Geek Reading: The Marvel Encyclopedia

As if asking you to watch YouTube videos wasn’t enough, we now proudly present Geek Reading. A weekly look into the world of words and what you should check out to scratch that itch. We’ll tell you what’s cool, you realize we’re geeks and make a decision accordingly. The only thing that can be promised is we’ll tell you about something. There are no guarantees we have good taste at all.

My love of comic books barely reaches skin deep. The only ones I currently own are works that I had loved before making the geek plunge: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Whedon’s X-Men run and The Gunslinger. But I am acutely aware of comics, being a geek and all. I know the histories of the characters, and for some reason I know that Victor Von Doom was born in a gypsy camp in Latvia. I take that back, I know the exact reason for that knowledge to reside in my head. It’s the subject of this week’s “Geek Reading.”

The Marvel Encyclopedia is a detailed and breathtaking look at the Marvel Comics universe. Just about every character of note in the history of the company has an entry, even if most are barely a paragraph. It’s odd to own such a treasure trove of comic geekdom if I’m not an avid comic fan. The truth is, this thing was thrust upon me as a Christmas gift. There couldn’t be a better surprise, and I find myself flipping through the pages on a lazy afternoon quite often.

Whether you love comics or not, you owe it to yourself to browse through the house of Marvel. Hey, you may just found out there’s a character named Whizzer. Sadly he doesn’t urinate all over opponents; he’s just fast. Then you find out he died of a heart attack and move on to the next page. Hopefully there won’t be some loser over there.