Thread by @Comrade_Bullski

Alright, I think the time has come for another topic. This time we tackle how comics publishers spread information to their readers before the internet and the inherent limitations therein.

Today we talk about handbooks.

Humans are creatures of order. We love to structure and process information into patterns we can understand and remember. Thus it is no surprise that reference texts date back as far as writing. The Egyptian book of the dead serves as a guidebook to the afterlife, discussing...

...the threats the soul must face to pass on to eternal bliss and naming and identifying hundreds of gods and spirits whose names and epithets must be memorized for the soul to gain passage. Essentially texts like these are early examples of humans charting the imaginary

As literacy became more common and books cheaper, guidebooks and handbooks became commonplace. Since 1849 the publication Who's Who has catalogued famous people across the world, noting their achievements.

Another vastly influential guidebook is Bullfinch's Mythology, published for the first time in 1867 and readily available since. This series sought to catalogue and organize the mythologies of the world for even a casual reader.

While reference works on for example the adventures of Sherlock Holmes were flourishing, the field of superhero comics grew like a wild, unkempt forest, sprouting new branches everywhere. In the first three decades of superhero stories, any kind of world building and...

...structure was secondary to the impulsive plots, with many creators regarding the medium as ephemeral anyway. Some creators would reference their own works, but overarching world building would not really become a thing until the inter-connectivity of the 1960s.

With the growth of comics' first fandom in the 1960s, fanzines such as the legendary Alter Ego (founded by Roy Thomas) sprung up and began running articles on superhero histories, offering indexes of appearances and chronicling the lives of their favorite characters.

Dedicated fanzines often printed entire timelines and had fans discuss theories about how stories were connected and how to explain discrepancies (something often also discussed in lettercolumns of the day). The desire for more information was there. The fans hungered.

Of course finding fanzines and fanclubs to discuss your favorite comics and be privy to theories like this was hard. You had to find an ad somehere, mail them and then get letters mailed to you and send them back, a slow process. As the 70s came to a close, something happened.

Marvel Editor in Chief Jim Shooter (unsurprisingly with roots in the Legion of Superheroes fandom) began the project that would become the first edition of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, running for 15 issues between 1982 and 1984.

This was a massive event in a way since Marvel was effectively weaponizing the fan speculation into a full publication. With Mark Gruenwald as the head of the project, the OHOTMU quickly set up some ground rules and also served to explain some "rules" of the Marvel Universe.

The OHOTMU contained entirely new art for the profile pictures usually accompanied with one or a few tiny reproduced images from stories with the character, accompanied by a short profile of their history along with vital statistics.

This was the first time Marvel had provided official height and weight statistics for many characters and also served to codify and formalize some of their powers and abilities. Other than that, no new "lore" was given that wasn't featured in a comics story, a policy of Gruenwald

Less important but still notable characters were offered a half profile which was even more compressed.

Teams and specific groupings were usually represented by this headshot grid, with many less important characters not receiving any kind of profile of their own.

Gruenwald also aquired the technical artist Eliot R. Brown who proved an invaluable resource as he could draw up maps of the imaginary lands of the Marvel Universe...

...show off uniforms of various organizations such as S.H.I.E.L.D, the Kree military...

...and his speciality, extremely detailed schematics of buildings and technology. Brown put a ton of effort into making even the fantastic gadgets of the MU seem like they could work, as well as give a distinct shape and form to famous places.

Thus the OHOTMU not only introduced you to the important players of the MU but also took you on a grand journey from Avenger's Mansion to K'un-Lun and beyond.

The final few pages of each issue served to catalogue the (already) teeming amount of alien species introduced in the (then) 20 years of Marvel history.

The inside back cover was dedicated to very briefly describing the hundreds of minor characters that had been considered too minor to get an entry.

