Official Index to the Marvel Universe

[WOLVERINE25TH]

So anybody been pickin' these up? Kind of a must-have fer the most anal-retentive of fans.

Any thoughts out there?

 

[Phaedrus45]

Hey Wolverine! I picked up the first two, and have been a bit disappointed in the presentation. As it's a month by month history of Marvel Comics, I thought it would actually break down month by month ALL the comics in that month, not just do the history of three comics. (Plus, by the second issue, we have the X-Men history way ahead of the other two.) Plus, how can you start out the History of Marvel Comics without starting out with the comic that started it all, Fantastic Four??!!??

Sure, it's neat to own, I'd just rather know all the Marvel Comics that came out in a particular month.

 

[WOLVERINE25TH]

My guess is those three are the focus as they're the flavor of the moment. Spidey's got BND buzz, Wolverine's comin' to theaters, Iron Man just had a blockbuster movie and turned the MU upside-down.

The X-Men history is an interestin' thing. You can thank fer the most part their cancellation with #66. There was 27 issues of reprints which leaves 27 slots pretty much barren while Iron Man and Spidey chugged along. Most of those missing stories wouldn't even begin to be explored till later. But then that's why the chronologies list what their next appearances would be had the series kept going.

 

[Phaedrus45]

Well, we got Hidden Years to fill on those issues. Uggg...that stuff Marvel had Byrne doing in the 90's was awful stuff.

Here is what Byrne had to say about that series:

According to Byrne, the series "was clearly finite, since [Giant-Size X-Men #1] was out there as an "end point" for my series, but the way I had it worked out, I could have easily done 100 issues or more before I had to send the team off to Krakoa."

Oh, GOD, I couldn't imagine trying to read 100 issues of that stuff.

 

[WOLVERINE25TH]

I didn't think Hidden Years was all that bad. If anythin', Byrne's dated style made it feel like as if those issues were reprints of actual comics.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Only Byrne's style for the past decade has been bland and lifeless, unlike his earlier work. The guy's a machine at best now.

 

[WOLVERINE25TH]

So the third issue came out last week, and so far it's chuggin' along at a good rate. Lotsa information to digest, probably more than anyone wanted I'm sure.

Anyone else out there grabbin' these?