All of the Marvels

Wolk's journey through the Marvel print universe involved him reading 27,000 comics ranging back and forth from the nominal “beginning” in 1961 right to almost the present day. It's a love letter to a remarkable body of work, the largest, longest running, continuous work of fiction ever created.

Of course it would be impossible to review every single back issue so Wolk does something far more sensible and creates what he calls “trailheads”. You like Spider-Man? Try this story, this arc, that crossover. X-Men? Avengers? Come this way....

In doing so he summarises this huge body of work superbly well, finding connections between past and present, always putting the stories in their cultural context. Because Marvel never shied away from reflecting their times, be it black power, Viet Nam or creeping fascism, it is all woven into the stories of super-powered beings in garish costumes fighting nefarious super-villains or cosmic big bads.

Covering the major heroes in detail, X-Men, Avengers, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Black Panther, Wolk also weaves in interludes that cover things like Marvel's history with romance comics, or what presidents have been featured over the years. Or Squirrel Girl! It all adds to the rich tapestry.

As an overview of Marvel's creation and the people that started it (Lee, Kirby, Ditko etc) it's a great read and, as someone who moved away from super-hero comics years ago, has given me some new stories to investigate by writers such as Jonathan Hickman. I grew up with Marvel (Spidey was always my favourite) so revisiting it in Wolk's company has been a huge nostalgia hit.

And, at the end, there's a very personal coda where Wolk speaks about reading these comics with his son, and how it formed a bond between them, which is quite touching and shows the power of these stories.

I came across a YouTuber comic nerd who had been given this book as a present. He was about two thirds through it but ranted about it being “political” and how he “hated that shit”. Either he was being very naive, or very stupid, or only reads at the most shallow level, because politics is woven in to the fabric of these stories. It may not be overt, it may be muddled at times, or too on-the-nose at others, but it's there. To deny that is to fail to understand what you are reading. First black superhero? Political. Mad man in the White House? Political. Mutants as metaphor for the oppressed outsider? Political. Female superheroes ascendant? Political.

If you love Marvel comics, give this a go. It's extremely well done. If you haven't read comics for years, this might just spark your interest again.