Historical text from Comixfan.

Eric J. Moreels
Nov 28, 2008, 06:24 am

Coming from Marvel in February...

DARK REIGN FILES
Written by MICHAEL HOSKIN & OTHERS

Bring on the bad guys! It’s the latest mighty Marvel handbook, straight from the files of Norman Osborn! The Dark Reign’s chief power broker assembles a case study of professional criminals on the superhuman grid — scrutinizing threat, loyalty, influence, power and expendability. In the words of the Green Goblin himself: "Our purpose is to know our enemies — and our enemies' enemies — as we do ourselves."

64 PGS./Rated T+ …$4.99


ultrabasurero
Jan 25, 2009, 06:20 pm

Well the solicits on marvel.com say this:

"Bring on the bad guys! It’s the latest mighty Marvel handbook, straight from the files of Norman Osborn! The Dark Reign’s chief power broker assembles a case study of professional criminals on the superhuman grid — scrutinizing threat, loyalty, influence, power and expendability. In the words of the Green Goblin himself: “Our purpose is to know our enemies — and our enemies' enemies — as we do ourselves.” "

So, is this in standard handbook format, or is this like the Annihilation Files or Most Wanted Files? The solicits make it seem it's in standard handbook format because it says handbook. And is this book spotlighting only villains? If so, that's cool.


Madison Carter
Jan 25, 2009, 06:37 pm

It's going to be in Files style.

It's gotten to the point, with the various Handbooks, Files, Atlases, and Indexes all done by the same basic team that they're all "sort of" Handbooks. But not Handbook Handbooks.


Sidney Osinga
Feb 25, 2009, 04:54 pm

I got this today, and have started reading it. The book it most resembles is X-Men: the 198 Files, with three entries per page. It also has some really obscure characters in it, such as Cardiaxe, Griz, Lenz, and Mountjoy to name a few.


Michael Regan
Feb 25, 2009, 05:22 pm

Dang, I missed this issue. Time for a hunt.


Michael Hoskin
Feb 25, 2009, 05:29 pm

Sidney Osinga wrote:

I got this today, and have started reading it. The book it most resembles is X-Men: the 198 Files, with three entries per page. It also has some really obscure characters in it, such as Cardiaxe, Griz, Lenz, and Mountjoy to name a few.

Any guesses why they're there? :yeah:


Sidney Osinga
Feb 26, 2009, 07:56 pm

Michael Hoskin wrote:

Any guesses why they're there? :yeah:

Could it be that most if not all of them are going to appear in Dark Reign in one form or another? Such as the way Man Mountain Marko was a member of the ATF in Agents of Atlas #1.


rplss
Feb 28, 2009, 05:57 am

I got this today, and have started reading it. The book it most resembles is X-Men: the 198 Files

Do you mean it's printed with fake hyperlinked text printed in dark blue on a black background so the text is rendered nearly illegible?
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g2.../illegible.jpg
I hope it's not like that!!!


Andy E. Nystrom
Feb 28, 2009, 07:42 am

Michael Hoskin wrote:

Any guesses why they're there? :yeah:

They kept pestering their agent until s/he finally gave them a gig somewhere.  :Biggrin:


Andy E. Nystrom
Feb 28, 2009, 07:47 am

rplss wrote:

Do you mean it's printed with fake hyperlinked text printed in dark blue on a black background so the text is rendered nearly illegible?
I hope it's not like that!!!

Most of the text is black text (red headings) on beige background; perfectly readable. The only lettering that's even slightly a challenge to read is five category headings that are repeated every entry anyway (and even they are discussed in black text, beige background on the first page).

For the Doctor Doom entry, shouldn't his Loyalty be listed as Low rather than Extreme?


Eduardo M.
Feb 28, 2009, 08:06 pm

Picked this up earlier today.

Not bad. I'm not usually a big fan of handbooks like this or the 198 Files or either of the Civil War books. I usually like to have my handbook info straight forward without the possibly of the info being tainted due to it being written by a character that has a certain bias. That said however, I still enjoyed flipping through this.

I found the choice of writer intriguing. Especially with regards to what they had to say regarding Mad Thinker.

I wonder if any of the people rated High to Extreme in terms of expendability should worry about updating their wills.

I was greatly surprised by the Menance entry.

On a similar note, I'm kinda disappointed the Red Hulk entry didn't have a simlar surprise. And here I was hoping we wouldn't be made to wait as to the ID of Rulk for much longer. Silly me. (grumble grumble)

I wonder how many of the obscure villians shown here are getting Handbook love anytime soon. (Ex: Lodestone, Shatterfist, the Avatars, Cardiaxe, the Mengo Brothers, Firebrand/Boxtrel, Sunstreak)

While not my usual helping of handbooky goodness, it will do until Vol.7


Rob London
Feb 28, 2009, 09:36 pm

Eduardo M. wrote:

Picked this up earlier today.
I was greatly surprised by the Menance entry.

On a similar note, I'm kinda disappointed the Red Hulk entry didn't have a simlar surprise. And here I was hoping we wouldn't be made to wait as to the ID of Rulk for much longer. Silly me. (grumble grumble)

The Menace profile wasn't really a "surprise" - Menace's identity was revealed several weeks ago in Amazing Spider-Man #585.


Madison Carter
Mar 1, 2009, 12:14 am

Eduardo M. wrote:

Not bad. I'm not usually a big fan of handbooks like this or the 198 Files or either of the Civil War books. I usually like to have my handbook info straight forward without the possibly of the info being tainted due to it being written by a character that has a certain bias. That said however, I still enjoyed flipping through this.

