All of the Marvels: An Amazing Voyage into Marvel’s Universe and 27,000 Superhero Comics by Douglas Wolk
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I was 7 or 8 years old, my mother took me to Harry McCormick's newsagents to choose a new comic, replacing The Beano and The Beezer of which I have become tired. I chose one with a bright red and blue character on the cover - Spider-man Comics Weekly Nr 100. This black and white UK reprint of the original US comics was my first introduction to the Marvel Universe, a love affair that has lasted almost 50 years.

Unlike their Distinguished Competition, Marvel has never pressed the reset button, and Douglas Wolk's ALL THE MARVELS argues that the interconnectedness of all the stories, at least since, maybe even well before, Fantastic Four issue one in 1961, the fact that any event in their history can impact later stories, is part of the key to Marvel's success. Wolk read over 27000 comics, those featuring the major characters, Spider-Man, Avengers, Hulk, but also lesser known protagonists, like The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and Dazzler, and he finds the threads which bind the whole thing into, as he puts it, the longest continuous, self-contained work of fiction ever created.

Wolk's book is entertaining, the footnotes possibly even more so. He took me right back to Harry McCormick's and the world of wonders that that first reprint opened up. I'm now re-reading Master of Kung-Fu and Black Panther and looking forward to revisiting with Stan and Jack and Steve and Roy and Gerry and the rest...

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