The Marvel Chronicle Review (4.5/5)

Take a look back at the past, Marvelites!
Hardback reference books like these usually tend to range from average to fantastic, and I can safely say that The Marvel Chronicle easily fits within the latter category. As its title suggests, the piece provides an extensive timeline of the vast history of the Marvel Comics franchise, detailing its various heroes, villains, storylines, crossovers and movies among other elements that have formed to develop into the comic-book company we know today. It's a revealing tale of each seperate era of the industry, from the booming post-war years of patriotic publications like Captain America and Captain Britain (yes, really!) to the more recent radical Ultimate revamps rolled out to keep things fresh for the 21st century, sure to surprise even the most dedicated of comic-book fans with its attention to detail on all the minor aspects of this impressive history. The writers of the Chronicle must have felt the pressure to include every single Marvel hero here (Spider-Man; Ultimate Spider-Man; Ghost Rider; Hulk; She-Hulk; X-Men; the new X-Men; Iron Man; Thor; the Avengers; the New Avengers...the list goes on and on even now!), something which does become apparent infrequently when hardcore devotees may begrudge the lack of a key graphic novel's storyline or more mainstream fans left wondering where some of the major blockbuster movie adaptations are in this mostly infallable compendium, but to be fair it would certainly have been difficult to fit everything in, so the writers have wisely chosen to stick mainly to the major comic-book breakthroughs and developments rather than focus on the mostly unnoticed parts of the universe. As a result, while there's the occassional omission of obvious steps forward for the wider world of Marvel, any fan who knows how to spell 'Excelsior!' will undoubtedly revel in The Marvel Chronicle, a brilliant summarisation of one of the most groundbreaking companies in the entire published comic-book industry.
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