All Of The Marvels A Journey To The Ends Of The Biggest Story Ever Told - Penguin Random House

So, of course, that s what Wolk did he read all 27,000+ comics that make up the Marvel Universe thus far, from Alpha Flight to Omega the Unknown. And then he made sense of itseeing into the everexpanding story, in its parts and as a whole, and seeing through it, as a prism through which to view the landscape of American culture. In Wolk s hands, the mammoth Marvel narrative becomes a funhousemirror history of the past sixty years, from the atomic night terrors of the Cold War to the technocracy and political division of the present daya boisterous, tragicomic, magnificently filigreed epic about power and ethics, set in a world transformed by wonders. As a work of cultural exegesis, this is sneakily significant, even a landmark; it s also ludicrously fun. Wolk sees fascinating patternsthe rise and fall of particular cultural aspirations, and of the storytelling modes that conveyed them. .