| Bestsellers | | • | Guinness: World Records 2009 (Guinness World Records) | | • | The Bro Code | | • | Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts, ... With Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory | | • | Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else | | • | The New York Times: The Complete Front Pages: 1851-2008 | | • | The Official Guide for GMAT Review, 11th Edition | | • | The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2009 (World Almanac and Book of Facts) | | • | An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn't | | • | The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich | | • | Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association |
|
|
|
|
Marvel Encyclopedia Volume 2: X-Men HC (Marvel Encyclopedia) | 
| Authors: Syd Barney-hawke, Eric J. Moreels
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Category: Book
List Price: $29.99
Buy New: $19.79
You Save: $10.20 (34%)
Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 303428
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 11.1 x 7.4 x 0.7
ISBN: 0785111999
Dewey Decimal Number: 741.5973
EAN: 9780785111993
Publication Date: April 1, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
In 1963, a revolutionary new breed of hero emerged in the pages of X-MEN #1. These strange men and women each possessed a special "mutant" gane, granting them incredible powers and abilities. Since those early years, Marvel's mutants have exploded into a world-wide pop-culture phenomenon. From a single comic book, the X-Men went on to star in a diverse line of titles featuring mutants of every type imaginable, as well as a pair of top-rated animated series and two hit movies. Featuring more than 350 fully illustrated biographies, the X-MEN ENCYCLOPEDIA is a comprehensive guide to these world-famous Marvel Comics characters -- their mysterious origins, their incredible powers, their titanic struggles and their hidden tragedies.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
 X Marks the Spot August 18, 2008
32 out of 32 found this review helpful
The Marvel universe is vast. It is filled with many heroes and villians, past and present. One of the largest parts of the Marvel Universe is the X-Men and their family of groups and associations(Alpha Flight, Hellfire Club, New Mutants, Starjammers, etc).
To be honest, sometimes you can not tell the characters without a dictionary or a score card. Comics used to be so simple. Storylines these days are interconnected and entwined that you need a book like this to make sense of who is who. so now you need an encyclopedia like this to remember the character's back stories and histories.
This book is a nice gift for any X fans of any age...and helpful to anyone new to the X-Men universe. It is well done and well illustrated. You can understand this universe of characters (heroes and villians) and even the danger room better than if you are reading the comics itself.
Is it worth a thirty dollar price tag? Sure if you want learn all about the X-man Universe! After reading this Encyclopedia, I am ready to start reading the XMEN comics again!
Bennet Pomerantz AUDIOWORLD
Collecters and Newbies December 7, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is great for anyone who knows nothing about X men to learn alittle somethin'. However, if you are already a deticated fan you probably won't find anything new in this book. But then again, I fancy myself quite the fan and I purchased it as well as the rest of the Marvel encyclopedia's and found they really aren't that bad as a group.
 Other Part August 28, 2006
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
If you have read the Marvel Encyclopedia, this edition includes every one who is not in the Marvel Encyclopedia. If you purchase both you will pretty much have the Marvel universe at your fingertips. If you can get both encyclopedias You will not regret it!
 Save your money!!!!!!!!!!!!! May 29, 2006
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
This book is NOT worth $30+ !! Been reading since the 70's and this is another attempt at slapping an X on something and calling it ice cream. Character bio's were glossed over in favor of awful artwork (for some) and some bio's were innacurate or just wrong on the facts. More time and energy should have been spent on research instead of the "ooooh-ahhh" factor. I only had the misfortune of paying $1.99 for this stinker as part of a online comic order. I paid too much even then. What I Would recommend is either the 40 years of X-men dvd set - can't go wrong there, or, wait til the end of the year as the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe 2006 will be finished and Marvel just LOVES reprinting! You can bet that this will be reprinted in a trade. It appears that they will be doing individual bio's of all team members in one issue ( or maybe two, lotsa mutants lol) But the info is MUCH more accurate and you'll probably save ALOT more money than you would if you bought this "book". I was forced to give this 1 star as there were no negative stars from which to choose. This would be a black hole on the star scale!
