All of the Marvels

"Thorough, fascinating, and joyfully executed, All of the Marvels is essential reading for fans and scholars alike." Winner of the Eisner Award for Best Comics-Related Book A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice The first-ever full reckoning with Marvel Comics’ interconnected, half-million-page story, a revelatory guide to the “epic of epics”—and to the past sixty years of American culture—from a beloved authority on the subject who read all 27,000+ Marvel superhero comics and lived to tell the tale The superhero comic books that Marvel Comics has published since 1961 are the longest continuous, self-contained work of fiction ever created. Thousands of writers and artists have contributed to it. Everyone recognizes its protagonists. Eighteen of the hundred highest-grossing movies of all time are based on parts of it. And Douglas Wolk has read the whole thing. Wolk sees both into the ever-expanding story and through it, as a prism through which to view the landscape of American culture.