This is the Marvel Universe, where the ordinary and fantastic interact daily. This is the world of Marvels—one of the most important and bestselling stories in Marvel Comics history, which Stan Lee described in his introduction to the first collected edition as “innovative, brilliantly conceived, and skillfully executed." Over 30 years later, Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross’ groundbreaking comic book series Marvels gets a long-awaited novelization by Steve Darnall, author of Uncle Sam and Ross’s writing partner on the original proposal.
Marvels was a landmark series when it was first published—peeling back the curtain on Marvel’s history. It’s a story told from the perspective of an everyman character—news photographer Phil Sheldon—who chronicles a world full of costumed superhumans, providing an on-the-ground view of events in the Marvel Universe as they unfold. Darnall’s prose perfectly captures the magic of Busiek and Ross’ original story, offering insights and background previously untold in the comic book.
Marvels: The Novelization by Steve Darnall will be published May 19, 2026. Abrams ComicArts provided an early galley for review.
When the 1994 mini-series came out, I was all-in thanks to the buzz. So, having a chance to visit the story again via a prose novel was something I was eager to check out.
Like the original mini-series, this novel is broken up into four chapters , each covering approximately the same events as those issues and taking their titles from those comics. The story follows the career of Sheldon as it becomes intertwined with the appearance of super-beings in New York City. Like the mini, we get a feeling for what it is like for the people of the Marvel world as they are impacted by the battles of the heroes and their oppositions.
As a seasoned comic reader, it was a fun exercise to remember the various comics from the Golden, Silver and Bronze ages as references are made to them throughout the novel. Whether any layman readers not familiar with these will derive the same pleasure from the descriptions is questionable.
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