Marvel Encyclopedia: X-Men

Every character you ever knew, and alot you didn't, are here. With full biographies on each one, this is a must have for any X-Men fan! Absolutely terrific!

The Marvel universe is vast. It is filled with many heroes and villians, past and present. One of the largest parts of the Marvel Universe is the X-Men and their family of groups and associations(Alpha Flight, Hellfire Club, New Mutants, Starjammers, etc). To be honest, sometimes you can not tell the characters without a dictionary or a score card. Comics used to be so simple. Storylines these days are interconnected and entwined that you need a book like this to make sense of who is who. so now you need an encyclopedia like this to remember the character's back stories and histories. This book is a nice gift for any X fans of any age...and helpful to anyone new to the X-Men universe. It is well done and well illustrated. You can understand this universe of characters (heroes and villians) and even the danger room better than if you are reading the comics itself. Is it worth a thirty dollar price tag? Sure if you want learn all about the X-man Universe! After reading this Encyclopedia, I am ready to start reading the XMEN comics again! Bennet Pomerantz AUDIOWORLD

If you have read the Marvel Encyclopedia, this edition includes every one who is not in the Marvel Encyclopedia. If you purchase both you will pretty much have the Marvel universe at your fingertips. If you can get both encyclopedias You will not regret it!

I REALLY do feel that this a book for any xmen fan simply because it lets you know just about everything anybody would want to know about the xmen. there are full character bios that tell about the way they came into the x-universe. there are also extensive information about all the different teams and also all the enemies that the xmen and their team branches fight. there are nifty little guides that tell where each person lies with the regards to energy projection and intelligence etc. it also lists many obscure characters that have graced the pages and any reader will also be reminded of characters they may have forgotten about. i highly recommend this encyclopedia for anyone wishing to have a better knowledge about what makes up one of the greatest comic book universes ever conceived.

I'll cut to the chase and say that while I really liked this book, there are a few criticisms.In many ways its too concentrated on the present in that it glosses over some important story arcs of the past because there present impact is minimal. Likewise, some characters that were once rather important but haven't been around in a while get short entries, while others that have been around for only a short time, yet are currently featured in the books, get a full write-up. But then, this book is designed for new or returning readers to get an overview of the characters, so I can see why they went with that choice.The other thing the book can use is a timeline theat plots out major events and storyacrs. One could more easily see how the individual character entries weave together that way.I also feel as though the formerly existant other teams should have been mentioned a little more. I understand that it was at least in part due to legal reasons, as Rob Liefeld claimed ownership of certain names like X-Force and Cable (hence he's always refered to as Nathan Summers). And while it could be argued that their existance watered down the original by not being different enough(unlike the utterly unserious X-Statics), a little more on those teams would have been nice.

The number of entries in this collection is huge, basically making up almost all the characters in the X-men universe. The character considered the more important one gets more pages than the other (e.g. Cyclops, Wolverine, etc. get two pages while some get only one. Inactive characters get only like a fraction of a page. That is, in some pages, there is more than one character entry).I really don't like this idea since the inactive characters get less attention (like Rachel Summers) while excess characters (like the X-statix members) get one page per character. Just because a certain character is more active at present than the other it doesn't necessarily imply that he has played a more crucial role in the X-men continuity. I mean, I really doubt if an offshoot title like X-statix could have an impact on the Marvel universe greater than what Rachel has made. This could make people think that the characters with a longer bio are more significant than the other character that has a shorter one (which goes to show that a book that's updated doesn't always make it better than the older ones). And since the entries here are arranged by character names, you'll have a hard time figuring out the events that took place in the X-Men continuity. You won't know much about the Dark Phoenix Saga, X-Cutioner's Song, Phalanx, Brood Saga, Mutant Massacre, Siege Perilous, etc. because there are no individual entries for the major events. You have to gather pieces of information of these events from individual character entries.In my opinion, a better way of understanding the X-Men continuity is by understanding the storylines more so than the characters (i.e. knowing when a certain event occurred with respect to the other event (especially since X-Men continuity can be convoluted at times) as well as how the event occurred). Understanding the character would have to follow later. So what do I suggest?1. Get Peter Sanderson's Ultimate X-men guidebook first. It's cheaper, more reader-friendly, and it will provide you with better understanding of the events in the Marvel Universe more than this book could ever do.2. If you want more depth on character biography (since Peter Sanderson's book is more like a scrap book (in a good sense, that is)), get this book too, though I have to admit that the depth on the character bio of this book may not be enough for the extremely hardcore fans. Still, nothing beats the character bios in websites...3. And while you're into Marvel guidebook shopping spree, you might as well get the Science of the X-Men book for the most entertaining science book there is right now. :D