Who's Who Omnibus Vol. 1

Who's Who Omnibus Vol. 1 by Various
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Who's Who Omnibus Vol. 1 collects Who's Who in the DC Universe 1-26, Who's Who Update '87 1-5, Who's Who Update '88 1-4, and various single page Who's Who entries.

When I was nine or ten, I first chanced upon Who's Who #14 on the spinner rack at the local Venture store and was enthralled, knowledge of the most obscure DC characters starting with the letter M at my fingertips. I went on to collect the entire series, read it until it was on life support, and finally buy the series again at a convention in 2017. When I saw this was finally being released, I pried open my wallet and ordered it immediately.

For a reference book nearly 35 years out of date, this was a lot of fun for me and all the nostalgia neurons were firing. This came out as Crisis was happening so of course, further updates were necessary in true DC Comics fashion.

I don't think people who grew up with the internet realize what a big deal this was for DC nerds back in the day. When I was a kid, we had to learn the real names of Red Bee, Bouncing Boy, and the various characters named Manhunter in Who's Who or not at all!

Absent are the Atari Force characters, though Tempest is still on one cover and Blackjak wound up being included in #26 due to some oversight. The covers have been altered to include the page numbers in this mammoth tome rather than the original issues, which I thought was a nice touch. It does irk me that they never fixed The Huntress entry to change her name to Helena instead of Selina in the profile section.

Lots of old timers got one last chance to strut their stuff in this, like Wayne Boring, and some up and comers like Todd McFarlane and Erik Larsen got a chance to contribute. Whatever happened to those guys?

It's funny seeing how many pages were devoted to characters that probably haven't made an appearance since. It's also interesting to see minor characters get more space than major ones. The letters page reveals that comics fans have always had entitled shits in their ranks, as well as people who were rightly skeptical of the long term benefits of Crisis.

Who's Who Omnibus Volume 1 is an interesting time capsule to a tumultuous era in DC's past. Does nostalgia sell better than sex? Yes, yes it does. Five out of five stars.

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