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Marvel Monsters: Creatures Of The Marvel Universe Explored Book Review

“Marvel Monsters: Creatures Of The Marvel Universe Explored” showcases a different side of the Marvel Comics universe.

With Halloween approaching, DK has put out a new hardcover book focusing on the monsters and creatures of the Marvel Comics universe. Written by author Kelly Knox, the book is divided up into 7 sections- Aquatic, Amphibians and Reptiles, Mammals, Aerial, Artificially Created, Space And Other Dimensions, and Monster teams. Within these sections, characters like Man-Thing, The Lizard (Spider-Man foe), Morbius, The Living Vampire (soon to be in his own motion picture), Old Lace (for “The Runaways” fans out there), Werewolf By Night, Sauron, Chitauri, and teams like Marvel Zombies get a page or pages devoted to them. Each entry is accompanied by a description/overview of the character, first comic appearances and or further reading (AKA key issues), as well as stats like height, weight, powers, and origin. A number of characters also get a two-page spread devoted to their anatomy ala Fin Fang Foom. There are a few two-page art spreads throughout the book as well.

Marvel Comics may be best known for superheroes and heroic teams, but the company has a long history of monster and creature (both good and evil) comic book characters. Obviously, there are big ones like Groot (who dons the cover) and the Hulk family, but there are a lot of lesser known characters as well. This book puts the spotlight on many of them such as Lockheed (the X-Men character), Elektro (not to be confused with Electro), Grottu and Hypno-Creature. Thanks to this book, you get to learn about some of these overshadowed and forgotten characters. Personally, I was quite drawn to reading about everything from Monstrom’s alien backstory, Manphibian’s energy veins, Groom being in the Collector’s possession and the towering Apocalypse Beast being 3 miles in height. There’s no shortage of factoids and history here.

The only real downside here is that there are some noticeable absences like Ghost Rider (although he is mentioned in the Legion of Monsters section), Mephisto, and Abomination missing (although Teen Abomination is pictured). That’s just a minor quibble to what is otherwise yet another engrossing Marvel book from DK.

August 22, 2021 - Posted by nicklyons1 | Book review | Groot, Marvel Comics, Marvel Monsters: Creatures Of The Marvel Universe Explored Book Review, Morbius The Living Vampire