Friday, August 27, 2021

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. 


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