X-Men: The Characters and Their Universe

X-Men: The Characters and Their Universe is a huge, oversize coffee-table book that should entertain a wide variety of X-fans. Author Michael Mallory wrote the same-sized Marvel: The Characters and Their Universe, and now benefits from a narrower focus on a single group: their comic books, movies, TV shows, and memorabilia. Published in 2006, the nearly 300-page tome covers topics as recent as House of M, 1602, and the third movie, X-Men: The Last Stand (though only passing mention of Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men) Also covered are the development of the team from the Stan Lee-Jack Kirby days through the 1975 revamp through the various spin-off series such as Age of Apocalypse and X-Force, and alternate realities (the great Days of Future Past story line). If you have gaps in your X-knowledge, this is a good resource for filling them, but X-perts may simply dig the large pictures of key covers and panels, movie stills, sketches, and Greg Horn's luscious take on Emma Frost. --David Horiuchi