Jan 1983
03/23/21 - Inside Front Cover / Table of Contents
03/24/21 - Inside Back Cover / Editorial, Appendix (Part 1)
The editorial (which was written by Mark Gruenwald) talks about the origins of the Marvel Universe and the plans for the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. The series was originally planned to be 12 issues and consist of a total of 384 pages which from the looks of it does not include the inside front and back covers.
03/26/21 - Page 32 / Alien Races (Page 2)
03/27/21 - Page 1 / Abomination
03/28/21 - Page 2 / Absorbing Man
03/29/21 - Page 3 / El Águila
03/29/21 - Thoughts
I am a week into this project which if I stick with it will take years to complete. I am not just scanning the pages, one per day, but I am also creating a web page to help access the scans. I have no plans to share the web page with the world as the material isn’t mine to share. If I share anything it will just be the web page without the scans.
I have no idea if I will stick with it. I do have a few thoughts about it.
I decided not to scan everything in the exact order as they appear in the books. I started this issue by scanning the front and back inside covers and then the alien races. I think that from there on out I will scan the rest in the order in which they appear.
I am committing to just scanning a page a day. That isn’t an easy commitment to keep. I frequently find myself wanting to scan more pages. It will take me about 5 weeks to scan each issue at my not-so-urgent pace. I may scan entries that take up two pages on a single day. There are three of them in the first issue.
I am organizing the pages, for now, in two different ways. First, the pages will be listed in the order in which they appear. Second, the pages will be categorized by type. I have categories for People, Alien Races, and Appendix. I will be adding categories for Groups, Places, and Things once I start to scan pages that fall into those categories. It is for now one big page but I may decide to break it down into multiple pages as the one page grows.
I was originally contemplating scanning pages from both the original and the deluxe editions of the OHotMU at the same time. I have decided I would rather not. For now all I will have is scans of the original edition. If I stick it out and scan all 15 issues of the original edition then maybe I will move on to the deluxe edition and scan those. I don’t have all the issues of the deluxe edition. I have most of them. I am in the process of acquiring the rest.
I might in the future start scanning pages of Who’s Who but for the moment I am going to stick with just scanning OHotMU.
03/30/21 - Page 4 / A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics)
03/31/21 - Page 5 / Ajak
04/01/21 - Page 6 / Alpha Flight, Alpha Primitives
I’ve been sticking to my plan so far but I’ve also been toying around with the layout of the web page I’ve created. I would like to change the layout for the Appendix section but I can’t seem to come up with anything that satisfies me. I keep reverting to what I started with.
04/02/21 - Page 7 / American Eagle
04/03/21 - Page 8 / Anaconda
04/04/21 - Page 9 / Angar the Screamer
04/05/21 - Page 10 / Angel
I’m going to scan the first issue of Who’s Who after I finish with the first issue of the OHotMU. I will switch back and forth between the two series. I will start in on the OHotMU Deluxe once I finish off the OHotMU 83. I will start in on the Who’s Who updates (87 and 88), once I have finished with the original series. That’s my plan. I have no idea how long I will be able to stick with this plan but it will take me about six years if I stick with it as I currently envision it.
04/06/21 - Page 11 / Annihilus
A couple more thoughts.
I was originally just dropping all the scans into a single folder. I have now decided to make separate folders for each issue of each series. I had to fix the links that I have set up so far but at this point that was manageable. It only took me a couple minutes to update all the links.
I may speed things up a little bit. If I do two pages per day I could cut my time to completion in half. At the very least I think I should do any entry that takes up multiple pages in a single day.
04/07/21 - Page 12 / Ant-Man
04/08/21 - Page 13 / Aquarian
Who should be considered a person? Is Annihilus a person? What about Aquarian? Neither of them is from Earth. One looks human and the other does not. I have them both classified as people but I’m wondering if that’s a mistake. What about Eternals like Ajak or gods like Ares or others like Arkon? I think that for now I am going to continue to list them as People but I might revisit this subject in the future.
The practice of breaking entries down into categories such as I have done up to this point (People, Places, Things, Groups & Organizations) is entirely arbitrary on my part. I can’t do this without thinking about how doing so in the real world has led to the mistreatment of people, animals, and places.
04/09/21 - Page 14 / Arabian Knight
04/10/21 - Page 15 / Arcade, Ares
04/11/21 - Page 16 / Ariel
I have a few thoughts about Ariel.
- She has had so many aliases over the years that I just think of her as Kitty Pryde. That’s how I would have listed her in the OHotMU.
- This page seems pretty sparse on text and images for a character who got a full page. Honestly, they could have reduced her entry to just a half page. I’m sure that wouldn’t have gone over well but if they are going to give her a full page then maybe they should use they space allotted.
- She is listed as Shadowcat in the next edition of the OHotMU.
04/12/21 - Page 17 / Arkon, Arnim Zola
I was reading about the Who’s Who Omnibus Vol. 1 earlier today. I noticed that there are some entries that will not be included in the omnibus like the characters from Atari Force.
It occurred to me while I was reading the article by Robert Greenberger that I should start keeping track of who drew which entries. That information is in the issues but if I can incorporate it into the web pages I am creating then it will be easier to search.
04/13/21 - Pages 18-19 / Asgard
The first double page spread! I did my best putting the scans of the two pages together. It isn’t perfect but it’s good enough for me.
I put my plan into action to start keeping track of the artists. Ron Wilson drew 5 of the first 19 pages (or 18 entries) which is the the most of any artist so far.
04/14/21 - Page 20 / Asgardians
Yet another page drawn by Ron Wilson! There are 18 faces on this page, seven are women and the rest are men. I am not familiar with all of these characters.
04/15/21 - Page 21 / Atlantis
This page has some text about Atlantis and its origins and a map but it is not a map of the city of Atlantis. The map is of the Atlantic Ocean and all the places that (presumably) have shown up in Marvel Comics. I would love to look up some of these places and figure out the stories in which they were visited by Namor or others but I don’t see myself tackling that project any time soon.
04/16/21 - Page 22 / Atlanteans
I am less familiar with this group of characters than I am with the Asgardians. Reading this page got me curious about reading some of the Sub-Mariner’s stories from the 1960s and 1970s. He appeared mostly in Fantastic Four and Avengers in that era. He had his own feature in Tales to Astonish and then his own comic book starting in 1968, the same year that Iron Man and Captain America graduated to their own books. Sub-Mariner’s book ceased publication in 1974 after 72 issues.
04/17/21 - Page 23 / Attilan
04/18/21 - Page 24 / Attuma
04/19/21 - Page 25 / Aurora
04/20/21 - Pages 26-27 / Avengers
I think most of the people on these two pages also have their own entries but there are a few who might not. I didn’t realize that the Guardians of the Galaxy were considered to be honorary Avengers. According to my research they made a number of appearances in Avengers starting with issue 167 and ending with issue 181. They crossed paths with the Thing in Marvel Two-in-One 5 and the Defenders, in Giant Size Defenders 5 and Defenders 26-29 and 36, before appearing in Avengers.
I have just a few pages left to scan, all Avengers related, in this issue. I will start in on the first issue of Who’s Who after that.
04/21/21 - Pages 28-29 / Avengers Mansion
This entry has a crazy amount of detail. I wonder if it was just made up or they did research into stuff that had been shown in Avengers Mansion in comic books over the years.
04/22/21 - Page 30 / Avengers Quinjet
Done! I have finished scanning all of the first issue of this series. Tomorrow I will start scanning the first issue of Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe. I’m having fun with this project but I still wonder if I will have the stamina to stick with it.
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