Tag: Encyclopedia

Back in the 1970s Michael Fleisher wrote a series of encyclopedias themed around the DC trinity of characters. As part of the Showcase reprint line the Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman volumes were recently re-released. Each of the encyclopedias contained detailed notes on pretty much every character and fact mentioned in the comics. Everything was heavily cross-referenced and there were multiple citations for anything quoted. They were an amazing work that preceded the later and more populist Who’s Who series. The Fleisher Encyclopaedias have a cut-off date of around 1970 so lack anything from the later Earth-One period. Original copies could go for hundreds of dollars on e-bay and they were out of print for three decades.

DC have now produced an all-new up to date set the Encyclopedias. The Robert Greenberger’s Essential Batman Encyclopedia (Ballabtine Books) is essentially an updated version of the Fleisher Batman Encyclopedia (in spirit if not in actual copy). The Batman volume covers material up to and including post-Infinite Crisis, the start of Grant Morrison’s run on Batman and Paul Dini’s run on Detective Comics. It is 388 pages of dense three-column type and makes liberal use of black-and-white illustrations taken directly from the comics. There are also a couple of sets of glossy colour plates to showcase the heroes and the villains.

The majority of the entries are character based, but unlike the recent DC Encyclopedia there are also entries for prominent places, events, and themes. Unlike the Who’s Whos no attempt is made to list character statistics unless they’re established in the canon in which case they’re mentioned in the body of the text. I found this Encyclopedia to be more meaty than 2004′s DC Comics Encyclopedia. That was a nice guide to the DCU, but was rather unsatisfying as a reference work.

The centre of the book is of course the core Batman titles, but content from Nightwing, Robin, and even Outsiders and Birds of Prey is included (albeit to a lesser degree). Acknowledgement is made of the fluid nature of comicbook continuity and it’s pointed out when and where significant changes have occurred to a character. For example, there is only a single Poison Ivy entry, but her Earth-One origin and history is told before its noted how it changed following the Crisis.

What has surprised me is the relatively quiet reception the book has received. Greenberger has talked to the Comic Reporter’s Tom Spurgeon and The Pulse’s Jennifer Contino about the project. He told Spurgeon that,

I’m a trained journalist and experienced writer and editor who happens to love comic books. Say someone who wrote the Batman comic wrote this book. Their approach might not be as easy given the different writing training and experience. Having read the titles continuously since 1964 means I’ve read it for over half its run which gives me a good global perspective. I also can easily explain the parallel worlds and put each era into perspective which helps a great deal to the book’s clarity.

His journalistic training show in the book, Greenberger’s writing is concise and easy to read, but never repetitive. He has a particular knack for cutting to the most essential parts of a character’s narrative and is not afraid to note where two stories can’t be reconciled. The focus on Batman’s canon doesn’t exclude mention of the wider DC Universe. However, it is slightly frustrating when the history of borderline characters is only partially recounted (e.g. Clock King’s involvement with the Injustice League isn’t mentioned). However, that’s just fan nitpicking.

The Essential Batman Encyclopedia is a fantastic book and is easily the best DC Comics reference work to come out since the 1990s loose-leaf Who’s Who. Two other volumes are planned, a Superman one by Martin Pasko and a Wonder Woman one by Phil Jimenez.