Title Information
The Superhero Book: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Comic-Book Icons and Hollywood Heroes
"Here's an 'ultimate' encyclopedia that lives up to its billing."
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"...excellent compendium of comic book superheroes...."
Choice
"Being a 'super-hero' book rather than a 'comic book' book, it includes plenty of non-comics entries....Happily, it has both a contents page and an index."
Comic Buyer's Guide
"This colossal encyclopedia of all things superhero could not have come at a better time. With a slew of comic-book movies each year, kids are more interested than ever in anything to do with these heroes....It is a must-buy for comic readers interested in knowing the early roots and conceptions of comic-book heroes."
School Library Journal
"This book is alive with detail, generous with comic book cover reproductions, comprehensive, colorful, accurate, and, most of all, entertaining. It wants to cover as much ground as possible, and cover it right. The impressive thing is, it succeeds.... This encyclopedia is inspiring, and as a reference tool it is going to get a lot of use."
Silver Bullet Comics
"It definitely fills a much-needed niche in the growing lore of the genre and will be a welcome addition to the collection of any fan of spectacular superhero sagas. Excelsior!"
—Stan Lee, inventor of the modern superhero
"Leaping over skyscrapers, running faster than an express train, springing great distances and heights, lifting and smashing tremendous weights, possessing an impenetrable skin---these are the amazing attributes which Superman, savior of the helpless and oppressed, avails
himself of as he battles the forces of evil and injustice."
---Superman, Action Comics, 1939
Superhuman strength. Virtual invulnerability. Motivated
to defend the world from evildoers. A secret identity.
And a penchant for looking good in long underwear. These are the traits that define the quintessential superhero
whose impossible feats graced the pages of comic books
during comics---Golden and Silver Ages. They are Batman,
Captain America, Captain Marvel, Spider-Man, Superman,
Wonder Woman, and dozens of others?with names like Ant-Man, Daredevil, Hawkman, the Human Torch, the Spectre, the Spirit, and Sub-Mariner---whose death-defying acts and altruistic motives have come to characterize heroism for generations of fans.
By the end of the twentieth century the real world had
become a darker place, necessitating a new kind of hero.
Popular heroes of yesteryear were reinvented to meet the
demands of a new age. The popular culture witnessed the
rise of the anti-hero, the fresh breed of brazen, gritty adventurer that includes the likes of Elektra, the Punisher, and Wolverine. Heroes that aren't typically defined as super(Buffy, Hellboy, Sandman, and Spawn)became associated with the word because they possessed superhuman qualities. But they were often nearly paralyzed with angst, doubt,and disillusionment, identifying with their audience in a way reminiscent of existential sixties superheros like Spider-Man.
With more than 150 full-color illustrations, including dozens of classic comic covers, The Superhero Book is the ultimate A-Z compendium of everyone?s favorite superheroes and their mythology, sidekicks, villains, love interests, superpowers, and modus operandi. Almost 300 entries cover the best-loved and historically significant comic book, movie, television, and novel superheroes?mainstream and counterculture, famous and forgotten, best and worst---including classics like Green Lantern and Plastic Man, cult favorites like the Rocketeer and Madman, and timeless entities like the XMen. Each significant era of the superhero is explored---the Golden Age (1938-1954), the Silver Age (1956-1969), the Bronze Age (1970-1979), and the Modern Age (1980-present)---providing the reader with a perspective of the hero over the twentieth century and beyond.
With The Superhero Book, you'll be reminded why you
love them (Who wouldn't want to get their hands on Wonder Woman's lasso for just one day?), why they were chosen to save the world ("We shall call you Captain America, son! Because like you; America shall gain the strength and will to safeguard our shores"), what they do for their day jobs (world traveler Oliver Queen . . . Hollywood star and America?s sweetheart Linda Turner . . . billionaire industrialist Bruce Wayne . . . college student and free-lance photographer Peter Parker), and their very human faux pas (As the Flash, he could outrun the wind, but as alter ego Barry Allen he was hard-pressed to show up for a date on time!).
In an uncertain age, what we need is a superhero. Use our book to find the right one.
