Retrospective: The Gamer's Handbook of the Marvel Universe

I've no doubt mentioned on numerous occasions that, as a kid, I was never a big reader of comic books – at least not superhero comic books. Even so, many of my friends were avid comic readers and, more than that, it would have been quite difficult growing up in the 1970s and '80s to not know at least a little bit about comic book superheroes, particularly those published by Marvel Comics, merchandise for which was seemingly everywhere at the time. So, while I never a devoted fan of the genre, I was familiar with its characters and storylines.

Consequently, once I got into roleplaying games, I inevitably picked up Champions and had a good time with it, though it was never going to rise as high in my affections as, say, Dungeons & Dragons or Traveller. Champions was too ponderous and math-heavy for my tastes and seemed, to my way of thinking at any rate, to be a poor fit with the fast and frenetic action of superhero slugfests. Champions was good enough, because I didn't have any other ready alternatives, but I never connected to it the way I did with other RPGs.

TSR's Marvel Super Heroes, on the other hand, was pretty close to perfect for my purposes. That it was published by TSR certainly helped, I am sure, but, unlike many of TSR's other non-D&D offerings, Marvel Super Heroes was one that I played regularly, because it hit a sweet spot in its design and presentation. This was a game that was meant to be played and my friends and I had a blast with it. Sure, one can quibble about its lack of a robust character creation system, but that mostly didn't matter, because the whole point of this game was taking on the roles of one of Marvel's immense pantheon of heroes. 

That's what made the Gamer's Handbook of the Marvel Universe, released in four 256-page volumes over the course of 1988, so appealing. Modeled on the 15-volume Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe series from Marvel Comics, TSR's Handbook provided game statistics for nearly every Marvel character ever to appear in its comics, as well as information on their history and even roleplaying notes. If you were playing Marvel Super Heroes, this was pretty much a must-have product, especially if, like me, your favorite heroes and villains had never appeared in other MSH products or in the pages of Jeff Grubb's excellent "The Marvel-Phile" series.

Much like the Monstrous Compendium for AD&D Second Edition, the Handbook's pages were five-hole punched so that they could be organized into a binder. Unlike the MC, I don't believe TSR ever produced officially-branded binders for this purpose, but my memory is hazy. Interestingly, Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe, released between 1985 and 1987 in obvious imitation of Marvel's earlier effort, was released in a similar loose-leaf format. I have no idea whether TSR was, in turn, borrowing a page from DC or if it was simply something the company had, for whatever reason, hit upon as a useful format for releasing its products at the time.

I loved these books and regret that I no longer own my original copies of them. Unfortunately, they came out during my college years and a lot of things I acquired during that time went missing as I regularly moved between my parents' home and various dormitories. TSR released four more, slimmer follow-up volumes to the originals – annual updates that included new or overlooked characters, in addition to literal updates previously presented characters. I never saw any of these and so cannot speak to their specific contents, but I get the impression that, like the initial volumes, they were well-regarded and useful.

Thinking back on this series of products, I find myself remembering just how good Marvel Super Heroes was and how much I enjoyed playing it. Though I've played (or attempted to play) several other superhero RPGs in the years since, none has ever really grabbed me the way MSH did. That might just be because I'm not, as I said, a diehard superhero fan and thus have never really committed to the genre for roleplaying purposes. However, I prefer to think it's more likely that Marvel Super Heroes was just a solid, intuitive design that fit its subject matter in a way few others have. I miss it.