Review of "Marvel: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know . . . ," written by Adam Bray, Lorraine Cink, John Sazaklis and Sven Wilson

Review of

Marvel: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know . . . , written by Adam Bray, Lorraine Cink, John Sazaklis and Sven Wilson ISBN 9781465452627

Five out of five stars

 This book is a demonstration of how complex and original the totality of the Marvel universes is. Page after page of characters, brief snippets of storylines, devices and comparisons of one universe with another. There is no way that the level of information truly rises to the level of “absolutely everything,” yet it does give the reader a significant step up in understanding much of what has happened with the characters over the last twenty years.

 Marvel stories have always been ones of fundamental good versus evil, but in the meandering paths from universe to universe, the good sometimes breaks bad and the bad shifts over to the side of the good. Sometimes, it is a case of convenience or necessity, but other times it is a consequence of how that universe is constructed.

 Even the powerful are sometimes humbled in the course of the explanations, for there are times when even the mighty destroyer of worlds Galactus is beset by fear. This is a book that will bring you up to full speed in all the different stories about the Marvel characters, but it will show you how complex and imaginative the Marvel universe is.