Encyclopedia Disappointmenta

When I read DC was updating its classic Who's Who series with an oversized hardcover DC Comics Encyclopedia, I was more than a little curious; I loved the original and wondered what an updated version would look like. I took a look at the book at Barnes & Noble today and was extremely disappointed, to the point that when I came home one of the first things I did was go online and remove it from my Amazon wish list.

The book's biggest problem might be on the conceptual level; it can't decide if it's a catalog of the DC Universe and its continuity as it stands today or if it's celebrating of everything DC has ever published as a company. The selection of entries is just plain bizarre: We get weird little entries about characters no one has thought of in years and don't exist in DC's continuity any more, like Celeste Rockfish from the Giffen/Bierbaum run of Legion of Super-Heroes, half-page entries dedicated to short-run comics like the universally reviled Lab Rats series, and teeny-tiny listings for members of groups like the Russian super-team The People's Heroes, plus a group entry that duplicates all of the information contained in the individual member listings.

Artistically and production-wise, the book is a mess. Much of the artwork consists of low-quality reproductions from other comics or even past editions of Who's Who, and many of the listings don't even bother presenting a simple, clear full-body shot of their subject. Some of the ones that do THAT do it with shrunk-down, barely-visible copies of art from previous versions of Who's Who. Finally, the colored backgrounds for each entry are distracting and often clash with one another.

It was also depressing to realize just how far the DC Universe has fallen since the glory days of the original series. Entry after entry commemorated some forgotten character created for a stupid sales stunt, like the repulsive "Bloodlines" event, or all those annuals introducing foreign heroes who promptly dropped off the face of the earth, or the all-new, all-lame adjectiveless mid-90s Teen Titans series, or the hideous manga-flavored run of Superman comics from the not-quite-relaunch that came before this not-quite-relaunch.

It was sad, I tell ya, just plain sad.

There were also a few sloppy errors I noticed paging through it: Black Lightning's entry depicted him in the MD Bright-designed costume that was never used in a comic, and Minuteman was depicted in the entry for Mr. Scarlet.

Worst of all, entries contained no credits for their creators or the artists whose work was used in the entries. There was simply an "Artist Acknowledgements" listing in the back of the book.

I'm afraid my verdict is to save your money and buy back issues or some TPBs instead.