Contributing Writers
Guided into a life of superhero fandom by his heroic idol Adam ?Batman? West, Michael Eury has co-created and/or written comics and cartoon properties for Nike, Toys R Us, Warner Bros. Worldwide Publishing, the Microsoft Network, the "First Flight" Centennial, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Archie Comics, and Cracked magazine.
Andy Mangels is a best-selling author and co-author of more than a dozen books, including Star Trek and Roswell novels, and the books Animation on DVD: The Ultimate Guide (2003) and Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Characters (1995). He is an award-winning comic book anthology editor, and has written comics for almost two decades.
Michael A. Martin's obsession with comics began more than three decades ago at a spinner-rack in Santa Claus Lane, California. Years after this origin tale, Martin schlepped the funnies to the direct-sales market, first for Marvel Comics and later for Dark Horse Comics. In 1996, he began collaborating with Andy Mangels on scripts for Marvel?s Star Trek: Deep Space 9 comics. That same year, Martin?s solo original short fiction began appearing in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. He has co-authored (also with Mangels) several Star Trek novels and shorter pieces of Star Trek fiction for Pocket Books, as well as a trio of novels based on the late, lamented Roswell television series. He has written for Star Trek Monthly, Atlas Editions, Dreamwatch, Grolier Books, WildStorm, Platinum Studios.
Writing about action heroes wasn?t Adam McGovern?s choice?being named after one himself (Detective Adam Flint from the classic police drama Naked City), it was his destiny. Since then he?s fulfilled it by writing on comic books, cartoons, and other popular culture for such outlets as the Village Voice, Yahoo! Internet Life magazine, TotalTV Online, Comic Book Artist, and The Jack Kirby Collector among many others. He also edited MusicHound World: The Essential Album Guide for Visible Ink Press in 2000.
A longtime comic-book fan, Marc McKenzie became interested in Japanese animation after watching Robotech in the late 1980s. At the same time, the first English translations of Japanese manga were starting to appear in America, and McKenzie quickly took an interest in such titles as Masaomi Kanzaki?s Heavy Metal Warrior Xenon, Kazuya Kudo and Ryoichi Ikegami?s Mai, the Psychic Girl, Kaoru Shintani?s Area 88, Yoshihisa Tagami?s Grey, and Masamune Shirow?s Appleseed. Related to anime and manga, he has written for the websites the Slush Factory and Silver Bullet Comic Books, and has created artwork for the 2003 Otakon anime convention.
Frank Plowright is best known to the comics community as co-organizer of the United Kingdom?s longest-running comic convention, UKCAC. An established freelance writer, Plowright is editor the revised edition of the Slings and Arrows Comic Guide (2003), which reviews more than 5,000 comic book series from the 1930s to the present.
David Roach is a comic-book illustrator and writer based in Wales, United Kingdom. In addition to his post as associate editor of the U.S.-based magazine, Comic Book Artist, which is dedicated to the historic representation of comic-book characters, Roach actively illustrates for several UK companies, including 2000 AD, Panini, and Marvel. In the United States, he has drawn and inked heroes for DC Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Topps, and the gaming company Wizards of the Coast. Roach is co-editor of The Warren Companion: The Definitive Compendium to the Great Comics of Warren Publishing (2001) and the revised edition of the Slings and Arrows Comic Guide (2003). He is a regular contributor to Comic Book Artist and Comics International.
About Gina Misiroglu
Gina Misiroglu is a well-respected and well-connected author in the comic-book industry. As a veteran of the West Coast book publishing industry, she specializes in the development and editing of popular culture, biography, and TV- and film-related titles. Misiroglu has production managed- and edited books for a host of animated and live-action properties, including the Looney Tunes, Scooby-Doo, Dexter’s Lab, Mars Attacks!, Babylon 5, Friends, and ER, and is the co-author of the behind-the-scenes pictorial Space Jammin’: Bugs and Michael Hit the Big Screen (1997). Misiroglu resides in Los Angeles, where superheroes can be spied on almost every street corner.
Hometown: Los Angeles, California