 A necessary evil... November 17, 2005
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
-What is it? As the name implies, it is a guide to the X-Men and their corner of the Marvel Comics universe that is almost essential to any one who is a long-term or recent fan of Marvel's mutants. It is also a short-sighted marketing tool.
-The Good: The structure of the book is so tidy it's almost obsessive-compulsive. The first section is all current, give or take, X-Men; next come the Acolytes, Alpha Flight, and so on, with a miscellaneous grouping towards the end. The selection of artwork is reason enough to buy the book- a brilliant and breath-taking collection that runs the gauntlet of virtually every person ever paid money to draw the X-Men.
-The Bad: Although the vast majority of the X-pantheon is included, it is more of a quick reference than a full-blown rundown of the history of each character, group or milestone event. This however, is understandable due to the vast ocean of characters they must deal with, but Marvel rubbed salt in the wound by going out of its way to focus on the way of things as they were the exact month the X-encyclopedia was published, to the point where it actually becomes misleading. Examples: X-Factor (along with X-Force and most other mutant spin-off groups) is totally absent from the book, and whenever it was impossible to overlook something X-Factor did the original X-Men were credited with out any clarification or mention that the 5 founding X-Men at one time formed their own team separate from the X-Men. X-Force is similarly referred to not by name but as either a strike force or as the New Mutants, and Cable is only referred to as Nathan Summers.
Also characters such as the X-Statics (the major space given these clowns is the primary reason NOT to buy the book) and even Alpha Flight take up quite a lot of space (many members get full-page descriptions), even though they are not directly related to the X-Men. Meanwhile characters such as Rachael Summers/Phoenix II (also, Generation X's fate requires a bit of detective work to piece together) that have been along for a number of years who were and are still relevant to the overall on going story were heavily marginalized or given only a third or quarter of a page. There are quite a few characters (and teams) left out all together, even ones that were previously headliners (ex-Deadpool, who at least gets a foot note in the Fantastic Four's guide; and none of Excalibur's foes are included).
Yet another failing is in the entries themselves. There is little correlation between what is written from one entry to the next (ex- Mystique appears a lot in the book yet her entry cuts off with out any recent information, but other entries allude to the fact that she has died, but she apparently had not), or the entries only cover the basics without telling anything about the actual history of the character as seen in the comics (ex-Nightcrawler's entry makes no mention of Excalibur). Finally, the entries for some of the teams seem to go out of their way to be as vague as possible, and groups such as the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and the Hellfire Club, which both have had many complex incarnations, do not include much detailed information to sort any of this out.
Oh, and the Index in the back lists incorrect page numbers quite a bit also.
-Why one should buy it: The X-Men have a pantheon of characters that almost dwarfs that of Greek mythology. No matter how long you have been reading the book, you WILL eventually stumble across some one and ask you self, "who the heck is this and why do they seem so familiar?" This is why the X-Men Encyclopedia is necessary. Also, anyone who likes to make the mutants subjects of their artwork, there is not any other resource better for a variety of every style and artists, from the sublime to just plain goofy, that has graced the pages of the X-Men, etc..
-Why one should NOT buy it: If you are only buying this to get a full history of the X-Men without purchasing every graphic novel ever printed, or if you are an old fan returning after a long period away from the X-universe, this book will not only lack any helpful information in that regard, it will only make you angry at re-writing past events. It is intentionally vague and provides very little history of the X-Men, but at the same time gives ample space to mostly irrelevant characters (the X-Statics) and entries present conflicting or partial information at times. In essence, it will only get you up to snuff on what happened in 2002-2003, more or less. As I said before, this short-sighted focus actually made the book horribly dated only a few months after it was published.
|
|
|
|
Copyright 2008 BetterEditor.net
| |
