Infographics are a technological innovation that has revolutionized the news industry — in this case, for the better. The best infographics help you visualize difficult concepts or illustrate data that may seem too abstract. But like any tool, infographics can sometimes be overused and applied to topics that aren’t worth creating just because they’re trendy and look cool.
Marvel Super Graphics: A Visual Guide to the Marvel Comics Universe, published by Chronicle Books, falls into the latter category, but is that necessarily a negative?
Stripped down to its essentials, Marvel Super Graphics can be thought of as a visually beautiful, yet discursive, version of the classic handbooks that painstakingly categorize Marvel minutiae alphabetically in the same way that the book’s minimalist presentation does for in-universe topics. While not encyclopedic in scope or structure, Marvel Super Graphics could make a neat mini-sized coffee table book that sparks random conversations or deeper explorations.
Most of the “infographics” in the surprisingly voluminous 175-page Marvel Super Graphic are actually lists of things and events, forcibly arranged into charts and trees that don’t lend themselves to much trivia (hence the slightly ironic quotation marks). It may be useful to have everyone Peter Parker has ever lived with listed in one place, but the spider emblem in the middle doesn’t really tell us anything beyond what we already know. What on earth is this Gordian acronym visualization?
Not to mention Hawkeye’s “vomit” arrow. It’s cool to think of 48 trick arrows, illustrated along the axis of commonality and usefulness across two pink pages, but are arrows that make villains vomit really both the most common and the most useful?! Publisher Marvel Super Graphic’s advertising copy states that they are “Officially Licensed and Verified by Marvel,” so they must be.
The worst (or best, depending on how you look at it) is a set of 14 “infographics” (this time with some pretty sarcastic quotes) that are simply recreations of character faces and symbols, with a cutesy breakdown of what the colors represent. Black Widow’s iconic red hourglass is explained as representing “Russians,” while the black circle around it represents “taking your time.” Get it? It may be good for a chuckle or a groan, but I can’t help but think it’s also just to pad out the page count.
Best for those who want to get a real feel for Marvel as “the world outside your window” are the maps of Manhattan and Earth, which depict famous New York City landmarks like the Daily Bugle and the Sanctum Sanctorum, as well as the locations of fictional countries like Latveria and Genosha. Perhaps the most useful actual infographic is the one that shows when and how the Hulk and the Thing fought.
Here are some other cool visualizations that show when and for how long characters used certain names or identities. Did you know Carol Danvers was “Binary” for 16 years? Meanwhile, Bucky’s probably wasn’t needed. Yes, he was the Winter Soldier, then he wasn’t the Winter Soldier, then he was the Winter Soldier again, and that’s it.
Okay, that’s pretty good too, boss.
So what does Marvel Super Graphics: A Visual Guide to the Marvel Comics Universe aim to be, and who is it aimed at? Author Tim Leung has done this before, so he clearly has a fanbase. Veteran comics writer Kelly Sue DeConnick puts it this way in her book’s blurb: “It will delight Marvel newbies and provide unexpected surprises for longtime fans,” and she’s spot on. It’s not a handbook, and nerds might balk at the paucity of references, but Nia Noble and the Inhuman Magnar are definitely important characters.
“Marvel Super Graphics” is indeed graphic. “Super” might be a bit of an exaggeration.
Marvel Super Graphics: A visual guide to the world of Marvel Comics
I’m not sure what the purpose of this is, but many (most?) of the visualizations aren’t actually infographics – they’re fun and sometimes informative, but more like a coffee table book than a resource.
Bright and colorful
A work that perfectly captures the Marvel legend
Deeply developed characters and story
Most of these “infographics” have nothing to gain from being infographics.
A social gathering discussing “the best bald characters” probably isn’t going to make you laugh or teach you anything.
