Writer: Mike Conroy
Publisher: Barron's Educational Series
The history of the comic industry, given the rise and fall of various comic book publishers, can almost be as confusing as some of the comic books they publish. Some companies were annexed by others, some were poor knock-offs of other companies and were doomed to failure from the outset, and some have risen straight to the top and have remained there for a very long time.
Mike Conroy's 500 Great Comic Book Action Heroes details the rise and fall of the comic industry in both the microcosm and macrocosm. That is to say, he tells you what the comic industry was doing in general 50 years ago, which company bought which, how comics were typically selling, and then tell you how Action Comics released Superman that year, which led to revolutions in the industry. Or how crime and war comics were very popular before anyone even thought of superheroes. At the beginning of his tome, he gives a fairly thorough look at the comic book industry: from its humble beginnings as newspaper strips all the way to the comic book/graphic novel industry we have come to know and love today.
In addition to a chronological look at the industry, the 376 page paperback features short biographies on... you guessed it... 500 different action heroes. They are divided into seven categories: male heroes, female heroes, teams, newspaper heroes, war heroes, western heroes, and manga. Typically, each hero or heroine has a couple hundred words written about them, detailing their creators and prominent writers and artists who have carried the title, as well as the origins and some important events of the title. The problem with Conroy's descriptions seems to be the amount of space each character is given.
For example, a "Kid sidekicks" section is larger than the sections on Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man put together. It's also somewhat disorganized and harebrained in its (lack of) organization. After all, it details comic book crossovers in the "Females in comic books" section, which seems devoid of reason or method. The information contained in those passages are great, but they're out of place, or misprioritized. I mean, Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man are the zenith of the comic industry when it comes to renown, so they should have been detailed a little more than say, Aqualad. An irksome omission also occurs in the lack of detail on any villains. I mean, the title says “Heroes,” I know, but without a villain, you can't have heroes.
The technical aspects of the book leave something to be desired, too. It's pretty well square shaped, about 7 inches by 7 inches. It's not really problematic, it's just not your typical paperback. Also, the editing in the book can be utterly atrocious at times. Typos and misused words are found every couple pages by an astute reader. Given that this is a published book, you'd think the vetting process a book goes through to get published would have whittled down the number of errors to an acceptable level, but then you'd be wrong. The ordering system of the book is a mess, too. The book displays a column system, and typically, each character is written up in a column, depending on their fame and popularity. But then they've interspersed these (two page or more) diversions, which go into great detail about the character, like seven pages on Conan the Barbarian-and not necessarily alphabetically. It's a mess.
Overall, the book is really rather enlightening. It's disorganized and sometimes poorly edited, but the content of the book is rather good. Is it worth the $18 American retail cover price? Lord no. But if you happen to see it lying around, you may want to pick it up. (Amazon.com currently sells it for $12.89.) It was published in 2003, so it's moderately up to date and has some of the current trends. A foreword by the late Will Eisner is quite good. All in all, 500 Great Comic Book Action Heroes is decent, but in no way, shape or form worth the cover price.
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