Need to Procrastinate? Look No Further: Marvel & DC Databases

This project is just so cool and well done, I felt it deserved some attention. If you have a question about a Marvel or DC Comics character and can’t wait to hear if we’ll pick your question on our podcast, then navigate your browser to the Marvel Database or the DC Database, and I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to find your answer.

Just when I thought I was done with the interwebs, something cool like this rolls in. I love the combination of great modern looking web apps and content such as this. I’ve spent the past 30 minutes on these sites and they really do have a TON of info, could almost even be the a kind of modern day Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe type thing…

Comments

  1. You edited some of those Marvel entries, didn’t you?

  2. Who is buying the new Marvel Handbooks (print) with Wikipedia and these new online databases?

  3. I pause to think about buying that Essential version (of the old ones form the 80s printed on Newsprint) every time I’m in my store…

  4. Can some one tell me where the Ultraverse Database is? I have some serous questions about Firearm, Sludge, and Prime. Also, who’s starting the Virgin Database? Although that sounds like a different kind of omnipedia doesnt it?

  5. Wow. I don’t think I want to even look at that site for fear of being sucked into the internet forever, a la Jeff Bridges in Tron. I already got sucked into this site: The Unofficial Chronology To the Marvel Universe a few months back and, wow, it’s something. Be warned, this is some incredibly amazing stuff, full of informaton you didn’t know you wanted, nay needed, to know.

    As far as the Essential OHTMU – Deluxe Edition, I am so there. It’s funny, there’s been this big push lately (speaking primarily for Marvel, as that’s was my first comics universe experience) to downplay continuity in favor of “just telling good stories,” with the assumption being that new readers would be offput by the mire of continuity. This is all fine and good, but really, what made me fall in absolute love with comics is the fact that I had no idea what was going on and had to figure it out. i remember picking up a Fantastic Four (Pineapple Thing-era, btw) issue from a spinner rack at 7-11 and having no clue who anyone was, how they related to each other, or what they were even doing. Subterraneans? Cat people? Belasco? I still enjoyed the issue but was propelled to find out, through context and detective work (i.e. buying as many Marvel comics as possible) what was going on, how it all fit, and I’ve been hooked, despite a brief hiatus in my late teens, ever since. The Handbooks, and now these sites, are the Holy Grails for this kind of thing – the structures of these universes laid bare. 10-year-old Dylan weeps at its beauty.