From the Depths of Marvel: Aireo

A few years ago I wrote an article for Sequart about what I call "Encyclopedic Comics" - the Official Handbooks and Who's Whos. I find them to be a particularly fascinating subset of comics, not quite sequential art, but something wholly dependent upon it.

One of the earliest is the first Marvel Official Handbook series. A monthly, regular-sized comic, limited to 12 issues, couldn't possibly describe all of the creatures, heroes, villains, locations, weapons, everything that makes up the canonical Marvel U. So they added an appendix, to which were relegated the characters worthy of only a line or two. And some of them are amazing.

Since I've run out of Earth-H comics for the time being, I thought I'd offer a scan of some of the more amazing discoveries I've made in this Z-list of Marvel's finest. Where possible, I'll try to find an image for each entry.

Meet Aireo.

 

His name's "Aireo." Because he can fly. I'm going to call my self "Groundeo" from now on, because I walk.

And here he is. This is so great.

More next week!