An excellent book covering the history of Marvel Comics from their beginnings in 1939 up through 2016. It’s broken down year-by-year, covering the major themes, characters, artists, writers, and cross-over events in full color and detailed text. The look and feel (and hefty weight) of this book projects very high quality on every page. In addition, events happening in the real world are included on each page, providing a firm anchor to history. The information is comprehensive and the artwork (most of which is actual cover art) is exceptional.

The book is set up like an encyclopedia, making it easy to look up any year you may be interested in. I, being the sort of reader that I am, chose to read it straight through from cover to cover. I made it one of my “project” books for this year, taking all twelve months to make my way through it, generally at a pace covering two to three chapters/years each week during the year.

This has been a great experience for me and I have certainly learned a vast amount about Marvel Comics. For those whose knowledge is limited to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, this book is an especially important resource. It's fascinating to see how the movies are really quite different from the source material in so many ways, yet manage to combine so much of the structure and skeleton of the comics.

Many people these days feel the need to choose between DC or Marvel, and it seems most pick a side and stick to it. Not me. Whether we are talking about comics, movies, or television shows, I am comfortable with both as well as material from other companies. In fact, last year I read the DC Comics version of this book which was equally enjoyable. Now I guess I’ll be in search of something similar that covers other comic companies’ histories, if they exist.