I think the appendix part can be absolutely hilarious to read through today because some characters in there were considered unimportant enough to be dismissed in 84-84 while guys like this could get a full-page profile. As Gruenwald confessed, you never know who becomes famous

Several issues near the end of the run were "the Book of the Dead" (see that was totally setup before) dedicated to the characters who were either dead or "inactive" in the universe at the time. If their arms are crossed on the cover, they're dead. Otherwise they're just chilling

Of course if you go through the Book of the Dead you find most characters in there are alive and kicking now, though some were out of action for a long time like Thanos or Bucky.

The final issue of the first version of the OHOTMU ended with a book entirely about the weapons, devices, artifacts and gadgets of the Marvel Universe, and was an Elliot R. Brown extravaganza, filled with schematics, blueprints and diagrams.

The success of the OHOTMU did not go unnoticed over at DC, where there was already growing sentiment that their own universe was too confusing and hard for readers to get into. Part of the remedy they planned was Crisis on Infinite Earths, and the other part of it was:

Initially spearheaded by Len Wein and Marvl Wolfman, "Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe" was the companion volume to Crisis, aiming to cover every major DC character ever published, going a step further than Marvel had.

Kicking off in 1985, Who's Who initially featured the same kind of single-page profiles OHOTMU had, compressing character histories while offering up vital stats. Who's Who was much vaguer on describing powers and abilities, with the stated intent to give future creators leeway.

Not only was Who's Who a bit lighter on specifics, it also had considerably fewer technical schematics and diagrams, though it did feature a few. None could really match Brown's versimilitude, though, but I appreciate the effort.

Who's Who had some advantages over its predecessor, of course. First off it was RIDICULOUSLY inclusive, giving profiles to many characters who the OHOTMU would never have bothered with.

Also instead of the extremely dull headshot grid, Who's Who gave you lavish images of the entire team in action, sometimes by surprising artist choices like Dave Gibbons drawing every Captain Marvel rogue.

Or Jerry Ordway's gorgeous JSA two-pager.

Who's Who also did the occasional half-profile, though less frequently than the OHOTMU did as obscure characters were much more likely to get a full page here.

Much like the Handbook, Who's Who also offered fascinating editorial content such as very interesting letter discussions of canonicity and who should be included, as well as the vital pronounciation guide!

The inside back cover of each issue also contained a list of titles where each character could be find, if applicable. So if you read the profile about Challengers of the Unknown you would handily be directed to the current issue of DC Comics Presents to check them out.

Probably the greatest achievment of Who's Who is that it managed to become a showcase of the best artists possible. A small selection: Steve Ditko, Dave Gibbons, Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen, Jerry Ordway, Walt Simonson, George Perez, Denys Cowan, Curt Swan, Gil Kane, JLG...

...and of course page upon page of all-new Jack Kirby art, ranging from the expected (New Gods) to the totally unexpected (Crazy Quilt!). The series is almost worth the cover price just for the Kirby art.

Of course Who's Who also suffered a major setback during its run. Since it overflowed past Crisis, much of the information of the early issues was already obsolete, rendered non-canon by the massive crossover. This became especially apparent going into 1986.

The most infamous example of the series being disrupted is that many entries on the Earth-1 silver/bronze age Superman were totally dropped in favor of a John Byrne canon Superman profile. This got a lot of ire in the letter column and marred the series premise.

Overall I think both series had their strengths. OHOTMU worked better as a reference work and encylopedia while Who's Who worked better as an art and character showcase.

Now we must backtrack a year to 1985, however, as Marvel was already at work with the sequel to the OHOTMU when the first series ended. This resulted in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe - Deluxe Edition, a massive 20-volume series where each issue was 68 pages!

Still with Gruenwald at the helm, Deluxe sought to correct the drawbacks of the first edition. More prominent characters now got multiple page profiles containing much more and rich information, and the art was given more room to breathe.

It also naturally included and expanded on newer characters while shuffling now less used ones off to a promised appendix.

The new series also included lots of new Brown technical drawings while incorporating many of the old ones into their respective character profiles for a much more holistic reading experience.

