947; the gently jabbing wit of the humor titles Lee had been writing for many years. That hybrid formula-absorbing monster comics and romance comics and humor comics into superhero comics-turned out to be irresistible and durable. MarvelÕs early stories responded to the atmosphere of their historical moment, sometimes explicitly in their content and always implicitly in their themes. Then Kirby, Lee, Ditko, and their collaborators figured out how to make the individual narrative melodies of all of their comics harmonize with one another, turning each episode into a component of a gigantic epic. That led to a vastly broader artistic collaboration: ever since then, its writers and artists have been elaborating on one another's visions, sometimes set in the same place and time but often separated by generations and continents. The big Marvel story is a funhouse-mirror history of the past sixty years of American life, from the atomic night-terrors of the Cold War to the technocracy and pluralism of the present day-a boisterous, tragicomic, magnificently filigreed story about power and ethics, set in a world transformed by wonders. In some of its deeper caverns, it's the most forbidding, baffling, overwhelming work of art in existence. At its fringes, it's so easy to understand and enjoy that you can read a five-year-old an issue of The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and she'll get it right away. And not even the people telling the story have read the whole thing. That's fine. Nobody is supposed to read the whole thing. That's not how it's meant to be experienced. So, of course, that's what I did. I read all 540,000-plus pages of the story published to date, from Alpha Flight to Omega the Unknown. Do I recommend anyone else do the same? God, no. Am I glad I did it? Absolutely. I've spent some of my happiest days exploring the mountain of Marvels, and I wanted to get a better sense of what was in there so I could help curious travelers figure out how they might get inside it and how they might find the parts they'd like best. (I went all out so you don't have to; if you liked an Avengers movie and are interested in dipping a toe into its characters' comics, or read X-Men as a teenager and wonder what it's looked like since then, I'm here to help you have fun with that.) I also wanted to see what the Marvel narrative said as a single body of work: an epic among epics, Marcel Proust times Doris Lessing times Robert Altman to the power of the Mah

---