[.ca] Marvel Encyclopedia Volume 2: X-Men HC (ISBN 0785111999)

Mildly recommended.:
The Facts: On 240 interior pages, Marvel Encyclopedia Vol. 2: X-Men gives you the skinny on approximately 400 X-Men, villains and allies. The characters are not listed alphabetically throughout the book, but are grouped in several categories, beginning with "X-Men," then running alphabetically from "Acolytes" to "X-Statix," and culminating in the "Cerebra Files," which deal with non-affiliated characters. While one or two pages each are dedicated to the major characters, less relevant players have to share their page with up to three of their fellow second- or third-stringers. Accordingly, the length of the profiles ranges from two pages to zilch, depending on whether you're reading up on Wolverine or No-Girl. Further included in each character listing are boxes indicating the characters' "power ratings" on a scale from one to seven (whose significance is explained in detail on a page in the back of the volume), as well as the characters' "Real Name," "First Appearance," "Height" and "Weight," and a short description of their "Powers/ Weapons." Additionally, the Encyclopedia contains tech specs of the X-Mansion and the Blackbird, an introduction by Joe Quesada, an "Essential Reading" list, and an "Index" that lists all characters in alphabetical order, and tells you what pages you can find them on. Through all this, the layout looks fairly professional, clear and inviting, which is a definite plus. Turning to quality, the book is a bit of a mixed bag. There aren't too many typos or punctuation errors, and the occasionally somewhat clumsy and overly contrived prose can probably be excused by the particular complexity of some characters' histories. (From the Apocalypse biography: "After centuries of plotting, planning, and waiting, Apocalypse put his master plan into action when he gathered together twelve mutants who had long been destined to usher in a new golden era for mutantkind. Apocalypse intended to use them to boost his powers and alter reality to his liking. But his plans went awry when the Twelve broke free, and Apocalypse attempted to use X-Man as a new host body to replace his own, which he had nearly burnt out.") What's more distracting, however, is the lack of a consistent writing style in some places. While the biographies read rather well as long as things stay matter-of-factly and focus on getting information to the reader, there are several instances when they suddenly switch to sledgehammer melodrama, which, unfortunately, doesn't work quite as well. According to the Marauders section, "Where there is killing, where there is chaos, where there is mayhem, there is always something else: Marauders." Further, it tells us, "They embody the deadly combination of sycophant and killer," and that, "In the absence of goodness and mercy there are Marauders." This smacks of bad fan-fiction, frankly. In the Hellions profile, we learn that "The dead survive only as memories now -- terrible ghosts of an idea too awful to come to fruition. And the living are left to bear the legacy of all the young who died too soon." Yeuch. Too awful to come to fruition, indeed. With regard to accuracy, the Encyclopedia does a respectable job. There are a number of minor mistakes, but nothing too significant. An exception to this is the Acolytes profile, whose account of the group's history, as well as the histories and capabilities of some of its members, barely resembles the actual stories. Since the Acolytes haven't appeared for a while now, though, and are rather unlikely to pop up anytime soon, this is hardly earth-shaking, either. The profiles, generally, are limited to the essential parts of the characters' histories, which certainly makes sense. In some places, one might argue that the priorities are a bit out of order; there are biographies for the Marauders and the Hellions, groups that haven't appeared in ages, while on the other hand there is no feature on Genosha, which would have been relevant to the current Morrison run. The Rachel Summers biography refers to Rachel's stint as Mother Askani, which was effectively "removed" from continuity, but neglects to mention that she has since returned to the present-day Marvel Universe; the Hellfire Club section ignores the Inner Circle's most recent "Kings," Blackheart and Daimon Hellstrom; and -- for better or worse -- the Dark Beast retcon is ignored, with regard to the Morlocks. Apart from these, there are no major omissions, though. In order to streamline things and prevent confusion, the terms "X-Factor," "Cable" and "X-Force" are widely avoided and substituted by "government-sponsored team of mutants," "Nathan Summers" and "mutant strike force founded by Nathan Summers," respectively. Fair enough. What's weird is that the characters from Geoff Johns' "Elseworlds" Morlocks series are lumped in with the Marvel Universe Morlocks. My overall impression of the book, all told, is fairly favorable, in spite of the bugs. The choice of characters is as ambitious as one could hope, allowing an unbiased look at all the major players in the comic's rich history. Whether they're representatives of the "classic" sixties and seventies, the "mysterious" and "edgy" eighties and nineties, or the current, colorful potpourri of retro and deconstructionist stories, if they played a major part somewhere, chances are you'll find them here. While the writing may not always be top-notch in terms of style and grace, the creators and editors are to be complimented for the rather well-balanced biographies, which most of the time pull it off to introduce the characters in a transparent and accessible way, without ignoring the organic complexity and interwoven structure that has become a hallmark of the X-Men and their world in the past forty years. If you're looking for a competent, comprehensive, up-to-date guide to what's relevant and essential in the X-Men universe in 2003, you won't find anything better than this book. (Copyright 2003: Marc-Oliver Frisch)

