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28-476: The series was researched and written by Peter Sanderson and edited by Danny Fingeroth . It was published over 25 issues from December 1985 to December 1987. The story follows Marvel continuity as closely as possible from the inception of the Marvel Universe, and it is stated in the first issue that there is nothing in the series that hasn't already been printed in previous Marvel comics. The illustration of

56-645: A complete history of Peter and Mary Jane's relationship, and was written by Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man writer Peter David instead of Sanderson. David commented, "How could I not do it? I'm an old romantic. Having been happily married for ten years, I'm a fan of 'And they got married and lived happily ever after.' I think Peter deserves some happiness, although considering the Parker luck, he probably won't live happily ever after." [emphases in original] Subsequent releases from Marvel have followed

84-582: A one-shot comic titled History of the Marvel Universe , which provided an overview of the past 50 years of Marvel history in the Marvel Saga format. The series has been collected into two trade paperbacks : Peter Sanderson Peter Sanderson Jr. (born April 25, 1952) is an American comic book critic and historian . He is best known for his work as a researcher at the two main American comics companies, DC and Marvel , where he helped to catalog

112-484: A second, separate page (such as "Flash-Grams — Extra", "Letters To the Batcave — Extra", and "JLA Mailroom — Special Peter Sanderson Edition") to facilitate Sanderson's analysis. In the early 1980s Sanderson wrote for comics hobbyist magazines, including The Comics Journal , Amazing Heroes , and Comics Feature . From there, Sanderson broke into the comic book industry proper. He was first hired by DC Comics, where he

140-440: A segment of a retrospective article on his late mentor Mark Gruenwald for Back Issue! magazine #103. The segment focused on the academic and scholarly nature of Sanderson and Gruenwald's working relationship. In April 2017 Sanderson was hospitalized with hip fracture resulting from a fall. This prevented him from writing a retrospective article on his mentor, Mark Gruenwald , that he had suggested to editor Michael Eury for

168-613: The Crisis , the Flash's death is not mentioned as issue #8 predates his death, but Supergirl's death is recounted 14 months later in issue #22. Also, characters such as Superman and Wonder Woman were rebooted during the series' run, so their entries recounted their Post- Crisis histories only, while their entire Silver Age histories (and all the unique elements of those characters during that time, such as Superman's Fortress of Solitude and Wonder Woman's powerless period) were ignored. Who's Who

196-527: The DC Universe . Who's Who was the creation of Len Wein , Marv Wolfman , and Robert Greenberger , and its first incarnation ( Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe ) debuted in the last month of 1984 ( cover-dated March 1985) and ran for 26 issues until 1987 (cover-dated April 1987). It was essentially an encyclopedia in comic book form, listing the characters, places, and technology in

224-480: The Marvel Saga format. Wolverine Saga , a four-part mini-series published from September 1989 to December 1989, detailed the history of Wolverine up to that time. Spider-Man Saga , another four issue series, was released from November 1991 to February 1992 and did the same thing for Spider-Man . Beginning in 2006, Marvel released several Marvel Saga -style one-shots for their titles. The list of these books are: * Online only In January 2012, Marvel published

252-607: The Who's Who have appeared over the years, including Who's Who Update '87 (five issues, cover dated August to December 1987) and Who's Who Update '88 (four issues, cover dated August to November 1988). Both books featured new entries, revised entries for characters in previous volumes, and an Appendix which included minor updates and corrections for previous entries. In 1989, most of the DC Annual s released that year included Who's Who entries. Many of these were revised versions of entries in

280-512: The 1980s Star Trek comic book published by DC. As the series was released prior to the premiere of Star Trek: The Next Generation , no information from that series was included. The second spin-off was Who's Who in the Legion of Super-Heroes , a seven-issue series (cover-dated April to November 1988) which expanded on the Legion information included in the regular Who's Who and featured profiles on

308-537: The April 2018 issue of Back Issue! magazine, though he did contribute a segment for that article. Who%27s Who in the DC Universe Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe (1985–87), usually referred to simply as Who's Who , is the umbrella title for a number of comic book series which DC Comics published to catalogue the wide variety of fictional characters in their imaginary universe,

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336-495: The DC Universe Update 1993 (two loose-leaf issues, cover-dated December 1992 and January 1993). DC also released a Who's Who series for their Impact Comics line (three loose-leaf issues, cover-dated September 1991 to May 1992). During the period from the late 1990s through the end of the 2000s, Who's Who was replaced with Secret Files and Origins , a series of one-shots devoted to particular characters or events in

364-569: The DC Universe and which feature Who's Who -like profiles. DK Publishing has also released a number of Ultimate Guides , as well as a book titled The DC Comics Encyclopedia , which serve a similar purpose. In December 2009, DC announced a new Who's Who series to be published in 2010 as part of the company's 75th anniversary celebration. The series was later announced for 18 issues, 48 pages per issue, beginning in May 2010 with Bob Greenberger as sole writer and Bob Harras as editor. The series launch