Brown also vastly exceeded his work for the original series by including gorgeous new pieces like this layout of the Nine Worlds of Asgardian cosmology...

...as well as much improved layouts of Avengers Mansion and other prominent locations.

As with the previous volume, Deluxe ended with a few issues of Book of the Dead with some new additions like Guardian. Morbidly, each Book of the Dead profile now contained a frame of how the character died under their portrait! Creepy!

Thankfully "inactive" characters were now back in the main handbook and not reduced to a living dead status, so Jessica Drew and Johnny Blaze could breathe a sigh of relief. With no revolving door of death yet, many of the dead characters were considered very finally gone.

Deluxe ran into 1988 and was also collected fully into a trade paperback form which was very unusual at the time. The trades unfortunately omitted the text appendix at the end of each issue, but included some corrections and addendums.

With the handbook format firmly established at both companies, Marvel and DC began doing spinoffs of their respective books. DC did two "Update" series in 1987 and 1988 adding hundreds of new characters to their roster.

These series inherited the unenviable job of printing copious amounts of post-Crisis revisions to the original series, resulting in reams of original entries being invalidated and others changed beyond recognition (thanks Byrne).

Under the aegis of Paul Levitz there was also a 7-issue Who's Who in the LOSH which greatly expanded on the Legion profiles and added hundreds of previously un-profiled minor characters to the mix.

DC also surprisingly printed a 2-issue Who's Who in Star Trek series, for reasons lost to time.

Fascinatingly, up to and including Who's Who Update 87 DC still included profiles for comics which "took place outside the DC multiverse" such as Watchmen.

Marvel copied DC's format and published an OHOTMU Update 89 which included many new or radically altered characters. This introduced current mainstays such as Venom and Apocalypse!

I will also mention in passing that both companies also had dedicated handbooks produced by their roleplaying licensees. Marvel had gamer handbooks published by TSR and DC had Mayfair Games doing Who's Who volumes. These are fun to page through as curiosities.

The year after the final Deluxe edition update DC jumped back in the saddle with an all-new Who's Who volume. Consisting of hole-punched loose-leaf 55-page issues these were designed to be arranged into binders by the reader, and thus presented characters haphazardly.

The series ran for 16 issues into 1992 and is notable for printing strictly post-Crisis information and for including many "Mature Readers" characters from proto-Vertigo alongside traditional superheroes.

Despite a solid artistic lineup (for the most part) this series was nowhere near as inclusive as the previous ones, focusing heavily on new characters and omitting old ones even if they had a ton of history.

This series saw two spinoffs, a brief 1993 update series and one for the !mpact Universe, the briefly licensed Archie superhero universe DC published in the early 1990s.

The series did feature great printing quality which showed off the full-page art amazingly, which is a definite plus!

It also included the odd fold-out poster, which is always appreciated.

Not to be outdone, Marvel also restarted the OHOTMU from scratch in 1990 with the OHOTMU Master Edition, a 36-issue loose-leaf series. Unfortunately this is the series that killed the handbook format for me (and probably many others).

Master Edition was designed as an ongoing series, presenting new characters and updates as it rolled along, but the format they chose for it was awful. I'm sorry, but that's it. The same stock pose for each character and dry, uninteresting data points with a biography which...

...I can't imagine prompted anyone to go read more. Keith Pollard is a good artist and he did well on the assignment but having every character drawn by the same artist and in the same pose is a huge mistake.

It's a tribute to the comics book of the early 90s that even something like the Master Edition managed to last 3 years, but it is just not any fun to read or look at. After 1993, Marvel would not publish another handbook for 11 years.

In 1997 DC brought back their handbook series in a radically different format. Rather than a series dedicated to profiles, they started doing one-shot comics that mixed story content, text pieces and profiles. This was Secret Files and Origins.

The first issue was JLA Secret Files and Origins, dedicated to Grant Morrison and Howard Porter's mega-popular relaunch of the Justice League. The creative team even offered an all-new origin story for the team in the issue, which certainly made it exciting to a young Bullski.