The thing is, this and the other books you mentioned shouldn't be considered Handbooks, because they aren't. Most of them are in-story books, not outside reference material and should be taken as such.

Is the material "tainted/biased?" Absolutely.


Andy E. Nystrom
Mar 1, 2009, 07:46 am

Madison Carter wrote:

The thing is, this and the other books you mentioned shouldn't be considered Handbooks, because they aren't. Most of them are in-story books, not outside reference material and should be taken as such.

I think that term is mainly used by people to describe them because a> there isn't a common term used to describe them (well I suppose Files is used a lot but a lot of the text in new Avengers Most Wanted could be seen as less biased, hence its inclusion in the hardcovers a lot of the time) and because there isn't a term that can be used as a catch-all for these kinds of comics and the proper Handbooks. I know in the past, prior to my discovering this forum, Marvel lost money from me because I collect this as well as regular Handbooks, and wasn't aware of some of them until the books were hard to find. In fact, I still haven't found the New X-Men Academy X Yearbook.

So let me start the ball rolling. For just these kinds of books what do we call them? Files books? Pseudo-Handbooks?

For these kinds of books plus the Handbooks, what do we call them? Marvel reference books? Raw data books? Stats books? Statistics books? Information dump books?

If we aren't going to use the Handbooks term as a catch-all, let's pin down the jargon once and for all!


Michael Hoskin
Mar 1, 2009, 12:37 pm

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

I think that term is mainly used by people to describe them because a> there isn't a common term used to describe them (well I suppose Files is used a lot but a lot of the text in new Avengers Most Wanted could be seen as less biased, hence its inclusion in the hardcovers a lot of the time) and because there isn't a term that can be used as a catch-all for these kinds of comics and the proper Handbooks. I know in the past, prior to my discovering this forum, Marvel lost money from me because I collect this as well as regular Handbooks, and wasn't aware of some of them until the books were hard to find. In fact, I still haven't found the New X-Men Academy X Yearbook.

I still haven't found the Spider-Man Yearbook and I wrote for that one. *sigh*

We do have long-term plans to adapt the files entries into handbook entries; I think you guys have already caught a few of them on these forums and you can expect to see more in 2009.

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

So let me start the ball rolling. For just these kinds of books what do we call them? Files books? Pseudo-Handbooks?

For these kinds of books plus the Handbooks, what do we call them? Marvel reference books? Raw data books? Stats books? Statistics books? Information dump books?

If we aren't going to use the Handbooks term as a catch-all, let's pin down the jargon once and for all!

We in the biz call them Files format.


Madison Carter
Mar 1, 2009, 01:46 pm

Our writing team works on Handbooks as well as Files, Indexes, Atlases, and Sagas (though not all Sagas are done by us, just some).

Handbooks, Indexes and Atlases are strict reference material, committed to putting forth in print any and all information on the subjects.

File books are usually done in-character and are to be viewed as a reference source WITHIN the comics, something that certain characters could pick up and read. Hence, lots of information is not essential to them, as they would not be aware of it (The Purple Man's exploits not being clear in Avengers Most Wanted being a prime example).


Andy E. Nystrom
Mar 1, 2009, 05:16 pm

Madison Carter wrote:

Our writing team works on Handbooks as well as Files, Indexes, Atlases, and Sagas (though not all Sagas are done by us, just some).

Handbooks, Indexes and Atlases are strict reference material, committed to putting forth in print any and all information on the subjects.

File books are usually done in-character and are to be viewed as a reference source WITHIN the comics, something that certain characters could pick up and read. Hence, lots of information is not essential to them, as they would not be aware of it (The Purple Man's exploits not being clear in Avengers Most Wanted being a prime example).

Yes, I know *what* they are. I'm just thinking there might be an all encompassing word we can use to describe the various reference works. I'm happy to use Files to describe "in character" stuff, but when some of us visit our dealer to request all the kinds of books that may be discussed under Who Watches the Watchers (because we want to buy them all), it might be helpful to have a word that encompasses them all. And even when we're not visiting our dealer, if we don't come up with something all encompassing, people are going to continue to use the word Handbook on this forum to refer to reference works in general, because having to type out "Handbooks, Indices, Files, Atlases, and any other such reference book" every time would be a bit clunky and time-consuming.

So if you wanted to use one word (or a two-word phrase) that encompasses Handbooks, Indices, Files, and Atlases, and any other such reference book, what would it be?


Stuart V
Mar 1, 2009, 05:49 pm

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

Yes, I know *what* they are. I'm just thinking there might be an all encompassing word we can use to describe the various reference works. I'm happy to use Files to describe "in character" stuff, but when some of us visit our dealer to request all the kinds of books that may be discussed under Who Watches the Watchers (because we want to buy them all), it might be helpful to have a word that encompasses them all. And even when we're not visiting our dealer, if we don't come up with something all encompassing, people are going to continue to use the word Handbook on this forum to refer to reference works in general, because having to type out "Handbooks, Indices, Files, Atlases, and any other such reference book" every time would be a bit clunky and time-consuming.

So if you wanted to use one word (or a two-word phrase) that encompasses Handbooks, Indices, Files, and Atlases, and any other such reference book, what would it be?

I guess reference books or reference guides would be the most obvious option.


Eric J. Moreels
Mar 1, 2009, 09:13 pm

rplss wrote:

Do you mean it's printed with fake hyperlinked text printed in dark blue on a black background so the text is rendered nearly illegible?
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g2.../illegible.jpg
I hope it's not like that!!!

Thankfully, it's not.

(And yes, I'm still miffed by the coloring choices for hyperlinks and background in 198 Files!)