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Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe

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The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is a definitive guide to the imaginary universe of Marvel Comics. At the time that the Handbook (henceforth referred to as OHOTMU) was published, Marvel had published thousands of comic books, featuring adventures by such pop culture icons as the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Hulk, Daredevil and others. In these comics, countless characters, groups of characters, locales and technologies had been introduced — so much so that it was felt that a comprehensive guide to it all was necessary.

The OHOTMU detailed the most significant things in the Marvel Universe, itemizing them into individual entries. Individual entries consisted, in most cases, of:

  • A frontal full-body view of the character. These illustrations were drawn solely for the OHOTMU, often by the artist most closely associated with the character; for example, the entries for Elektra and Bullseye were illustrated by Frank Miller.
  • Prose text describing the character's history, powers, and other abilities and unique traits, as well as 'statistics' such as place of birth, former aliases, height, weight, hair and eye color and so forth. In the Deluxe Edition, these descriptions were extremely comprehensive, and in a few cases included previously unrevealed information. In many cases, the character's history was the largest section — often even larger than the one where the character's superhuman powers were explained. In addition, major important pieces of equipment were given technical illustrations with breakdowns of their functions and features.
  • Example pictures of the character in action, taken directly from the comics themselves.

In the original OHOTMU, characters were listed at one character per page, although minor characters were sometimes listed at two to a page and major characters would occasionally receive more than one page. In the Deluxe Edition, however, every character received at least one page; the most significant characters such as Captain America or Iron Man could receive up to 3-5 pages for their writeups; less important characters, such as Sunspot or Volcana, typically received one or two pages.

There have been many attempts to keep the OHOTMU concept alive since it was first birthed in 1982:

  • 1982-84: a 15-issue series; this was the original OHOTMU. Issues 13 and 14 were the 'Book of the Dead and Disabled', featuring characters and groups who were, at the time, believed dead or inactive, and issue 15 was the 'Book of Weapons, Hardware, and Paraphernalia', featuring technical drawings of Iron Man's armor, Spider-Man's web-shooters and other notable characters' equipment. The back of each issue in the series featured a brief Appendix, giving one-line listings for minor and inactive characters.
  • 1985-88: a 20-issue series, updating the original into a Deluxe Edition (OHOTMUDE for short). The last three issues of this series were, again, the 'Book of the Dead', cataloguing characters that were believed dead at the time; the technical drawings from the original series' supplemental 'Book of Weapons' were reproduced and updated in the relevant characters' main entries or, in a few cases, receiving their own entries. The '85-'88 run (Deluxe Edition) has also been collected in trade paperback format, a series of 10 thicker volumes of 128 pages each.
  • 1989: the OHOTMU Update '89 was published, an 8-issue series. This series is notable for including numerous non-superhuman supporting characters, where previous runs had all but neglected them.
  • Early 1990s: OHOTMU Master Edition was a 30+ issue series in which each issue was actually a shrinkwrapped pack of loose-leaf pages each featuring a character; this series is generally considered of poorer quality, and rather than offering prose information, concentrates more on trying to make up statistics for characters, reminiscent of trading card games popular in the nineties
  • 2004: Marvel has been releasing individual one-shot OHOTMUs that are targeting specific families of characters, such as Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe: Spider-Man 2004, Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe: X-Men 2004 and Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe: Avengers 2004. Presumably, these individual handbooks will be annual releases. Not especially comprehensive, these releases are intended to supplement the line of Marvel Encyclopedias, each of which is also themed towards a specific Marvel "family", such as the Marvel Knights imprint.

The OHOTMUDE is generally considered the best researched and most comprehensive OHOTMU. Its trade paperback version is also the most durable OHOTMU available. Unfortunately, it is currently almost two decades out of date, the last issue having been released in 1988.

In addition to the Marvel Universe, Marvel published a number of handbook-style products for their licensed properties, among them Conan the Barbarian (The Official Handbook to the Conan Universe), G.I. Joe (G.I. Joe Order of Battle) and the Transformers (Transformers Universe).

DC Comics published a guide to their own DC Universe as well, under the name of Who's Who in the DC Universe.

Various editions of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Deluxe Edition contain information concerning the following:

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

References

  • Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe #1-15 (Marvel Comics, January 1982 - )
    • #1: Abomination to Avengers Quinjet (December 1983)
    • #2: Baron Mordo to Collective Man (February 1983)
  • Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Deluxe Edition #1-20 (Marvel Comics, August 1985 - February 1988)
    • #1: Abomination to Batroc's Brigade (December 1985)
    • #2: Beast to Clea (January 1986)
    • #3: Cloak to Doctor Octopus (February 1986)
    • #4: Dr Strange to Galactus (March 1986)
    • #5: Gardener to The Hulk (April 1986)
    • #6: Human Torch to Ka-Zar (May 1986)
    • #7: Khoryphos to Magneto (June 1986)
    • #8: Magus to Mole Man (July 1986)
    • #9: Molecule Man to Owl (August 1986)
    • #10: Paladin to The Rhino (September 1986])
    • #11: Richard Rider to Sidewinder (October 1986)
    • #12: Sif to Sunspot (November 1986)
    • #13: Super-Adaptoid to Umar (December 1986)
    • #14: Unicorn to Wolverine (January 1987)
    • #15: Wonder Man to Zzzax plus Alien Races (March 1987)
    • #16: Book of the Dead: Air-Walker to Death-Stalker (June 1987)
    • #17: Book of the Dead: Destiny to Hobgoblin (August 1987)
    • #18: Book of the Dead: Hyperion to Nighthawk (October 1987)
    • #19: Book of the Dead: Nuke to Obadiah Stane (December 1987)
    • #20: Book of the Dead: Stick to Zuras (February 1988)
  • Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Update '89 #1-8 (Marvel Comics, July 1989 - December 1989)
    • #1: Adversary to Chameleon (July 1989)
    • #2: Champion of the Universe to Ecstasy (August 1989)
    • #3: Eon to Hulk (September 1989)
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