Today I bought a DC trade paperback which contains nothing but two page origin features like this one...



When I was a kid, I loved the Deluxe Edition Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe volumes (the ones with the Byrne covers). But I think I like these sort of features a little better. More art is good... particularly more art featuring dramatic moments. Sure, these things don't go into the kind of ridiculous detail that the DEOHOTMU entries had... but in my old age, I like these DC features better.

What say you, IMWAN?

Below is the cover of the trade paperback, btw...

These were originally back-up pages in 52, often the best thing about the issue.

To answer your question, I find these to be a much better way to provide basic facts to new readers.

Yeah, I'd rather have more of a narrative like these provide than knowing precisely how many tons a given character can lift (press) under optimal conditions.

I just noticed that while Flash is on the cover, he himself doesn't have an entry. Neither does Aquaman.

If they ever get serious about getting new readership, they should print those in every comic they do.

But they've already bought the comic...

+1

I really, really like this concept.

That said, I didn't pick up this trade... I can't imagine just sitting there and reading origins, despite some top-notch art.

That would be nice, all right. They occasionally did do things like this in the old days, IIRC.

All that said, I love encyclopedic reference books, and I always thought that Marvel's "Official Handbooks" were more fun.

An online version of this would be very helpful for visitors to Imwan. A quick, graphic narrative of each current Imwan poster.

Heh. Reminds me, that at one point, DC had all of these on their site. Unsure if they still do.

I hope you're volunteering ....

These are all free on the iPad.

Not if you have to buy the iPad and pay for the internet and power required to use an iPad. I'd rather buy the trade... I can read that under sunlight (which is free).

I'm almost done with the pencils for the Robbie origin. I just need reference photos of Petula Clark and John Inman for the panel where they place him in the Earthbound rocket.

Pass.

Not even remotely my point, which was the 3 million people who DO have one can now read these origins as a free download.

I know what your point was.

I can't see grabbing any reference book and reading it cover-to-cover either. That's how I look at this trade.

I used to read Marvel handbooks and indexes cover to cover.

Yeah, I used to too.

Still would.