Modern mythology leaps into the popular culture from the pages of comic books and now propels the astounding growth of the graphic novel. Aimed at the genesis, The Superhero Book is the ultimate A-to-Z compendium of everyone’s favorite overachievers in the pitched battle between good and evil. With 300 entries examining more than 1,000 high-powered icons and their place in the popular firmament, The Superhero Book is the first comprehensive profile of superheroes across all media, following their path from comic-book stardom to radio, television, movies, and novels. It’s good to be super-great. With more than 150 full-color illustrations (including dozens of classic comic covers), The Superhero Book covers the best-loved and most historically significant superheroes—mainstream and counterculture, famous and forgotten, best and worst. Each significant era of the superhero is explored—the Golden Age (1938–1954), the Silver Age (1956–1969), the Bronze Age (1970–1979), and the Modern Age (1980–present)—providing the reader with unique perspective of the hero over the twentieth century and beyond. Readers will delight in the mountain of trivia, never-before revealed facts and finds, and insider information, written with insight and enthusiasm by a devoted team of comic-book, film, and pop-culture experts.
A fine companion volume using the same A-Z reference format ^ Gina Misiroglu works with David A. Roach on THE SUPERHERO BOOK: THE ULTIMATE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF COMIC-BOOK ICONS AND HOLLYWOOD HEROES, which provides a fine companion volume using the same A-Z reference format and surveying all significant characters in almost 300 alphabetically indexed entries. Together these are key references for any comprehensive cartoon or comic library holding, accenting histories with a peppering of color and black and white illustrations from source materials.
Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch
Good but not great ^ Was it just me or did anyone else notice a lot of spelling errors in the book? Also under Greatest American Hero they called Robert Culp's character John Mackie and in the show he was called Bill Maxwell. Things like that bothered me and this is no way an "Ultimate Encyclopedia". They hardly touched on comic book characters like: Grendel, Whisper, American Flagg. Really a disappointing book.
not what i expected for ^ First of all i was looking for a book that describes each super heroe's style, character, super powers in detail, even i expected a scala or a chart showing his/her powers, intelligence, agility, dexterity out of say, 10 or 100 what ever. But none is available, just a brief explanation of how he /she is created, and etc. No description of his/her adventures, friends, the very popular speciality etc.
I bought this book with 2 other books "The comic book encyclopedia" (ron goulart) and "500 comic book villains" (Baron's production) and none of them satisfied me.
However only book which provides all superheroes with "pictures" is "The comic book encyclopedia" (ron goulart)this and the other book doesnt even provide picture for all characters but some mostly known ones.
i dont recommend this product for those who is familiar with the super heroes but to those who knows nothing about comics.
Nice , but... ^ If you believe that you are getting a book where you will SEE illustrations of many, or even about 10%, of the superheros that there are info/articles on...think again. You may, or may not, read about your favorites and learn some interesting facts, but, you will not see them. Bizarre for a book on a very visual medium. As to the selection of superheroes and the (dis)proportionate length of some articles...well, call it author's choice...or bias. A tad light on the founding fathers, so to speak, of the 1940's. I am immediately selling mine.
Got a comic fan in your life? Make his/her day with this one ^ Their are other comic book encyclopedias out their. Some of them have flashier art (not that this doesn't) or higher page counts. But a when I read through this one I was impressed.
I challenged the book by looking for characters other than Spider-Man, such as MiracleMan and Phantom Lady and was pleased with the coverage they were given. Lots of nice tidbits and indepth coverage of many heroes including their crossovers into other media.
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