Better than I thought it would be.:
This book is superior to the Ultimate X-Men Guide, but has problems which make it incomplete. I appreciate the fact Marvel went out of their way to include most of the obscure characters in the X-Men universe (even though they left out Deadpool, which is ridiculous). There isn't a lot of information for most of them, but at least they're there. It's too bad they weren't able to produce better artwork for these characters, however. Most of it's below average. All the characters from the early '90s deserved Jim Lee depictions of them, perhaps his work from the first series X-Men cards. Others have mentioned the omissions of X-Force, X-Factor, and Cable, which are definite negatives. I could have forgiven that, but the real problem is the lavish attention X-Statix got. Several members of this dopey group got full page profiles, and their section goes on and on. Something like twelve pages all together. They deserved no more than two. So I would have given X-Men Encyclopedia four stars, but the X-Statix section and the omission of Deadpool bothers me. Three stars. By the way, how can this be volume 2 in Marvel's "Encyclopedia" series when it features identical artwork, as well as rehashes of the same stories for the majority of characters as volume 1! That is a rip-off. This book's recommended, but you should probably also pick up Ultimate X-Men Guide to fill in some of the missing parts.

Marvel Encyclopedia: X-Men; Good for beginners, but...:
I went through the book and discovered that it was a great source for those who are new to the X-Men world. The book briefly goes over most of the related X-Men characters, giving the newly initiated a great starting point/introduction. Unfortunately, for those who're long time fans, some of the descriptions are too brief and almost misleading...ie. The bio on Colossus list his powers as being able to turn his skin into organic metal, but no mention that he has other abilities like extreme super strength. If you read through his bio, there is a brief mention of his super strength, but you'd think if they went to the trouble of listing the various abilities of other characters, you'd think the publishers would be willing to make a second listing (yes, they only listed just one ability for him) to mention his most obvious ability, his super strength, if not his limited invulnerability. Maybe I'm being too picky since I've been following the X-Men since the 1970s, but considering some of the characters who were the major players during the height of the X-Men popularity during the 1980s, one would think they'd be given a bit more coverage, if not more accurate information on them.

Confused about all the X-men characters, get this book.:
I followed the X-men back in the early 90s, but got lost with all these new characters and series like X-Men Revolution and X-Corporation, so I got this book. Now I have a firm knowledge of the X-Men. The book is not very long, about a little over 200 pages. With all the characters in the X-Men franchise it should be bigger and more in depth. The popular characters from the cartoon in the early 90s are pretty covered with about 3 pages each for like Magneto, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Wolverine, etc. A few other supporting casts like Mr. Sinister, Callisto, Apocalypse, etc. have a page dedicated to them. 75% of the characters have 1/4, 1/3, 1/2 of a page description. Each character has a chart of the intelligence, strength, speed, durability, energy projection, and fighting skill. They also have a description of their real name, first comic appearance, Height, weight, eye and hair color. There is no order where they are place in any chorological order, but more of the hierarchy in popularity and different division they are associated with. The author(s) does a good job of summarizing the characters and cross referencing them to each other. What is lacking is the art work. Each character has one picture per character, except for the 3-pages characters. Every photo is a snap shot from the comic and some of the lesser characters aren't very detail. The qualities from page to page are different with mixture of good and mostly bad artwork, unlike some of the nicer drawn Marvel's comic book. Not too much extra except for an axon drawing of the Prof X's school and small four pagers on Ultimate X-Men. Since, I am not a die-hard I do not know who is missing from the X-Men's List, but could list who are: X-Men, Acolytes, Alpha Flight, Brotherhood of Evil Mutant, Exiles, Hellfire, Hellions, Marauders, Morlock, New Mutants, Reaver, Savage Land Mutants, Shi'ar and Imperial Guard, Starjammers, Weapon X, X-corp, X-Static, and Cerebra Files (mention Apocalypse, Arcade, BT Cassidy, etc.) This could be a five star is it was longer and had better artworks.

A MUST HAVE FOR FANS:
I REALLY do feel that this a book for any xmen fan simply because it lets you know just about everything anybody would want to know about the xmen. there are full character bios that tell about the way they came into the x-universe. there are also extensive information about all the different teams and also all the enemies that the xmen and their team branches fight. there are nifty little guides that tell where each person lies with the regards to energy projection and intelligence etc. it also lists many obscure characters that have graced the pages and any reader will also be reminded of characters they may have forgotten about. i highly recommend this encyclopedia for anyone wishing to have a better knowledge about what makes up one of the greatest comic book universes ever conceived.