Novel: All of the Marvels by Douglas Wolk Review

[jackolover]

I have just finished reading this compilation by Wolk, and it reflects what I have done over many years since 2012, and that is to look at the whole Marvel story big picture. Wolk breaks it down into 6 phases over the whole beginning in 1961 to 2018. I broke it down to 3 phases during the same period, but Wolk included time periods I missed as a fan, from 1970 to the mid 1990’s, so I don’t include those periods I missed.

Wolk says he read all the Marvel comics from 1961 to the present, some 27,000 comics in reading order, a massive undertaking I could never replicate. And Wolk is an experienced writer on the subject of comics as well, so he comes from a background of comics appreciation, and should be given the respect he deserves on this subject. He also includes the touching inclusion of his son joining him in this venture of re-reading the whole Marvel line, and the insights it brings them both from looking from the outside in. I appreciate this approach, as I have done it myself.

Some comments on the overall contents - Wolk suggests that the whole Marvel story could be about Linda Carters progress from a Student Nurse in the time of the Monster Age running into the Silver Age of Superhero appearances, right up to Linder Carters re-emergence as the Night Nurse in the 2000’s onwards. I, myself, recognised the uniqueness of the pre-superhero characters before the Fantastic Four emerged with the quality of writing in Linda Carter, and Love Romances standing out as precursors to the way Stan Lee’s dynamic soap opera writing first came about. Wolks extending this to the whole Marvel saga to include Linda Carter, is an interesting conjecture, but it is hard to visualise seeing as how Linda is missing from such a whole chunk of the Marvel story.

I am struck by Wolk’s final 6th phase after Secret Wars post 2015, and his summation of this current period, because it reflects a similar disquiet I feel for this period, as well. Wolk sums it up such-like of the 2015 onwards period -

“There’s also now an omnipresent terror that everyone is being presented with disinformation and deceptive spin all the time. The antagonists of this part of the story seem to be people who are trying to control how the world is understood, especially retroactively. (One glib way of putting that is to say that villains, right now, spread “false news”)”.

This is my feeling also, and it seems to be the theme Jason Aaron is using in his broad scheme he has constructed in the Avengers story now running. Aaron seems to have suggested that all history has been affected by Mephisto reaching right back to 1 Million years ago, and seeded through time in different eras, down the years, to manipulate everyone. I have noted this because I’ve discovered Mephisto controlled Norman Osborn since the early days by Osborn selling Harry’s soul to Mephisto; and Doc Ock doing the same more recently to defeat an enemy when Ock was the Superior Spider-Man. Mephisto has been recently also manipulating a man from as far back as the old West, who ate his own family to stay alive, and had to sacrifice every generation since, their first born to Mephisto until modern times.

I have always been trying to get a handle on the All New All Different universe since it got started, but Wolk identifies this period as some lingering terror of “fake news” being perpetrated on this period. I am monitoring this idea as we speak, with Mephisto at the centre of this conspiracy.

Overall, I can appreciate Wolks volume and recognise the tropes he is referring to. It was a good read, and it most covers my musings on Marvel, rather than other writers I have read on the history of Marvel.