An Epic Tale about Comics

Wolk, Douglas.  AllThe Marvels: A Journey to the Ends of the Biggest Story Ever Told.  New 

         York: Penguin Press, 2021.  ISBN: 9780735222168 

Do you read comics?  Are you a DC fan, a Marvel Fan, both?  or do you lean more to the independent comics?  Well, if you are a Marvel fan, Douglas Wolk has a treat for you!  He read 27,000+ issues (540,000+ pages) of comics - from Alpha Flight to Omega the Unknown - so that he "can be a guide to help curious travelers...."  So if you are curious, go on the journey with him!

Douglas Wolk begins by discussing the formation of Marvel, the intersections of all the Marvel stories, and a FAQ of the weird questions many folks pose to him or online.  Wolk begins with the Fantastic Four posing Fantastic Four #51 (June 1966) as the wellspring of the Marvel universe. Spiderman gets his due with a chapter as does the Avengers, the X-Men, Thor and Loki, Black Panther, and Doctor Doom.  Interestingly, Shang-Chi and The Master of Kung Fu merits a whole chapter dissecting Marvel in regard to race and color in comics.  Some of those themes also show up in the chapter on crime fighters, Captain Marvel/Ms. Marvel and Squirrel Girl.  In a series of interlude chapters, Wolk discusses monsters, how the Vietnam War influenced Marvel comics, pop stars such as Dazzler, appearances of US presidents in Marvel comics, March 1965 which is when Marvel really began creating a complete universe for its characters to inhabit, and an revealing chapter on Linda Carter.  Then in the final chapter, Wolk reveals why he read all these comics, he was trying to create a systematic outline for his son to find the tales he enjoyed in the Marvel universe.  

Douglas Wolk takes the reader on a journey through All of the Marvels in 384+ pages.  In the limited space of the book, he provides a springboard for the reader to find their own path into the world of Marvel. 

Heading West!

 Druy, Bob, & Tom Clavin.  Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America's First

         Frontier.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 2021.  ISBN: 9781250247131

Daniel Boone - now there is a name that is legendary!  What do you know about him?  How much of what you know is fact versus how much is fiction?  Born in Pennsylvania, trekked to North Carolina with his father,  he is known for trailblazing a path to Kentucky and settling that state while fighting Native Americans during the American Revolution.  But those facts do not tell the whole story.

 

Bob Drury and Tom Clavin provide an interesting biography of Daniel Boone in relation to the crossing the Appalachian Mountains, settling Kentucky, and the course of the American Revolution on the far western frontier.  They divide his life into four parts - The Frontier, The Explorers, The Settlers, and The Conquest.  The Frontier covers Boone's early life, his move to North  Carolina, his involvement with the Braddock disaster during the French and Indian War, his marriage, and his first ventures across the mountains.  The Explorers includes the Pontiac Indian War, the Royal Proclamation regarding settlers, Boone and party finding the Cumberland Gap, and early experiences trapping and exploring Kentucky.  The Settlers discusses Lord Dunmore's War, Logan's Lament, Boone and company moving across the mountains and the early settling of Kentucky with the kidnapping of his daughter, Jemina Boone, and two Callawy girls amidst rounds of assaults on white settlements.  The Conquest opens with the capture of Daniel Boone by the Shawnee, his escape to warn settlers of the British and Indians' forthcoming attack, his service as legislator in the Virginia House of Burgesses, his role in the Blue Lick disaster, and his later life.

In Blood and Treasure, Bob Drury and Tom Clavin provide the reader a life of Daniel Boone that is sympathetic without being a hero-worshiping hack job.  Boone is shown in context of events rather than being an isolated life.  The reader finishes Blood and Treasure more knowledgeable of the settling of the "West" and the surrounding events then in many other Boone biographies.