The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #10

History

The OHOTMU grew out of an idea pitched by Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, who envisioned a stat-driven guide modeled on the dense reference format of books like Jane's Fighting Ships — essentially baseball-card statistics applied to superheroes. Shooter handed editorial stewardship to Mark Gruenwald, who expanded the project from a tight specifications manual into a full encyclopedia covering heroes, villains, races, and alien civilizations, with contributing writers including Peter Sanderson, Eliot R. Brown, Mike Carlin, and Tom DeFalco. The title itself was borrowed from Al Milgrom's working name for what became Marvel Fanfare. Issue #10, released on the newsstand on July 19, 1983 with an October 1983 cover date, was edited by Gruenwald and Michael Carlin under editor-in-chief Shooter, and featured Josef Rubinstein as the sole series inker — a deliberate editorial choice to unify the wildly varied penciling styles across the book's enormous roster of contributors.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Issue #10 spans the alphabetical range from the Shi'ar to Sub-Mariner, encompassing entries for S.H.I.E.L.D. (and its Helicarrier and Flying Car), Silver Surfer, Skrulls, Space Phantom, Spider-Man, Snowbird, Starfox, Storm, and others.
• The penciling roster for issue #10 reads like a 1983 'who's who' of Marvel talent: Paul Smith, Mike Zeck, Walt Simonson, Bill Sienkiewicz, Kerry Gammill, Michael Golden, John Byrne, Frank Miller, Jim Starlin, Dave Cockrum, and Butch Guice all contributed pages.
• Notable artist-character pairings in this issue include John Byrne on Snowbird, Frank Miller on Space Phantom, and Jim Starlin on Starfox — each pairing intended to match a character's defining artistic voice to their handbook entry.
• Josef Rubinstein served as the sole inker across the entire 15-issue original OHOTMU run, a deliberate editorial decision by Gruenwald to create a unified visual identity despite the large number of pencilers.
• The written entries were produced by a core team of Mark Gruenwald, Eliot R. Brown, Peter Sanderson, Mark Lerer, and Tom DeFalco, with Mark Gruenwald and Michael Carlin serving as editors.
• The series was originally planned as a 12-issue run covering only active characters; enthusiastic reader response — including corrections and complaints — prompted Gruenwald to expand it to 15 issues, adding the Book of the Dead (issues #13–14) and the Book of Weapons, Hardware, and Paraphernalia (issue #15).
• The entire original 15-issue OHOTMU run, including issue #10, was later reprinted in a collected Essential volume (black-and-white trade paperback format) published by Marvel in January 2006.
• The OHOTMU's original series is documented as predating DC's comparable Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe by approximately two years, establishing the superhero-encyclopedia format in serialized comic-book form.

Full credits

Key issues in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe

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#7 1st appearance — Marrina

Variants (2)