These books were pretty elusive to me as a kid, though I did have one buddy who gave me the OHOTMU paperback that had the Hulk in it, which I pored over many times.

But back before the internet was a thing, this was such a great way for a younger fan to learn more about the history and powers of their favorite characters, as well as discover characters that might not be active or heavily used at the time.

Plus all that great art, the covers and profile pics were usually very cool.

One thing I love is that "adventurer" is listed as an occupation.

I'd love to put that on my resume!

I have a mostly-complete set of both the original and expanded OHOTMUs (Single issues for the original set, a blend of singles and later collected volumes for the expanded version). I probably spent as much money buying reference books to comics as a teenager as I did buying actual comics! I was weird that way.

You need a billion in the bank first, then you're all set to get started!

Not necessarily. Trying to travel overseas WITHOUT any money would be pretty adventurous too.

OHOTMU Update '89 is my favorite. Great snapshot of the Marvel Universe just as I was discovering it.

OHOTMU was my entrée into the Marvel Universe and comics in general. A friend in 6th grade brought in the first two issues and I was just entranced by all the colorful characters. The first two comics I bought at the drugstore off the spinner were issues 3 and 4. I read every entry all the way through and was hooked. I still have my copies of the original 15 issues.

I don't remember when I started picking Who's Who up, but it wasn't from the first issue. I did end up getting all the issues. I read every entry too, and compared to Marvel's roster, I thought a lot of DC's were old-fashioned or hokey, but I was still fascinated by them. Gorgeous George Perez covers.

I never got many issues of DC's Who's Who. They took a less data-heavy, technobabble-oriented, seeking-after-verisimilitude approach than OHOTMU. Which some people appreciated more than the Marvel approach. It seemed more concise and accessible to them. I preferred Marvel's more comprehensive approach myself.

I was similar - I collected both the Marvel Handbook and the DC Who's Who and loved them. I knew far less DC lore than I did Marvel and I wanted to know everything I could about all of it. I also loved any book that was about comics - I remember wanting to read Superman at 50: The persistence of a legend by Dennis Dooley and being unable to afford it.

Have you gotten the book since?

Yeah, stuff like this was fascinating to me as a kid -- the cutaways or blueprints of the superhero bases, the diagram of everything in Batman's utility belt, etc. Reading the characters' histories and upper limits of their powers was great, it made me feel like I was becoming a superhero expert.

I guess I'd sorta point to this as a counter-argument to the idea of rebooting a superhero universe to attract new readers. As a kid, discovering the deep and vast history of the Marvel universe was a feature, not a bug. It made it seem more fascinating, like I was entering a whole new world. That said, the writers really made sure to make the stories easily understandable by providing context in the form of expository dialogue and flashbacks.


Same here, I liked that they felt like a dossier that SHIELD or some such would assemble on the characters. You sorta see that mentality in the examples above -- the Marvel heroes just had a shot of the hero standing in a fairly neutral stance, while the DC ones felt more like posters. The DC ones are more impressive as individual pieces of art, but the Marvel ones felt more "official" and scientific to my young mind.

EXACTLY

Idiotically, I haven't. I probably should.

Happy hunting!

I remember reading that one some years ago, but can't recall too much about it.

Thanks, Jason.

i loved both of these series when they were out and I still have them all to this day. However, DC's Who's Who is far better put together than the Marvel version IMO. The concept of having a single, colored figure in the foreground with the monochromatic montage in it's BG is a better idea than what Marvel had as a direction. Marvel's looked just plain in comparrison. DC also seemed to have far better artists participate than what Marvel could gather.

Speaking as an artist myself, I've found that no matter haow some of these comic artists drew, drawing a character just standing there was difficult for them. Especialy if it's a character they were trying to do a turn on. Those looked horrible. it takes far diiferent artistic muscles to pull that off than what's required to do sequential work. DC's stuff still looked superior. Guys like Jerome Moore, Dave Stevens, Jerry Ordway, Garcia Lopez, Perez, Davis are tough to beat....and even getting folks that you'd never expect to paricipate like the Hernandez Bros. was a major plus. Marvel looked too plain by comparrison.

Hi, AJ!