SF&O had relatively light profiles compared to some previous handbooks but as compensation offered things like bonus comics, in-universe material and TIMELINES. Yep, 10 years since the first silver age Justice League story, you read it here folks.

SF&O often had heavy involvement from the creative team of the main title such as the Starman issue which is almost entirely written by James Robinson and slots right into the main series.

Others were less relevant, just offering some general background information and a tidbit or two.

The profiles became a bit longer over time but were still largely the same kind of bite-sized character introductions as the first Who's Who had used over a decade earlier.

Sorry, I don't have a ton to say about the profiles here. They're more of the same, they're fine but they vary wildly in quality depending on the writer.

The issues are totally worth reading for the insane extra material tho, take a look at this Batman timeline.

Superman SF&O #1 also gave the world one of my favorite pages of any comic ever and I cannot move on without sharing it.

Now, SF&O lasted for a very long time and in fact DC still publishes handbooks off and on, though they no longer stick to the strict profile format established by Who's Who. With the rise of the internet, finding out Batman's height has never been easier anyway.

While DC was doing this, Marvel was silent on the handbook front until 2004 when they realized that they could once again weaponize the fandom but in a much more direct way.

In 2001 a bunch of dedicated fans had started the "Appendix to the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe" website which originally sought to mostly chronicle characters who had appeared after the demise of the Master Edition or those that were too obscure to ever have had a...

profile. They quickly expanded their scope as more fans signed on, and with scans and reprints on the rise finding information and doing research was easier than ever. The site grew and grew, and eventually Marvel employed these fans directly.

Starting with a series of one-shots in 2004 that were like single series OHOTMU volumes, these new writers provided some classic-styled new handbook entries, though largely with reused art due to budget concerns.

These new handbooks quickly grew in scope to include entire genres like magic or horror...

...current events like Annihilation, Civil War and Dark Reign...

...and even entire decades, covering the 60's to 90's.

This generation of handbook profiles leaned heavily on Gruenwald's style in terms of content, presenting character histories as running text and quantifying powers and abilities.

Due to the open-ended nature of the project there was also ample room for text appendixes about dimensions, spells, planets and for minor entries.

The series unfortunately took a slightly too inclusive approach to the project (for my liking) resulting in some profiles like the Jack the Ripper one being absolute messes of trying to reconcile half a dozen incompatible stories.

In 2008 the team started the ambitious project to collate, update and integrate all these diverse handbooks into a single new OHOTMU series, the OHOTMU A-Z which consisted of 14 hardback volumes.

Unfortunately disappointing sales killed a softcover run of the series which also included update pages in each volume, and while new handbooks still sporadically come out, Marvel has not tried the concise approach again to this date.

And that leads us to today. Both Marvel and DC seem more than willing to hand over the reins of printing reference books to third part companies now, with DK being a popular choice.

Unfortunately these books (often with names like "Encyclopedia" or "Guidebook") are seldom more than vague collections of previous profiles or worse, copied from wiki sources, and as such can be awkward and sometimes even wrong.

They are also often very brief, making the original Who's Who seem like a veritable font of information by comparison. But these third-party books are of course aimed at new fans or those with only passing familiarity with the settings.

And of course the legacy of the original handbooks live on with other creators, many of whom grew up with a set of Who's Who or OHOTMU in their collections.

@TalkinLadyShiva would kill me if I didn't include her at least once.

And thus it goes. From the nascent fandom of the 1960s to official publications in the 80s, experimental designs in the 90s and then back to the fans in the 00s and beyond, handbooks will probably never go away even in this era of wikis.

If you enjoyed this thread go visit the Appendix, it's a veritable treasure trove of obscure stuff and is the backbone of the most recent OHOTMU: marvunapp.com

As usual, feel free to leave comments and questions, I'll try to get to everything.

Thanks for reading and I'll see you again soon.