Book Review: Marvel Dimensions

The story opens with a sweeping tour through the classic origins of Marvel’s most iconic characters. Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Wolverine, and many others appear in dramatic, fully painted spreads that echo their earliest stories. A narrator describes each moment with confidence, guiding the reader through these touchstones of Marvel’s history. But as the story moves forward, the tone begins to shift. The voice behind the narration is not who the readers expect and carries a motive that slowly pushes the narrative somewhere darker and far more unpredictable.

Once this change becomes clear, the book expands into something larger and more surprising. Storylines twist in on themselves, characters behave in unexpected ways, and events ripple across the Marvel Universe with growing tensions. Ross uses the structure of the book to create anticipation and pull the reader deeper into a mystery that keeps widening. Every new sequence reveals another layer, building toward a final act that reframes everything that came before it.

Marvel Dimensions by Alex Ross will be published September 1, 2026. Abrams ComicsArt provided an early galley for review.

My first exposure to Ross' beautiful painted work was in Marvels. So, this was a nice, fitting way to revisit that in an all-new book.

This book will definitely be best enjoyed in a printed format as so much of the art is done in double-page spreads. The first half presents profiles of so many characters, recapping their origins and histories through (what I calculate) to be around the mid-1970's or so. This includes reinterpretations of classic panels and covers by Ross. I had fun trying to guess who the narrators were of each vignette.

The second half shifts to a place called "the In-Verse", a What If kind of reality where everything you ever knew about the Marvel Universe is spun on its axis. It is a big blow-out of combatants and confrontations. It reminded me a bit of another Marvel project Ross did - Earth X. Because this is some place new with so little tied to the Marvel Universe I grew up on, this part of the story left me feeling a little distant and uncaring about the end results. For me, the magic of shared universes like Marvel or DC is the long relationship I have built to it thanks to its sprawling continuity.