392-520: The DC Universe, with a loose leaf format devised by editor Michael Eury . It began one month before the 12-issue limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths began; therefore, the earlier issues discuss Pre- Crisis versions of the characters, whereas issues released after the conclusion of the limited series discuss the Post- Crisis versions. For example, while both the Flash and Supergirl died during

420-472: The Legion, since by this time she was written out of continuity. In 1990, DC started over with a new Who's Who series titled Who's Who in the DC Universe (16 loose-leaf issues with binders sold separately, cover-dated August 1990 to February 1992). This book was not as comprehensive as the previous Who's Who (for example, there was no entry for the Atom , even though his character was undergoing major changes in

448-425: The comic Suicide Squad ), and some of the entries took on a less serious tone. One instance is an entry for Guy Gardner , which is written from the character's perspective. Another instance is a blank entry for Death , which has all the usual information headings crossed out and blue marker scrawl stating simply "Someday you'll meet her. You can find out for yourself". This series was followed up by Who's Who in

476-484: The comics was mostly made up from excerpts from the original comics in which the events being described took place, with the addition of some new artwork to describe some of the events mentioned. The series was meant to be a cohesive and quick way for newcomers to catch up on the entirety of the Marvel Universe at once, featuring the stories of the biggest and most important events in the Universe, including origins of most of

504-455: The major Marvel characters. It also allows readers to see how stories from many different series are related and how they fit together in chronological order. The series concluded with the introduction of Galactus and the Silver Surfer . In order to tie in with the wedding of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson , Marvel Saga #22 broke from the chronological approach of the series to provide

532-559: The newly rebranded A Site Called Fred on January 19, 2010. Outside of his online writings, Sanderson has also had a number of books published (including The Marvel Vault and The Marvel Travel Guide to New York ), taught the class The Graphic Novel as Literature at New York University , curated an exhibition on Stan Lee for the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art , and reviews the latest in comics and comics-related material for Publishers Weekly . In April 2017, Sanderson contributed

560-469: The regular Who's Who series, but there were several new entries (particularly for supporting characters ). DC Comics also put out two Who's Who spin-off series in the 1980s. The first was Who's Who in Star Trek , a two-issue series (cover-dated March and April 1987) which profiled many of the people and places from the 1960s Star Trek series (and subsequent movies), the 1970s animated series and

588-482: The various Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe series in the 1980s and early 1990s. Sanderson was also the writer of the Marvel Saga and Wolverine Saga limited series . These titles did not follow the typical art-centered comic book format. Instead, the two series were prose chronicles of the fictional histories of comic book characters, which Sanderson culled from previous titles Marvel had published over

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616-415: The various fictional characters that comprised their respective continuities , including Victor Timely . As a teenager, and later, at Columbia University , Sanderson's first involvement in the comics field was as a " letterhack ," a frequent contributor to comic book letter columns . His missives impressed DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz enough for Schwartz expand the letter columns in some titles to

644-515: The various supporting characters, organizations, locations and villains which have appeared in Legion stories over the years. Some of the information contained in this book was Post- Crisis instead of Pre- Crisis . For example, the Superboy profile relates the Post- Crisis origin of the character as a creation of the Time Trapper , and there is no profile for Supergirl, despite her many adventures with

672-507: The website IGN , but then moved to the Kevin Smith -affiliated website Quick Stop Entertainment on June 23, 2006; according to Sanderson, the "Powers That Be" in charge of IGN's comics section began to tamper with the titles of his columns and complain about some of the topics he covered, whereby a "change of scenery" was necessary. After a seventeen-month hiatus, Comics in Context returned to

700-560: The years. The text was supplemented by individual panels excerpted from the comic books that served as Sanderson's sources. Sanderson writes an online column entitled Comics in Context , which (in Sanderson's own words) is "a weekly series of critical essays on comics, cartoon art, and related subjects" (those "related subjects" can run the gamut from film adaptations of comic books , to other media that have been influenced by comics, such as Star Wars ). The series started on July 8, 2003 on

728-648: Was DC's answer to The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe , which was published a few years earlier. Each character had an individualized logo instead of a standard typeface; figures were shown in action poses rather than full-body portraits drawn by individual artists; character histories and power descriptions were more vague; and characters from all of DC's various lines and imprints were included (such as out-of- continuity series like Camelot 3000 and Watchmen ), not just those from its shared universe (although Who's Who Update '88 did limit its entries to in-continuity series only). Various updated versions of

756-409: Was given the task of reading every comic book published by the company since 1935. His research was used by Len Wein to write Who's Who in the DC Universe . Sanderson then went to work for Marvel Comics , where he was mentored by writer/editor Mark Gruenwald as Marvel's first scholar and archivist, which saw Sanderson placed in charge of Marvel's library. Sanderson contributed as a researcher on

784-470: Was subsequently delayed, but in October DC vice-president Dan DiDio stated that the series would be released after the 2011 DCU line-wide event, Flashpoint . The history of the DC Universe received an extensive overhaul in the aftermath of said Flashpoint event. The resulting New 52 comics are set in a greatly altered continuity, making a new edition of Who's Who unlikely in the short term because

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