Rating:  -
As a fan of DC comics and a collector of its 'Who's Who' series from way back I was very pleased to see a large, hardbound encyclopaedia of the DC Universe. Flipping through it at my local bookseller's left me pretty pleased with the work overall and so I purchased it to go over in more detail later. The Devil, as they say, is in the details. Going over the book more closely the reality of a work this size hit home: they missed quite a number of characters (some obscure, others not so obscure) and the formatting left something to be desired. I'm an old-school fan, pre-Crisis in many senses, and some of my favorites were simply not there; any version of The Harlequin (NOT Harley Quinn), a number of the less-used members of the Titans (Teen, New or otherwise), just to mention a few. I recommend this book for the artwork, primarily, and for -most- of the information contained therein. With word of a second printing, I'm hopeful that then next one will have more space.
Rating:  -
This "encyclopedia" is poorly structured, sloppy and, at times, grossly inaccurate. And there's no entry for "Crisis," DC Comics' biggest event ever, under "C." Furthermore, characters with the same codenames are jumbled under single headers, which is very confusing! The chosen art for this collection is uneven. Overall, this is a sad product sure to disappoint comic-book fans. Also, several important characters were completely ignored. Pathetic.
Rating:  -
Wow, what an encyclopedia! Only Oracle (Barbara Gordon) has more information than what's contained on these pages.
This is an exhaustive book that not only references over one thousand DC characters, detailing their origins and significant events in DC mythology, it also focuses on teams, places, weapons, vehicles, battles, etc. Certainly, emphasized throughout the book are the DC heavyweights - Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman - but the book's richness is in the many obscure and overlooked and forgotten and underappreciated characters. Inevitably, with such a grand undertaking, some characters are neglected or completely missing, particularly John Constantine, Hush, Mister Magestic, and The Wonder Twins, Zan and Jayna, who are a part of DC continuity as having appeared in Extreme Justice and JLA/Avengers. I can only hope with a second revised edition already mentioned, the Wonder Twins get their due.
Rating: -
If you even know what Who's who is, you should probably buy the book since you'll appreciate the obscure character entries. I found most of my favorite characters in here, but I'm disappointed that they chose to omit an entry for John Constantine. He's a part of the DC Universe covered in this book, and he's featured in a few side entries, but an individual entry is strangely absent. Considering that a movie starring the character is coming out soon I thought that was an odd choice.
Other than that quibble, though, I enjoyed reading about characters I've never heard of and catching up on ones I haven't followed in a while. A great deal of work was involved in the creation of this book, and you can tell. I would've given it a higher rating but I was left wishing they would've made it a little bigger and added a little higher detail to the entries in general. More space devoted to elseworlds stories and weapons/headquarters would've been nice as well.
It felt a little rushed and could've easily been the ultimate reference book, but as it stands it's still the best that's been released in a long while.
Rating: -
The poor photo layout aside, the DC COMICS ENCYCLOPEDIA is a beautiful and elaborate guide to the characters that have endeared themselves to comic fans for generations. DC Comics Heroes have had such an influence on pop culture that this tome delivers on the origins of such old legends as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman with detailed backgrounds and colorful art. As well as inspiring looks at new heroes making their own marks in DC History like the new Robin, Supergirl or even Aztek.
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