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Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Difference between revisions

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Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (view source)

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Several series from [[Marvel Comics]] describing its characters in encyclopedia format. The project was instigated by [[Promoted Fanboy]] and popular writer and editor [[Mark Gruenwald]]; another prominent OHOTMU creator is diagram artist Eliot R. Brown. The first OHOTMU-style pages came as back-ups in the three-issue miniseries [[Contest of Champions]] (also written by Gruenwald) and proved popular enough for Marvel to go with a full-sized series containing nothing but encyclopedic entries.
* The original ''Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe'' (abbreviated to OHOTMU) started coming out in 1982 (cover dates January 1983 to April 1984), about two years before the similar ''Who's Who'' at [[DC Comics]], describing characters in alphabetical order over 15 issues. The series tried to be as scientifically accurate as possible, which may cause unintentional amusement as entries repeatedly explained away the same violations of physics (typically [[Shapeshifter Baggage]], [[Square-Cube Law|Square/Cube Law]], or some [[Required Secondary Powers]]). It also made [[Continuity Snarl|Continuity Snarls]] very obvious when a character's history was laid out all at once.
** Collected in a single black and white ''Essential'' (January 2006)
* ''Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, Deluxe Edition'' (abbreviated to OHOTMUDE), cover dates December 1985-February 1988; 20 issues at 64 pages each without ads. The last five issues were the ''Book of the Dead'', devoted to dead characters. [[Back From the Dead|Certain traits]] of comic books made this a somewhat unwise decision. A 1989 update ran for nine more issues. This is often considered the best of the early series, though the first OHOTMU did include the occasional entry not found in the Deluxe Edition. Marvel also released one for the licensed series ''[[Conan]]''.
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== Tropes related to the OHOTMU: ==
* [[All There in the Manual]]: Many facts and contradictions from the comics were explained in the series.
* [[Armed Withwith Canon]]: Some of the explanations of events within the comics have been... controversial. For example, The [[Man-Thing]]'s "touch that burns anything that knows fear" was explained as an acid touch, rather than a supernatural ability.
** [[Wolverine]]'s claws were shown as bionic implants. Later stories ignored this and had them be natural.
** The [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|wackier stories]] in [[She Hulk]] were explained as having occurred, just [[Unreliable Narrator|not quite the way the comics showed]].
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