All of the Marvels

Douglas Wolk All of the Marvels (2021)
I nearly shat myself when I first heard of this having been published. All of the Marvels is a general summary produced by a man who sat down and read almost every Marvel comic ever published from the first issue of Fantastic Four to the present day, and I nearly shat myself because I've been working on something vaguely similar, albeit on a somewhat reduced scale and which probably won't sell shit. Thankfully it turns out that Wolk's magnum opus isn't quite the same deal as that which I've been working on; although of course I had to read it to be sure, and because it seemed like it would be worth reading.

Roughly speaking, it's a history and analysis of the Marvel Universe, the environment shared by everyone from Spider-Man to Howard the Duck, allowing them all to turn up in each others comic books without the kind of contradictions which lead to knife crime at fan gatherings. Because we're talking about a world described across more than twenty-seven thousand comic books, Wolk tends to focus on those themes and characters of the larger narrative dearer to his heart, so it's a subjective, free-wheeling analysis rather than an academic exercise, which is probably as it should be. Happily, this also means that because the Marvel Universe began life in primary colours and isn't anything like so complicated as where the rest of us live, arguments made for details tend to say a lot about the whole, notably the chapter dedicated to issues of the relatively obscure Master of Kung Fu.

While I'm sure it may seem harsh to suggest that Marvel disappeared up its own arse during the nineties and has never really recovered, this is more or less how it has felt to me. It isn't that they haven't published anything decent in the last thirty or so years, because clearly they have, but there isn't much of it that speaks to me in quite the same way as it did during the years when even the pure garbage was kind of interesting by some definition. Consequently I didn't find the second half of Wolk's journey quite as engaging or convincing, and while it's interesting to read about what became of this or that character, it hasn't inspired me to track down any back issues - possibly excepting some of the Dark Reign material which seemingly foreshadowed the Trump presidency back in 2009 with disturbing acuity.

Wolk's slightly rambling style is very readable, although I found the endless footnotes a little irritating given that most of them could surely have been woven into the main text without significant disruption; and the fifty-page introduction telling us what is about to happen seems excessive and unnecessary given that All of the Marvels isn't actually a scientific thesis proposing to unscramble some previously impenetrable mystery. I gather the introduction is intended to serve as preparation for those who've never read a Marvel comic and er… who probably aren't massively likely to want to read this either, I wouldn't have thought.

We also have the not unexpected minor instances of sneering at white heterosexual males, because how dare they etc. etc.

The only kind of gatekeepers who have any business being around comics are the ones who make sure the gate stays wide open to anyone who wants to come join the fun.

Personally I don't always have a problem with gatekeepers. They tend to keep out the wankers who only appreciate your thing once they've turned it into something completely different, and which will usually be shite. Maybe it's just me. If I'm flying from one country to another I'd rather not do it in an aircraft built by persons who were happy for just anyone to come join the aircraft construction fun.

Griping aside, if it's not the Homer's Iliad claimed by all those completely impartial comic book authors who've praised the book on the back cover, it has a lot to recommend it, throws up a whole bunch of stuff that even I didn't know - sad gatekeeping fucker that I am - and leaves one feeling surprisingly warmed by its subject, reminding us that even if the medium is essentially corporate and sales driven, that which Marvel communicated between 1963 and 2017 was nevertheless often the work of genuine nutters and visionaries.